So pardon the pun on the title of this review but I’m not kidding, that is the “nickname” LG chose to give this unit and not just rely in its numerical model number.

But as we all know with cellphones these days, its not just about the looks, you gotta dig deep and look at what the whole package gives you.

At first look at the Viewty, well it is pretty. Its light and damn slim. I think its one of the slimmest touch screens around at 12.4mm with a 3 inch WVGA full touch screen.

In terms of connectivity, its got Bluetooth, WiFi, and A-GPS too. Getting deeper into the specs it boasts of multi-media functions such as DivX compatibility and Dolby Mobile, which honestly I have never heard of before. Apparently Dolby Mobile ensures more immersive experience for mobile entertainment users.

On the face of the phone you see four homescreens: Main, Phone, Contacts and Multimedia.

Reading SMS drops down ala gmail. Then has options of reply, quicky reply, and delete. Quick reply is actually a nice touch as it gives you set templates like: sorry I can’t answer, where you, and all other SMS essentials except for “hir na me…”

You can also view messages via a thread view similar to gmail.

Now when you even mention the thought of a touchscreen, the first thing, er first fear that comes to mind of most people is how to input text. Sure tapping away to activate apps, moving around pictures, and flipping thru pages sounds and actually is fun, but the horror of having to shift from a physical phone keypad to a touch screen? Yikes.

But you know what, surprisingly the text input on the Viewty is not that bad, at least when its on portrait mode. Here you can use the virtual keypad which is like using T9 predictive text on an ordinary keypad. But strangely you can only copy and paste when you use the landscape qwerty which is not as easy.

The strongest suit of the Viewty no doubt is its camera. At the time of its release sometime late 2008 I'm presuming it had just about the most powerful and most flexible camera on any touch screen phone, definitely better than the iPhone’s or iPhone 3G. The Viewty’s camera is a 5 Megapixel beauty and by no stretch of the imagination looks damn good. There is easy access with the camera button on the side of the phone. It loads pretty fast no matter what phone function or app you are coming from on the phone. You can zoom and it has auto focus.

You can adjust the exposure and play with scenes such as smile detection, portrait, art shot, panorama, and mutli-shot that takes 6 consecutive shots.

Add to that the digicam has basic nightshot and even sport shot settings. There’s also a macro setting for extreme close-ups on subjects. They also threw in image stabilization but it didn’t work so great when I challenged it and gave it minor shakes while shooting, it came out blurry.

You think that’s it? But wait there’s more! It has white balance settings and timer either for self portraits or… I guess you can place the phone on something? There are also color effects like Sepia, Mono, Negative, and Emboss. The flash is actually pretty good considering its not a real Xenon flash like the ones on Nokias and Sony Ericssons.

Oh, and if you don’t know what scene to apply for a shot, don’t worry. It has what it calls the Intelligent Shot scene recognition.

Once you take the pictures you can view them and pinch to zoom when viewing and have easily accessible options to send via email, bluethooth, MMS, or even direct to a blog. And for those who use iPhoto or Picasa, the camera even has Geo-tagging.

Oh and then there’s the video function that can shoot up to 120 frames per second. That is an awesome frame rate for a mobile phone. And you can shoot in night mode too and adjust colors as in a still shot.

But wait, am I reviewing a camera here? Yes it is still a phone. And lets get to some of the not so good things that fall under phone use.

One thing that is pretty standard now is a headphone jack. The Viewty opts to not have a standard 3.5mm jack and that catches your attention right away. And if you lose your headset that comes with it, you will worry about how not so easy it is yet to find LG mobile phone accessories.

All in all, this a nice take on a multi-media device.