LG GW520, GT505: Go go powerful mid-rangers

Whether you're a foreign-affairs correspondent or a technology journalist, this has been a questionably outstanding week for pontificating about Korea. Buyer's guides, mobile phones, missiles -- the once-conjoined civilisation of Korea has released them all. 

So, these new LG phones. They're the inventively named GW520 and GT505 -- a pair of mid-range devices with their target reticules pointed at socially networked business folk, it seems. Both models support push notifications of updates from social networks -- meaning new messages or updates will pop up on-screen rather like a text message -- and push email from Microsoft Exchange.

The GT505 also supports the navigational gift of GPS, with turn-by-turn in-car navigation. It's got a 76mm touchscreen, 3.6Mbps HSDPA Internet and a 5-megapixel camera. Makes calls, too! It's all fairly middle of the road stuff (vague GPS-related pun loosely intended).

LG's other n00b is the GW520. The Internets could load faster on this model than on the GT505, because it has 7.2Mbps HSDPA data connectivity, rather than 3.6Mbps. For most people, that means Facebook loads faster.

It's also got a 71mm (2.8-inch) touchscreen, a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, a smaller 3-megapixel camera, and those social networking notifications we mentioned earlier.

No, neither phones particularly excite us, but as mid-range offerings they're satisfyingly well equipped and should hopefully give some decent specs for decent prices. Both will be on sale from June 2009 -- the GT505 on Orange to begin with, the GW520 on various networks.

We're waiting to hear back from LG's PR team to confirm what social networks are supported, and how notifications will appear on-screen. Check back for an update if you want to know.

Picture of the GT505 over the page.