LG U400 "Neo" 3G phone

A click-wheelin' 3G music-phone from LG.

With a playlist-cruising click wheel doubling as a DJ scratch pad, this music slider is about the same dimensions as Sony's W810i. Unlike that little cracker, it's a 3G phone with A2DP. Excited yet?

Like Sony's baby, it comes with 512MB of memory - and upgrades are far cheaper (about £30 for 1GB), cos it's Micro SD, not Sony's own-brand Pro Duo sticks.

The 3 music-player, accessed via a soft-key, is nicely done and can be left to run in the background. The fiddly remote/hands-free set is better than nothing, but the earphones are big-boned and bass-lite. Switch to a pair of Etymotic ER6s and sound is good, if still a bit trebly.

Curiously, AAC won't work on 3's player, so LG has included its own, inferior player to support the format. A third (!) music player called "DJing" is included "4 da kidz". Yo, daddy! It allows you to use the click wheel to make a wikky-wikky "scratching" noise. You can then save your wikky'd-up "compositions", if you've got an external recorder. Pointless.

The menu system is a pig. You can switch between multiple applications once they're turned on, but finding them in the first place is a chore. For instance, turning on Bluetooth means going Tools/Connectivity/Bluetooth/Settings/on-off. The click wheel is great for tracklists but not for scrolling through short menus, and it also feels a touch flimsy.

At under four hours, talk-time battery life is not amazing. Video calling and streaming clips work quite well, and you can download tracks from 3's music store.

This a neat 3G-er with a respectable music player. It can't compete with Sony Ericsson's phones for sound quality, camera performance or ease of use, but it does fight back with that click wheel and cheaper memory. Worth a look.

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