LG7050 Mobile Phone

09:59.10 - Saturday 21st February 2004   (Link to This Entry)

I finally decided to go for a new mobile, and not wanting to part with any cash whatsoever if I can possibly help it, I opted for a free LG 7050 on the grounds that it was brand new, had a 640x480 camera phone and looked stunning. Granted, it doesn't have Bluetooth, but I can get a bluetooth-for-non-bluetooth-phones adapter from MobileFun.

I spent about an hour reading up and fiddling with various options, and I gotta say it looks the biz. It syncs with Outlook, which is important to me, and has an IR thingy for connecting to my laptop, but it also comes with a data cable (9-pin Serial, not USB) for when I need to l33t h4xx0r it. The slide-down cover reminds me of a nokia I had a long long time ago, but this wee silver beastie is much better looking.

So, first impressions: It's pretty good, and I don't even mind the chunky external antenna. It's seriously small but feels solid compared to my sister's titchy Nokia, and it's by far the best-looking phone on the block so far. My only gripe is the lack of Bluetooth - doesn't everything have it these days? The dual-band-only support won't really affect me as I can take my 6310i if I ever need to do to the US, for example. Spain is about my limit :)

UT2004 Demo

10:39.12 - Saturday 21st February 2004   (Link to This Entry)

I finally got round to installing that UT2004 demo on my laptop last night and hosted a game. BB joined and we had much run romping around in vehicles, playing in various aircraft and generally causing mayhem. Aside from some initial confusion on my part ("what team are you on again?") it was actually pretty good.

LG7050 Problems

12:55.49 - Saturday 21st February 2004   (Link to This Entry)

Well that'll teach me. After struggling to get the phone working with the Infra-Red port on my laptop, which means using a 3rd-party driver for Windows 2000 which in turn gobbles up 100% CPU time and still doesn't work, I have decided to return this phone from whence it came.

LG's definition of 'Synchronising with MS Outlook' seems to differ radically from mine. Obviously it means "load up this program yourself and copy the files over, but read the phone first or it won't work. Oh and you'll have to use the data cable because the Win2k IR driver is shite.". Pardon me for being picky, but to sync my Nokia I just put it down next to the laptop - job done.

So this is going back, and I'm going to hunt around for another Nokia unless there's a huge price drop on the XDA-2 and I get to play with one first. Can't see that happening but you never know.