When we last looked, back in April, there were a fair few fans of the LG Arena (KM900) on our blog roll – Gaj-It, GadgetLite and ShinyShiny were all impressed, but some of our fellow bloggers weren’t quite ready to commit themselves on a phone which hadn’t hit the shelves, so lets check in with them now they’ve had time to really put it through its paces!

Coolest-Gadgets UK considered verdict matched up fairly well to his pleased first impressions and showed the phone is as hardy as the Secret:

The Arena’s been in my pocket with no cover or screen protector for the entire period of the test and it still looks as good as new with no obvious blemishes or scratches. This bodes well for the longevity of the Arena.

The Arena isn’t perfect but it is a good solid multimedia phone that’ll keep you entertained on the commute and impress your mates in the pub. LG tell us that the Arena is targeted at that all important 16 to 24 age group. It certainly impressed the people in that age range that used the phone. The only negative comments were on the quality of the games that are shipped with it.

- As someone who’d only just mastered the mToy games available on the Secret that’s a gripe I can share – I’d gotten pretty good at fishing on Secret, but I can’t show that off on the Arena… But there are plenty of games available for the Arena, you can find out more here.

Digital-Lifestyles’s review was detailed and contextual – containing a bit of commentary on the legacy of LG’s recent handsets:

The considerable experience that LG has built up with touch interfaces from each of their previous models show with improved quality and responsiveness.

But what they were really impressed with was the phone’s camera – which they gave a whooping 91% to!

The 5 Mpx camera gives really good results, another thing that LG has been consistently strong on over the last few handset since the LG Viewty.

And the team at RegHardware gave the Arena a solid 80% and were particularly impressed with the multimedia features, screen resolution and overall design:

Its classy build, with either silver or black titanium bodywork, certainly grabs the eye in that now-familiar minimalist iPhone-style slab-phone kind of way. Smooth, rounded and a shade under 12mm thick, the Arena has a reasonable 105.9 x 55.3 mm footprint and weighs a pocket-friendly 105g. It still feels robust in hand, with the metal framework complemented by scratch-resistant tempered glass protecting the display. Like many touchscreen models, it doesn’t show well in bright sunlight, but is otherwise one of the sharpest we’ve seen.
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The LG Arena really excels in the multimedia department. Sound quality is highly impressive for the music player, with a rich, detailed sound that gets added presence by switching on the Dolby Mobile audio processing.

So it’s been a pretty good run for the Arena handset, which bodes well for the LG Crystal and Viewty Smart handsets coming out in the UK in the weeks and months ahead – they both feature variations on the 3D S-Class UI premiered on the Arena, will they also share our bloggers’ accolades – or yours?

Feel free to leave you own reviews of the Arena – or thoughts on the upcoming LG Crystal and Viewty Smart -  in the comments!