LG GD900 Crystal review

The organisational functions on the LG GD900 are pretty standard, and will likely be more for the odd reminder than organising a busy business schedule. (Then again, we'd have to recommend a smartphone like the Palm Pre or HTC Touch Diamond 2 for such a task, as synchronisation with online calendars is crucial).

You've got the calendar, which is nicely laid out and lets you not only select a day but also swipe across by month. There's the obvious option to double tap a day and see what's happening, or use the drop down menu to add an appointment.

It's not exactly intuitive, you can't seem to update it via the web or Exchange, and apart from being able to siphon it all into a single day view and being able to see how busy you are any given month, it's not a life changing application.

The alarm is a lot simpler to use, and more fun too. To set the time you have to spin a big clock's hands round to the desired time, which is lots of fun (although accuracy to the correct minute can be a problem).

You also have a simple way of hitting the alarm icon to turn it on and off, and you can set the exact days it will bleep annoyingly at you as well.

Battery life

Given the sheer amount of touch-sensitivity in board it's unsurprising that moderate usage of the LG GD900 will munch the battery like a starved cow dropped in Cumbria will gorge on grass.

The phone we had bizarrely got confused over how much battery was left when the first of the three bars dropped, with it constantly showing one, then two, then back to one again before quickly deciding it was out of juice.

This is one of those annoying phones that nags when you have low battery, not letting you use the high drain functions like internet when you've heard the first bleep.

The 1000mAh battery was a little lightweight we thought, and would have expected a larger version, especially for the price. If you use this as a music player or a regular internet device, you can easily expect to charge it every night.