With the wide variety of cell phones available on the market today, choosing a cell phone can be more time consuming than ever.  In fact, it's almost like picking out clothes.  You want to choose something that was designed well and basically fits and suits your needs.  It is interesting to take a look at how different companies design their cell phones and the tradeoffs that go along with it.  For instance, a cell phone's average display may be made up for with an abundant set of features, or vice-versa. 

The LG L1400 is a compact, stylish phone that shows LG as a strong player in the cell phone market.  As a budget phone, this phone provides all the refined features that a person could want in a cell phone.  Despite the mediocre battery performance, many users will appreciate the bright OLED screen that this phone has to offer; LCD screens on phones may never look the same again once you've seen this. 
 

The LG L1400 sports a clamshell design whose slight curvature gives the phone a modern, yet professional look and feel.  What immediately separates this phone from entry-level phones is the OLED screen located on the outside of the phone.  The screen on the front is nearly perfect, it is adequately large and displays in full color.  This screen is 96 x 96 pixels and displays up to 65,000 colors.  If the lid is quickly opened and closed, the display will show on the screen.  It pretty much shows a miniaturized version of the phone's larger screen inside.  At the default setting, the front screen will show for 10 seconds showing a Cingular 'screensaver', then will go blank.  I looked into the settings of the phone to see if this was customizable, but unfortunately you cannot change it at all. 

Since the screen stays blank when the phone is not in use, it is hard to appreciate it.  It is possible to leave the front screen on always, but it will diminish the battery life of the phone significantly.  This screen should at least show the time and date in a dim fashion rather than nothing at all. 

Above the front screen, there is the lens for the built in camera function.  Unfortunately, the camera does not have a built-in flash. 
 

The true beauty of the phone is when opening the lid of the phone.  The main OLED screen is revealed.  The OLED screen is amazingly colorful and bright.  The difference will be immediately seen if you were to compare the screen of another phone side-by-side.    The screen is a 128 x 160 pixel screen with up to 65 thousand colors.
 

The keys on the phone are quite large, which makes them easy to press.  A direction pad is located toward the top of the key pad with common functions surrounding it. This is used to navigate the menus of the phone.  A button is in the center of the directional pad which is typically used to 'confirm' your selection.  When the keys are lit, I did notice that they were unevenly lit.  They were brighter in the center than the surrounding keys toward the edge of the phone.
 

The left side of the phone has the up and down buttons.  When the phone is closed, the only thing the buttons do is switch between showing the date or the time on the small screen.  When the phone lid is open, those buttons are used to control the volume level of the ringtone.  The volume reaches a maximum level of 5 and goes all the way down to 1.  You can also make the phone go into vibrate mode or make it completely silent.
 

The right side of the phone has an infrared port and a snapshot button.  The snapshot button is used to take pictures with the built in camera when you are in 'Snapshot' mode.  The infrared port is used to transfer data between a device such as a computer and the phone.
 

Although I have been mainly used to the interface and menus of Motorola phones, the interface of the L1400 was fairly intuitive.  The main menu is neatly organized into a 3 x 3 grid which clearly labels the purpose of each icon.  Once you select something from the menu, the information is mainly presented in the form of a list.

The built-in camera function goes to a maximum resolution of 640 x 480.  It only has the very basic feature of being able to lighten or darken the brightness of the picture.  The picture quality is poor though.  Don't expect to take too many pictures with it.  I think that the main use of the camera feature will be taking photo ID's for your contact list or possibly replacing the default background picture on the phone.

The phone advertises 3.3 hours of talk time and up to 220 hours of standby time.  My experience with the phone was less than 3 hours of talk time.  This is quite low for a mobile phone, but is somewhat expected due to its small form factor.

The advanced features of the phone include mobile instant messaging using AOL Instant Messenger, Internet Express, text messaging, multimedia messaging service (MMS), voice key tones, polyphonic tones, and Java games and applications.  The advanced features of the phone involve extra charges or a monthly subscription depending on your service plan and use.  When text messaging, you can send it to either an email address or a phone number.  The T9 text input function makes it easier to type longer messages on your phone.  It predicts what you are trying to type and fills in the word if appropriate.  The infrared feature does not work with all devices.  I tried using my Pocket PC to send files or contacts to the phone, but the phone would not accept them.  A separate computer software or a data transfer cable may be needed if you wish to transfer files with the phone. 

The phone came preloaded with a single game called 'Spaceball' and quite a few polyphonic ring tones.  The game is nothing too exciting, but mainly demonstrates that the game is powered with the Java platform. I was impressed with the sound of the polyphonic ringtones though.  The speaker is clear and the ringtones sound good.  Keep in mind that the volume level of the ringtones are much quieter with the phone lid closed, then listening to them with the lid closed.

Lastly, the phone includes some built in tools such as a calendar, scheduler, notepad, calculator, organizer, alarm clock, and voice recorder.  All of these tools are very basic and do come in handy in certain situations, but don't expect too many features out of them.  The voice recorder is more of a personal recorder since it can't really capture sound more than two feet and you can only record 30 seconds worth.

The LG L1400 is a very likeable phone.  The phone is slim and has an excellent screen.  This phone has most of the features that you would expect in more expensive phones, but they are basic at most.  This phone doesn't really have any features which are outstanding with the exception of the screens and its design.  In general, this phone can be customized to some degree in terms of ring tones, games, and settings.  The only customization this phone lacks is being able to control what is displayed on the phone's outer screen.  You can probably find this phone easily less than $100 when bundled with service plan making this a good choice at that price level.

Reviewed by ronald@digitalreviews.net