LG Louvre GC990 deals & review

Overview

After much rumour and speculation, LG have entered the rapidly growing market of 12 megapixel cameras with the GC990 (codenamed Louvre). First showcased at a Korea Products Exhibition held in Warsaw, this thing has been attracting more attention than LG could have hoped for.

And the main reason, of course, is that camera. The first to offer both 12MP still image and HD video recording capabilities, this is quite simply one of the best cameraphones we´ve ever seen. Add to that all your expected smartphone functions and features and you´ve got one pretty hot number.

Specs

• 3.2 inch touchscreen display w/ 16 million colours
• S-Class Touch UI
• Accelerometer
• Wi-Fi with DLNA
• Bluetooth
• aGPS
• TV-out
• 12.1MP camera
• Schneider Kreuznach lens
• Autofocus
• Tap-to-focus
• ISO up to 3200
• Xenon flash
• Intelli-zoom and Touch Focus
• HD (1280 x 720 pixels) video recording at 30fps
• XviD and DivX playback

Details

Even just to look at the GC990 you can tell it´s a cracking cameraphone. In fact, looking at the lens side, you´d be forgiven for thinking this was a stand-alone camera. And the main reason for this, and one of the major reasons for believing that this things going to take better pictures than just about anything else out there, is the Schneider-Kreuznach lens. These German optics masters have been making lenses for just short of a century so, even though it´s not quite going to be able to match the fine detail of a standalone camera, this is about as good as you´re currently going to get on a mobile phone.

The camera also boasts something that LG are calling ´zero shutter lag,´ which, while it can´t be wholly true, does mean that the time between you pressing the camera shutter button and the image being recorded will be minimal, and definitely far less than all those annoying handsets that take so long to kick into action the scene is ruined before the snap is snapped! There´s also an ISO setting of 3200 available for low-light shots, though don´t expect the picture sharpness to be all that great here.

Also raising the bar for cameraphones is the ability to record video in HD, at an impressive 30 frames per second (impressive, that is, when you consider that pre-digital TV was broadcast at just 24fps). So if you´re a camera nut but don´t like lugging two mobile devices around, or are just constantly taking pictures of your nights and day outs and what the best possible images, you should give the GC990 serious consideration

On top of the camera, the Louvre also sports Wi-Fi with DLNA for super quick uploading of those pictures to your social networking sites, a cool TV-out feature to show off snaps and videos on the big screen, GPS and a 3.2" 16M colour touchscreen display.

The phone comes running the impressive S-Class Touch UI (the 3D, cube-based system) and has an accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate.

Conclusion

Like taking pictures? Can´t be bothered to carry a camera as well as a phone around? Then look no further. Snap (sorry!) up a deal for this thing as soon as you can...