Summing it all up

The other applications are a rather standard affair with a calendar, calculator, a converter application and so forth. Everything is there, but there is very little wow factor when it comes to the pre-installed applications. However, the Shine has one cool feature and that is that it can use Flash based wallpapers and it comes with a range or pre-installed ones. It looks cool to have an animated wallpaper on your phone. There is also a wide range of pre-installed ring tones and noises that you can set up to ding and pling when you open or close the slider or press a button or move around in the menus. It can get rather annoying if you are not careful but they can always be disabled.

One flaw that the Shine suffers from is how easily it picks up smears and smudges and it seems there is a reason why LG supplies a buffing cloth with the Shine. Just have a look at the picture below and you will know what we mean. It does wipe off quite easily, but it is going to look quite messy after a day's use.

Overall the LG KE970 Shine is a decent handset, but considering its rather high asking price, we expected more.

It is definitely a phone for the fashion conscious or those that wants style over function, but this does not mean it is useless. It takes a while to get used to the scroll key and there are some minor oversights, but it is one of the more feature rich fashion phones on the market.

- Pros

Metal casing

Bluetooth

Memory card slot

Clear user interface

Slim

- Cons

Not quite finished to perfection

Smudges and smears way too easily

The scroll key is unresponsive

They keypad won't appeal to everyone

Rating - 8 out of 10