LG Viewty Smart is here. The 8 megapixel cameraphone that’s more camera than it is phone is finally going on sale in the UK this month. What’s so special about the LG Viewty Smart? We’ve taken it for a spin to find out, and snapped a ton of photos on the way. Read on, and fill your peepers!
Before we get on to what the LG Viewty Smart is, let’s get what it isn’t out of the way. The Viewty Smart, despite its name, is not a smartphone. There’s no app store, and no the operating system inside is LG’s S-Class. Swanky, yes, smart? No.
But then, being an all-singing smartphone isn’t what the LG Viewty Smart is all about, it’s concerned almost exclusively with taking fantastic pictures. We tried it inside and out, in darkly lit backrooms and sunny London streets. It performed well in each location, and is more than a minor threat to the compact camera in your pocket.
Inside there’s an 8 megapixel camera, and some seriously clever software. Flick the Viewty Smart into Intelligent Shot mode, and it’ll analyse the scene infront of it, balancing variables (and showing its working with an on-screen meter) to give the best results.
There’s multi-face detection too, letting the LG Viewty Smart lock on to more than one of your mates at a time, and making sure they’re all in pin-sharp focus. There’s also smile shot, and blink shot, to make sure portraits are nauseatingly gleeful, and free from half-closed eyelids.
Speaking of portraits, LG has built the Beauty Shot technology from the LG Renoir into the Viewty Smart, letting you iron out wrinkles and block out blemishes automatically. But that’s not all. The camera software inside the LG Viewty Smart also recognises scenes, adjusting for harsh sunlight or soft mood lighting, and even letting you pull off arty shots by manually selecting the focal point using the touchscreen.
Overall, it’s the most fully-featured mobile phone camera we’ve ever seen. But don’t just take our word for it, gawp at our hands on photos of the LG Viewty Smart, and you’ll see the phone’s just as tasty as the software inside too.
Out June | £TBC | LG
