In case you haven’t seen the new LG Renoir TV advert, then be sure to check it out on YouTube. It depicts how the Renoir incorporates a 8MB camera, mp3 and DivX player with Dolby Mobile, touchscreen with Wi-Fi & 3G connectivity, all in one slim compact package… and with the aid of a giant crusher (what better way possible?). Enjoy:

If you’re interested in just what the new LG Renoir can do, be sure to check out the new LG Renoir microsite at renoir.lgmobile.com. Just pick you country and the site will show you “everything at your fingertips” and how the multitalented Renoir can help you both create and enjoy.

Your guide is Stefan (above) - an artist, model, actor and musician - and he can take you through the Renoir’s many talents. The sit is split into several “Sight” shows off the phone’s 8MP camera, “Sound” demonstrates the Dolby-enhanced sound experience, and “Touch” the full touchscreen that helps you make the most of your media. As well as that there’s the full low-down on all the phone’s features which you can browse through at your own leisure.

So if you want to know more, give renoir.lgmobile.com a look and if you have an opinion on the site then why not let us know in the comments?

Getting a new mobile phone should bring with it plenty of joy and general feelings of awesomeness - but there’s also the sad goodbye we have to make to our old handset. If it’s in good condition, you can always reuse it as a spare, or pass it on to a relative or friend - but we’re not always able to make that choice. So when we’re done with a handset (18m last year) we all too often just throw them away. Only 20% of phones were recycled last year, which means the rest are now cluttering landfills, or gathering dust in the bottom of our drawers.

Luckily mobile recycling is on the rise and there are now a range of schemes to help your pocket as well as the environment. The Guardian reports on a new service that has just launched:

The Coolafone website converts old phones into “coolacredits” which can then be exchanged for e-vouchers which can be redeemed with a range of “Coolapartners” including boutique hotels, food companies and magazine publishers. Donators can also choose to have money given to charity.

And it’s not the only one out there - especially if you’d like a charity to benefit:

An alternative to profiting yourself from recycling an old handset is to pass on any value to a good cause. Many charities, both large and small, have teamed up with specialist processing organisations such as Greener Solutions (greenersolutions.co.uk) and the Recycling Appeal (recyclingappeal.com) to collect old mobiles for refurbishment or recycling.

Recycling or refurbishing - either way, we win. Recycling is great for two reasons - firstly it mean the valuable chemicals and metals inside your phone can be put to good use again, making future mobiles cheaper and greener to produce. Secondly it means that they won’t ever contaminate the environment - while your phone may safely contain them now, that might not be the case in 100 years time if in landfill.

If a phone can be refurbished, where does it go? Often it goes to people in the developing world - giving them a chance to use a technology that would be otherwise inaccessible to the majority of the local population. And with that comes opportunities to connect, grow your business, stay in touch with loved ones or many of the other possibilities.

So the next time you have to replace or discard your mobile, don’t just throw it away - there are plenty of ways to pass it on to others or dispose of it safely and responsibly, and you might even pocket a bit yourself while you’re at it!

With the release of the Renoir KC910 nearly upon us, we thought we’d revisit the bloggers event we held for it a couple of weeks ago. Here you can see John Barton, LG’s UK sales and marketing director, presenting the Renoir, followed by Jonathan Jowitt, Senior Technical Marketing Manager, Mobile of Dolby and Andy Glasson Sales Manager for Northern Europe from DivX. It’s a bit dark at times but you can still get a good idea of things:

Be sure to check out the Q&A videos on our YouTube channel, and if you like the look of it, be sure to add yourself to the official LG KC910 Facebook fan page.

UPDATE: you can now see the presentation from the event on our SlideShare ‘Slidespace’.

Over at Phones Review today I found this interesting article:

According to a new survey released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, technology in the form of cell phones and computers is keeping families closer than ever. The survey was conducted with 2,252 adults to see what type of impact technology had on their lives. What they found was that all of that time on cell phones and computers is actually keeping families close.

It’s refreshing to see the research bears out what I’ve long thought - that by giving people more means to communicate with each other brings them closer together and helps their relationships with others. Some have claimed mobiles (and internet and social networking) turns us into isolated people but this study shows the evidence is to the contrary. Of course, you can have too much of a good thing and I’m not saying families should just use mobile phones to stay in touch. But it’s interesting to see what you can find out when you look beyond the usual scaremongering.

Do you find the same in your own experience? Or do you disagree with the report’s findings? Let us know in the comments

Whew, it’s been a busy few days! Late last week we launched the LG Renoir KC910, our new 8 megapixel camera, and we invited some bloggers down to a party in London to get to grips with it. As well as us from the LG blog and some of the phone marketing guys, they also got to meet the guys from DivX and Dolby Mobile, who talked about the phone’s features and of course each other.

It was my first chance to play with the Renoir, which was surprisingly light in the hand - so much so I thought the one I’d been given had had the battery taken out. I didn’t get too long to play about but the video playback quality and the camera both impressed me.

