After having recently featured to everyone our unboxing gallery and gallery comparing the LG Viewty Smart to the LG Arena. We’ve now been able to test it out thoroughly for a few weeks. In this first part of our review, we’ll comment on what we thought of the new generation Viewty’s completely revamped, elegant design.

Instead of comparing directly to the recently launched, also S-Class UI equipped LG Arena. Its probably more fair to see what has been done to improve the original Viewty (KU990), which was one of the first full touchscreen cameraphones (5-MP) ever to be released by any phonemaker.

The new GC900 worthy of baring the name Viewty has certainly been given a complete makeover over its predeccesor. Just looking at the Viewty Smart’s dimensions, you will easily notice that its now equipped with a longer, wider body (though also a three inch screen), its also thinner by at least 2.4mm.

Compared to the very squared and box-like Viewty, the new Viewty Smart now looks elegant. If you were to use it on public transport, you do get a sense of feeling, well… Smart! Available in either silver or black (our’s pictured above), we thought not only did LG think this through so that it would suit both genders but also appeal to a wide range of age group. Frankly speaking, a cameraphone with an eight megapixel camera equipped with Schneider-Kreuznach optics, auto/manual focus and LED flash and a huge package of functionalities wasn’t going to be easy to resist.

As you will have seen in our pictures, the front of the LG Viewty Smart GC900 is almost entirely made of its 3″ 16M TFT touchscreen, it doesn’t use AMOLED like some similar in its class but it didn’t pose as a problem at all. At the bottom of the 3″ TFT screen is a back/home key, it isn’t touchscreen based like the Arena and was therefore solid, easier to reach and most welcomed. This centre home key also functioned as the call or disconnect/quit application key, this wasn’t in any way a problem as it worked much like the iPhone’s. Near the top right hand corner of the screen, you would find the Viewty Smart’s secondary camera, conveniently located for those of you who often use 3G for live face to face chats.

If we had a closer look around the Viewty Smart (also our video below), you will notice at the top is the on/off key which also functions as the screen lock.

On the left are volume control keys as well as its camera’s focus/shoot button. Interestingly at the top of these isn’t a 3.5mm audio jack and instead LG’s in-box audio kit acts as an adapter which supports 3.5mm headphones.

On the right hand side of the Viewty Smart are two components, firstly a microSD slot (supporting up to 32GB) which has been much more usefully moved to the side as opposed to being hidden in the back in the Arena. The second component is the all important S-Class “cube” key, as you will imagine, on pressing this key the Viewty Smart will present to you LG’s S-Class UI cube allowing you to easily and quickly navigate through to the widgets you want.

Overall design-wise, despite the GC900′s lack of metallic body kit compared to the also S-Class equipped Arena, we didn’t think this was a bad thing. The LG Viewty Smart GC900 has been given an extremely welcoming, elegant design which puts it above the likes of many similar phones in its class.

As you will see in the next part of our review, the Viewty Smart’s onboard specs and functionalities easily makes it one of the best “iPhone killers” currently available on the market.

Check out the below first hands on video we took recently…

Look out for part 2 of our LG Viewty Smart GC900 review which will be available shortly, meanwhile, feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions!