Hands On: LG GM750

One of the devices on show at Microsoft's Open House was the LG GM750, which is going to get some special attention here because of what LG has done to Windows Mobile 6.5: it's unrecognizable.

To refresh, the LG GM750 is due on Vodafone in a short time and has the following specs:

BT 2.1
WiFi
3-inch 240x400 display
1000 mAh battery
5 MP camera
GSM (850, 900, 1800, 1900, 2100)
Optical joystick

We all know HTC likes to re-skin the OS with its TouchFlo/Sense UI systems, but LG, in one of its first Windows Mobile devices, has gone way, way beyond what even HTC has done so far. From playing with the phone for some time, it seems that LG has re-skinned roughly 95 percent of the OS — in fact the only thing that I recognized as being Windows Mobile was the Start bar, Mobile Internet Explorer and Start menu, everything else felt like a different OS altogether. E-mail, SMS, settings, menus, contacts, dial pad all felt like they were part of some proprietary operating system, like a "feature phone" on steroids.

A very strange experience, but not bad either. The soft keyboard seemed okay and the 5-megapixel camera was actually quite fast with very good results. Plus the vibrate/tactile feedback just plain works well here.

I wont comment if it is necessarily better than TouchFLO (we'll leave that to you), but considering the devices is running on the MSM-7200a chipset, it actually handled quite well — it was fast, responded well to touch and their layout grew on me after awhile. What was really weird though is how there is no Windows key on the device. In fact, the only keys are those Home/End keys, with the traditional softkeys as touch-only.

We have to give credit though: LG has brought its game face to the table, doing some quite impressive re-workings of the OS. And considering they're the new guy in town, this is quite remarkable.

Many more pics after the break!