Anyway, you shouldn’t just listen to what I thought about the phone - instead I definitely recommend checking out what they had to say about the phone - Marc of Coolest Gadgets hopes he gets his paws on ones to review, while Simon of Zath is anticipating playing with the audio and video features. James of Electric Pig enthuses abouts the widgets and UI and Matt of Tracy & Matt shot some video of the presentations we gave (although the room’s a bit dark - sorry Matt, we’ll sort out better lighting next time!).

Ewan of Mobile Industry Review has a long and gushing paean to the phone, and then gave the event a long feature on their weekly TV show (featuring an appearance from yours truly). Here’s what they thought of it:

Keep checking back for more info about the Renoir KC910 closer to the release date & we’ll keep you updated with all the latest news and reviews about it.

An interesting bit of news over at Phones Review - a major UK bank is allowing you to now manage your account via mobile Internet:

Lloyds TSB announced today that they have a facility for customers to transfer between their accounts via their mobile phones. Not only that the service will also keep your security in check by alerting you if your debit or credit cards are used abroad. Not forgetting that Lloyds already notify their customers by mobile when their bank account does not have sufficient funds to cover a standing or direct debit or if their account falls within £50 of their limit.

More on the BBC. Mobile banking has had a sluggish beginning in Europe but Lloyds TSB are certainly taking a leap forward here, and it’s only a matter of time before mobile banking becomes as powerful and useful as fixed-line Internet banking. But what about the problems? Over at Gaj-It I spotted this post which was initially unrelated in my mind:

A survey by Credant Technologies has found that over the last six months, 55,843 mobile phones and 6,193 other devices including laptops were forgotten by London black cab passengers. Thankfully, about 80 per cent of surveyed taxi drivers claimed that owners were reunited with their missing item once found, but having your hand-held device in someone else’s hands still poses a huge security threat for the owner.
[...]
Another survey by credit reference agency Equifax found that 16% of its customers saved PIN numbers on their mobile devices while 24% kept birthday dates. Probably not good practice if you take a London cab everywhere.

Mobile banking could be a real boon but it also means making sure it is secure - a phone with mobile banking password saved on it could mean a near-instant emptying of your bank account if it fell in the wrong hands. We might need to rethink security on phones - making sure if a phone is reported stolen, there is an easy way of stopping your mobile banking at the same time to reduce hassle. Or possibly using voice and face recognition instead of passwords, making it harder for thieves to assume your identity (though of course no system is perfect). Or maybe I am just being too paranoid. What do you think?

The music industry has been one of those most changed by the Internet, and despite the boom in online music download services, it’s interesting to see that today the music companies have launched a new physical format for music called slotMusic. Pocket Picks says:

slotMusic is a fancy way of saying DRM-free MP3 laden microSD cards. SanDisk and a collection of big name record companies (including the four horsemen EMI Music, SONY BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group) have grouped together to bring the new physical music format to retail.

So - is it the future of mobile media? Physical will never die completely - people still like to handle a physical product, even if it is really tiny in this case. The removal of digital rights management (DRM) is also interesting - DRM is a controversial subject and we could now see the turning of the tide on that front.

For me, there’s bits of the idea I like. It’s good to see a bit of thought put into it - the cards won’t just have music on them but also cover art, videos and other content (presumably optimised for smaller screens). Entertainment is now multiformat and people have come to expect it. The distribution is also clever - using a format that is widespread and people know already, without having to get new phones or equipment to read it. But I’m not sure if I like the idea of carrying lots of SD cards around with me and facing the potential of losing them (they are pretty small after all). Maybe if I had one card which I could recharge with music in-store for a subscription would save that. What do you think?

Finally, it’s worth noting that the cards aren’t just for mobile - they’re also usable on PCs and other devices, and come with a USB adapter to boot. And if you lose it, well that’s just an excuse for getting hold of this cute ladybird microSD card reader I saw over at Coolest Gadgets and just had to blog about.

The guys over at Mobile Choice magazine have given the LG Secret a look-over and have shown off some of its features you might not have known about. Secret memo allows you to make password-protected; while touch media allows you to use the phone’s touchscreen to browse photo, audio and video; and slow motion allows you to use the camera to film slo-mo at 120fps. Check it out below:

If you haven’t tried out these features on your Secret then give them a go right now. Be sure to also look over similar videos for the KF600 and KF700. And if you have any neat tricks you know on an LG phone, why not add them in a comment below?

Today we’re pleased to say we can take our first look at the forthcoming LG Renoir KC910, the 8MP full touchscreen cameraphone that is the successor to last year’s enormously successful Viewty.

The KC910 boasts a 3″ WQVGA 240×400 pixel display that is fully touchscreen. The camera is a ISO1600 8MP camera with Schneider-Kreuznach optics, digital zoom, image stabiliser and geotagging. The videocamera has VGA capability at 30fps and QVGA capability at 120fps and DivX and Xvid. Connectivity is important, with HSDPA connectivity, GPS, Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi and and TV-out support. It can also take SD cards with a capacity up to 8GB.

Check out the photos we have below and keep checking the site - we’ll have more information on the phone and in-depth coverage of its features in the run-up to its release, which will be this October.

As well as a touchscreen it also has three function buttons at the bottom

And it looks good from an angle as well as head-on

If you’re interested in further details about the Renoir KC910, then you can always check out the official specification.