LG's Xpression 2 gets the blues (pictures)

With its deep blue color, the LG Xpression 2 stands out from the usual feature-phone crowd. But it's also the device's low on-contract price of $0.99 that is compelling, as well. Available for AT&T users, the handset can also be nabbed under the carrier's prepaid service for $169.99.

The 3G phone is equipped with a slide-out four-row QWERTY keyboard, which includes navigational buttons, a secondary alt-function key, and several shortcut buttons that launch email, text, the notepad and more.

The Xpression 2’s 3-inch WQVGA display has a 240x400-pixel resolution. Though text and icons are legible, images are very streaky and grainy, and texts have jagged, pixelated edges.

On the left edge are a volume rocker and a Micro-USB port for charging. The port can be sealed by a small attached door, which lies completely flush with the rest of the phone’s surface.

Editing and photo options are limited on the 2-megapixel camera. You can take pictures in up to four sizes (ranging from 320x240 to 1,600x1,200-pixels), but you can only use the 2X digital zoom for the two VGA resolutions. There is also a brightness meter, five white-balance options, four color effects, a timer, a night mode, and continuous shooting.

Due to its petite size, the handset’s four-row keyboard will strike some users with larger fingers as cramped. I myself didn’t find the keys so confined, but I have small hands. The buttons bulge very slightly off the phone’s surface, slightly improving their comfortability and ease of typing, but not as much as a more bulbous keyboard would.

On the phone's top edge is a sleep/power button and a 3.5mm headphone jack. To the right is an ultraconvenient shortcut key that launches the camera (pictured above). All of these physical buttons are raised ever so slightly, which makes it easier to feel for them.

Additional features include Bluetooth 2.1, a 1,000mAh battery (which has a reported talk time of 3.45 hours), and 256MB of internal memory with the option to expand up to 32GB via a microSD card slot.

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