LG
KM900 Arena

The KM900 Arena was the flagship device announcement for LG at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2009. The Arena was widely regarded as an attempt by the South Korean phone maker to compete with Apple's iPhone. It used LG's 3D S-Class user interface which echoed elements of the iPhone's interface by offering pinch zoom and an "elastic" list effect. It also featured an array of other visual elements such as a "rotating cube" with four “home screens” that could be personalised with different features. It also had a film-reel-style scrolling interface for contacts and images. The accelerometer in the device also made it possible to view photos and videos in portrait and landscape mode depending on the orientation of the phone. These user interface design elements were impressive for the time, but they were arguably detrimental to the phone’s usability. The Arena was well specified, with a metal casing housing a three-inch display with tempered glass, a five-megapixel Schneider Kreuznach camera with an LED flash, EDGE and HSDPA support, Wi-Fi, GPS and multimedia features such as video capture and TV-out at "DVD resolution". Another clever feature on the phone was the inclusion of an FM transmitter that made it possible to share music wirelessly in a car or to a home hi-fi system. The phone was also the first globally released to support Dolby Mobile Surround Sound. One challenge LG faced was its use of a proprietary operating system at a time when network operators had expressed a preference for open software platforms such as Windows Mobile, Android, Symbian and LiMo.