As silky smooth as chocolate

[Luke Skywalker]

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="789"><tbody><tr> <td colspan="3" height="26"></td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="5"></td> <td colspan="2" valign="top" width="784"> As silky smooth as chocolate
By Hedirman Supian, TODAY | Posted: 04 January 2010 0856 hrs
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LG BL40 Chocolate </td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td class="update"></td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>
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SINGAPORE : LG's aptley-named BL40 Chocolate phone sure looks yummy. And what sets it apart from other phones is its exceptionally lanky form factor.

The screen is more than five inches long, thanks to an unusual 21:9 screen aspect ratio. The phone looks chic and smart, and it manages to fit in my pair of denims despite its elongated appearance.

The length of the phone allows LG to split onscreen elements when the phone is used horizontally. This means you can see more information onscreen. For example, the phone juxtaposes your list of contacts against their corresponding messages. Though this allowed more room when we viewed websites, we often had to zoom in on the text because it was way too small.

You get a choice of WiFi or HSDPA for hooking up the phone to the Internet. Despite the fast connection, it was painfully slow when it came to rendering websites and using multi-touch gestures to navigate your way around its menus.

In landscape mode, the onscreen Qwerty keyboard takes up almost the entire screen, leaving you with one line of text to work with - not the most practical.

The Chocolate can run several applications at once, but don't expect it be zippy. I was pleasantly surprised that it could detect settings for my Gmail account. Even setting up my work's email account over Microsoft Exchange was easy.

The Chocolate boasts a five-megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach lens but the pictures and videos captured turned out rather grainy.

We liked the phone's image and video gallery. It offers a snazzy browser akin to Apple's Cover Flow that juxtaposes thumbnails of movies and photos on a virtual shelf that you can easily thumb through (you can also do this to scroll through the browser history). The phone seemed responsive enough when we were browsing its media so we wondered why it lagged in other areas.

If you're into super-sleek aesthetics, and speed is overrated in your books, give the LG Chocolate (S$988) a shot.

- TPDAY/il

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