LG KE970-Shine Review - Conclusion

Conclusion

Sometimes it's fun to go for style over substance.  LG's KE970 Shine cell phone comes very close to flawlessly bridging the style/substance divide; close enough for most users who fall in love with its dashing good looks, but not close enough for some.  Shine's gorgeous brushed metal housing and mirror finish display are backed by a good feature set, 2 mp camera. and generally well designed user interface and applications.  The inclusion of email support, an MS Office-compatible document viewer, and HTML browser certainly add to the handset's appeal to the chic executive set. 

My main qualms with Shine have to do with its scrollwheel-based navigation system.  While the wheel comes off as clever and stylish upon first glance, in practice it's much less user friendly or accurate than a boring old D-Pad or joystick.  The scrollwheel isn't unusable, but its tendency to jump up or down when I pressed it (to select an item) made for many an annoying misstep.  I also experienced a little bit of creak on this otherwise solid handset when pressing certain buttons with the slider open. 

 If you can live with these imperfections, or just don't care, Shine is perhaps the ultimate choice in fashion-conscious handsets.  Verizon recently brought a variant to the brushed-metal design to their US lineup, but it pales in comparison to the original's beauty.  The KE970 is absolutely gorgeous, and it places and receives calls and then some.  That might be all you'll ever want in a cell phone. 

Special thanks once again to Corey at MobilePlanet www.mobileplanet.com for providing the loaner handset for this review.

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