One week ago I received a new LG phone, the Cookie KP500 through DHL from UK, ya as most of you must be thinking why? because it’s not available in Pakistan so far I try to contact LG distributors in Lahore and Karachi and send some emails to LG Pakistan but they never knows when this phone gonna be lunched in Pakistan so being a iPhone lover this was my chance to buy something similar to iPhone. (as don’t wanna spent about 30K PKR for used one and 54K for 3G from Hafiz Center, Lahore)

Today I was quite to read in news that LG reported successful sales results for LG KP500, which is one of the most affordable devices with touch screen. During the first five weeks of sales about 150 thousand phones are sold. According to recent notes the company sold every day 6-7 thousand devices that potentially puts LG KP500 in a league with such phones as LG Chocolate and LG Viewty;

Aimed at giving the masses an affordable touchscreen phone, the KP500 is nevertheless an attractive handset that doesn’t feel at all cheap. The first thing that strikes you about the Cookie (after you’ve stopped laughing at the name) is how similar it looks to the LG Renoir — but its features are a different story.

The KP500’s 3-megapixel camera offers a much faster experience. It takes acceptable video and still shots in daylight for MMS and facebook photos, but, with no LED photo light or flash, don’t expect great shots at night. Unlike the Viewty, the KP500 can’t shoot slow-motion videos, but that’s about it when it comes to features — there’s no 3G or Wi-Fi, for example, but what you do get is a cute touchscreen interface that’s similar to and, in some respects, even better than the Renoir’s.

Bizarrely, one of the KP500’s best features is its photo viewer, which uses a motion sensor to make sure pictures are always the right way up, and lets you flick through them by simply brushing your finger across the screen. There’s no pinch-to-zoom functionality, but you can edit pics, adding text and a few effects.

A series of widgets are on offer, such as an on-screen clock or memo pad, which you can drag on to the KP500’s homepage. Brush the screen to the side and you can access shortcuts to contacts and other apps, similar to HTC’s TouchFLo interface on the Touch, and something the Renoir doesn’t have.

The KP500 can handle POP3 email accounts, such as Gmail, but don’t expect to use it with a Microsoft Exchange work account. That said, the KP500 will let you view Microsoft Office documents and PDFs, but you can’t edit them. Video support is also limited and, unlike the Viewty or Renoir, the KP500 doesn’t support DivX or Xvid; its Web browser is not the best but just OK for me I think it can be improved a lot specially when you have 3 inch screen to play on.

Battery life is over a day, I think due to large screen display and use quite frequently. One of the most disappointing with Cookie is PC Suite software which is quite bad I must say even till today unable to use mobile as GPRS modem as I use to do with Nokia N95 which was quite good with PC Suite also it comes with one default theme you just can change wallpaper and there’s no online theme, gadgets application available so far but I have installed Gmail mobile app + some others some of them works fine for me.

LG lunch KP500 in the UK at the end of December 2008 and it cost around £97 + VAT + Shipping for Pakistan — a very competitive price when you consider how prohibitively expensive most touchscreen phones are.

The bottom line is that the KP500 is certainly no iPhone, but if a touchscreen is top of your feature list, it offers a relatively competent experience. There’s an on-screen Qwerty keypad, handwriting recognition and an automatically rotating screen.

LG KP500 Cookie Promo