Let’s take a little walk through LG’s CES Las Vegas 2009 booth on the Las Vegas Convention Center showfloor. LG was on hand to showcase their latest and greatest in the camaraphone segment – the LG KC910 Renoir. The new LG Renoir leads the cameraphone-pack with an 8 megapixel Schneider-Kreuznach shooter.
While most cameraphones on market make photo-taking compromises for the sake of phone functionality and size, the LG Renoir focuses on its camera functionality. The LG Renoir’s 8 megapixel camera feature-set reads like a spec-sheet from a good stand-alone point-and-shoot camera – 8 megapixel image sensor, Schneider-Kreuznach optics (those Germans know their optics), xenon flash, 120fps video recording, image stabilization, auto-focus, and a host of shooting modes that can detect smiles, eye-blinks, and even rid your pics of blemishes (say you’re still hung-over from last night and it shows – the LG Renoir has you covered).
The LG booth was dominated by the new high-megapixel cameraphone. We gotta hand it to LG, they really know what they’re doing when it comes to marketing their wares.
From our short hands-on time with the LG Renoir, we can confidently say that LG has created one of the best cameraphones currently on market. Heck, the LG Renoir is probably better than some cameraphones coming down the pipeline in the near-term.
Slide open the lens cover and the LG Renoir’s large 3-inch touchscreen comes to life with all manner of camera controls. Everything from exposure levels to timing and even various shooting modes can be controlled through on-screen buttons. Photos snap-off as quickly as we could hope for in a cameraphone. The majority of cameraphone makers concentrate on megapixel counts rather than details like shot-to-shot time and shutter lag, but the LG Renoir proves itself as a competent camera. Oh, and it makes phones calls and all that jazz.
In the hand, the LG Renoir felt solid. The handset is perfectly sized for making calls and for taking photos. There’s a good balance between functionality and sleek design, although, we’d have liked to have seen a recessed (or at least flush with the case) camera module and sliding lens cover, a la the Sony Ericsson Cybershot cameraphones. Aside from that, the LG Renoir took beautiful pictures. And, the slo-mo shooting mode that takes 5 pictures a second makes for some fun action shots.
Check out the LG booth below.