Param Tech Reviews

For all its good looks and lickable icons, the BL40 hardly feels like a “Chocolate” phone — abandoning the featurephone functionality and slider form factors that are usually associated with the moniker. Well, the newly surfaced BL20 (previously spotted as the BL42) is here to solve all that. The slider handset has capacitive touch controls below the screen, but the screen itself is not a touchscreen. The functionality has also been trimmed back from the BL40’s app extravaganza, but the interface looks and actual hardware seem very similar. We had a little trouble getting around in the German interface, but if you can handle our bumblings you can check out a video of the phone after the break. Gallery: LG BL20 hands-onContinue reading LG BL20 hands-on: putting the ’slider’ back in ‘Chocolate’Keywords:   CellphonesLG BL20 hands-on: putting the ’slider’ back in ‘Chocolate’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

The more we see of LG’s latest Black Label handset — the mysterious BL40 — the more we want to touch it, play with it, talk on it, and put it (or, at least try to put it) in our pockets. Shots of the bizarre-yet-beautiful phone have appeared over on a German forum where we’re told the interface is S-Class-based, the screen is 800 x 345, and the camera is 5 megapixels strong with Schneider Kreuznach optics — all specs that fall in line with what we’ve heard so far — and there’s also apparently WiFi, an FM transmitter, and about 335MB of free onboard storage (easily rectified with a huge microSD card, of course). What has us even more intrigued, though, is a single picture in the bunch that shows the BL40 next to a smaller, stouter device with virtually identical industrial design. We have no idea what it is, but it looks like LG might be poised to roll out a whole series of phones in this new Black Label line — and which ones are Chocolate-branded is anyone’s guess at this point. See what we mean after the break or hit up the link for all the pics.[Thanks, Anthony]Continue reading LG’s BL40 Black Label phone captured in the wild — alongside a kid siblingKeywords:   CellphonesLG’s BL40 Black Label phone captured in the wild — alongside a kid sibling originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Despite letting us play with the thing at CES and then giving us all the details of what’s going on inside its upcoming white and green netbook, LG still wouldn’t commit to just when its X120 would be hitting retail. Not one for protracted pre-order periods, apparently, the company has now confirmed the laptop will be shipping to Japanese users by the end of this very month, and to Europe and 20 other nations within the next one. We’re not entirely sure that the US is going to be one of those 20, but since LG has just over a week left before March becomes April, it had better get shipping already.Keywords:   LaptopsLG’s X120 netbook granted a release date originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Keywords:   Home EntertainmentDetails surrounding Netflix’s upcoming set-top box partnership with LG are still scarce, but that hasn’t stopped it from announcing similar plans with four other unnamed hardware manufacturers that it expects will sell “millions” of devices per year. Feel free to guess, but the only details available are that the fourth company is a small one likely to launch sooner than Q4, while the other three (including LG) will turn on Netflix functionality in some of their devices in the fourth quarter. It’s unlikely to wash away the bad taste of an HD price hike, but we like imagining that all the hardware needed to connect Netflix’s all-you-can-eat streaming movie service to our HDTV is already in the living room (Xbox 360 & PS3, we’re looking at you).Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments