Smartphone Review: LG GS500 Cookie Plus

Posted by Geronimo Boosh on February 15, 2010 · Leave a Comment

You never do get a breather with the “Life is Good” folks. They are constantly putting out new phones. The LG GS500 Cookie Plus is another touchscreen phone that follows in the footsteps of their other famous “Cookie” line. Take a look to see what was added to this new version.

People love their touchscreens. The LG GS500 maintains the status quo with a few improvements over their last Cookie model. This small phone comes with a 3.0 inch ( 7.62 centimeters ) resistive touch display that shows 256,000 colors. The screen has a TFT LCD display with a 240 by 400 resolution. TFT stands for “thin film transistor” and is one step more advanced than just plain LCD technology. The screen transforms for both landscape and portrait modes of viewing with the included accelerometer.

This Cookie model is built around sociality. It comes with Facebook connectivity on the home screen. This is described as a “simple” process by LG and also includes Twitter, Flickr, and other social sites thrown in for good measure. The proprietary “LiveSquare™” format from LG allows you to customize the experience even further. It remembers your inputs and keeps track of your most frequent contacts. The icons are similar to cartoons and are cute to look at and use. The phone is 4.2 inches tall by 2.1 inches wide by .47 inches thick. Since this may not be in the United States, the millimeter measurements are 107.1 tall by 52.5 wide by 11.9 thick.

The LG GS500 Cookie Plus is an enjoyable phone. The neat graphics make it likable and usable, but what about the inside workings ? This phone is equipped with quad band GSM networks in 2G. For 3G networks you have HSDPA in dual band mode. For data modes, you have EDGE and GPRS but no Wi-Fi. A new HSPDA mode is brought to this phone. The old Cookie did not have it. You are given a bluetooth connection as well as a microUSB port and an external memory slot. You can add up to 16 gigabytes of memory to this phone with a MicroSD card.

The camera is no slouch and weighs in at 3.2 megapixels. It also takes video shots. If you want to surf the internet you have a browser included with the Cookie. Games are available, since the phone has Java installed. You can also download games if you like with the GS500. If you are a music lover the phone has a FM radio installed, but does not seem to have a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack for private listening.

This phone comes in colors ! You get your choice of purple, silver or black. This phone is headed for Europe first. It will arrive in France and Italy and then later to forty three other countries, maybe even the United States. It sold ten million units in its former version, it may do as well this time also. If you do not like this particular version there will be many more “batches of Cookie” versions to follow this model, according to LG.