By Tony Lim

THEY say that first impressions are important. With the KF700, it seems that LG certainly takes first impressions seriously.

The phone is well-built, feels just right in the hand and slides open and shut smoothly. The front of the phone consists entirely of the display, with no other buttons.

Slide it open to reveal the keypad. Notice there's no directional pad. That's because the KF700 is also a touchscreen model. Its touchscreen display provides haptic feedback - a gentle vibration that lets you know that the phone has registered the particular button you've just pressed.

Or, you can drag your finger on the screen to scroll through pictures in the picture gallery and to move around a Web page, a la the Apple iPhone.

The display has a bright and sharp 240x480 pixel resolution, making it long and narrow. This leads me to the only gripe I have with the display: When the phone is open, you have to stretch your thumb to reach the top of the display. Those with small hands might want to try it on for size first.

Another input method that the KF700 has is the short cut dial. This is a wheel located at the back of the phone.

The dial has a number of uses. As its name suggests, it allows you to quickly select six frequently used phone functions from anywhere you are in the menu. Simply press a button below the dial to call up a revolving list of short cuts.

It also functions as a regular scroll wheel for scrolling through lists and as a page zoom dial when the Web browser is active.

I like the KF700's Web browser support for Google's services - Search, Mail, Maps, Blogger and YouTube.

Together with its 3.5G support for high-speed data transfer, viewing e-mail messages and getting to Google maps and viewing YouTube videos are a cinch.

The KF700 also has strong multimedia features. It is a great music player, pumping out great sound from both the external speaker and the supplied headset. Another thing to cheer about - while the phone's connector for the headset is proprietary, LG has provided an adaptor for regular 3.5mm headphones, so you can still use your favourite headset if you want.

Its 3-megapixel autofocus camera takes good pictures. Outdoor shots are better than indoor shots - some indoor images show a bluish tint.

I found the phone's flash to be quite strong. The touchscreen display really makes it easy to adjust the camera settings as you can just tap the setting icons directly on the screen without going through numerous levels of the menu.

FINAL SAY

A nifty phone with a good combination of numeric keypad and touchscreen input. If only it had Wi-Fi - that would have made it stand out.