Introduction

Motorola has long been king of the clamshells. However, LG has become a force within the market. Its VX series has become a staple in Verizon's lineup with each release outperforming the previous.

The most current release is the LG VX6100, a formidable device sure to draw attention from fans of it's predecessor, the VX6000.

And as the successor, the VX6100 takes technology one step further by adding several hot new upgrades, including tri-mode coverage, a sliding lens cover, embedded flash, and an external LCD with self-portrait capability, making this Verizon's next flagship model. And if the past is any indication of future performance, the VX6100 will be just as popular.

Design

The design of the VX6100 contains similar sleek curves the VX6000 was noted for, and at 90 x 48 x 24 mm is the exactly the same size.

With the VX6100 closed, the front panel features an grayscale external display for quick access to caller ID, time, network status, battery charge, and other useful information. Directly above lies the lens for the built-in CMOS VGA digital camera, able to capture photos at up to 640 x 480 px. A handy feature is the addition of a cover to protect the camera lens. By sliding it down, users can easily activate the camera mode for quick shots.

New to the VX6100 not found on the VX6000 is a flash located next to the lens. Many phones nowadays include digital cameras, but not flashes. For impromptu night shots, these camera phones are unable to low-light shots due to underexposure. By providing an attached flash, the VX6100 becomes is able to provide day and night coverage for those unexpected moments.

When flipped open, an internal 128 x 160 px 262K TFT screen becomes visible, capable of displaying up to 7 lines of text. Additionally, a blue backlit numeric keypad and 5-way directional keys are used to navigate through the VX6100's menu structure.

The sides of the VX6100 contain several functions as well. The left side contains a headset jack, while side keys are used to adjust the ringer volume in standby mode and earpiece volume during calls. A voice command key is also conveniently placed allowing users quick access to voice commands. The right side contains the side camera key for quick access to camera functions.

Camera

With camera phones being so popular these days, it should be no surprise that the VX6100 features one as well. To activate the camera, the lens cover must be slide down, activating the LCD screen to function as the camera viewfinder.

The built-in 330K pixel CMOS camera is able to capture photos at sizes of either Small - QQVGA (160 x 120 px), Medium - QVGA (320 x 240 px), or Large - VGA (640 x 480 px) resolutions, while providing 24-bit color depth at 16 million colors.

The left and right navigation keys function as the controls for the 4X digital zoom. It should be noted that digital zoom is not "true" zoom such as optical zoom. A digitally zoomed image will not actually zoom in with the lens, but rather crop the image to make it larger. So picture quality decreases. Due to the compact size of phones, the moving parts required for optical zoom are not yet available.

Additionally, a robust set of camera tools allow users more control and error correction. Features integrated include Self-Timer (5 or 10 seconds), Brightness Adjustment, White Balance (Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Darkness), Shutter Sound, Color Effects (Normal, Antique, Black & White, Negative), File Quality Adjustment, Multishot Adjustment, Shutter Sound Adjustment (Shutter, Chime, No Sounds), Mirror (For Self-Portraits), and Flash.

Images taken are stored in the VX6100's internal memory. And memory is dynamically allocated depending a large part on other applications. Thus free space can vary considerably. However, up to 60 photos can be saved in the gallery, and on average, approximate image file sizes are 50 KB for VGA, 16K for QVGA, and 3 KB for QQVGA.

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