I have a Secret

For those who know me, it's common knowledge that I shop whenever I feel any sudden burst of emotion, be it disappointment, anxiety, happiness or excitement. This weekend was no exception. I've been out looking for a phone to replace my K770i, it's been with me for almost 2 years and I'm thinking it's about time for an upgrade (or a change, whatever). But the last time I went phone shopping, I ended up buying an iPod Touch...it happened all so quickly, but I was in love with the Touch, and the WiFi feature I was looking for in a phone worked much better on the iPod's screen and touchscreen interface. Besides, Sony Ericsson's line of models was not offering up anything interesting, at least, not at the price I was willing to pay.

So...I figured, I'll buy the iPod and just wait a few more months for a new phone. October's just around the corner anyway. BUT, this weekend, after treating my dad to a father's day dinner, we stopped by the Avant store in Greenbelt, and I spent the next few minutes browsing through phone selections that are just so enticingly displayed on the counters.

Again, SE failed to impress with its line of available phones, and I really did not want to go back to Nokia. Samsung's phones were beautiful. but featureset was lacking, so I moved to the next counter and checked the LG phones on display.

Hmmm... LG. Tere has had an LG phone for about 2 years now and she's happy with it. And I recall I was envious about how customizable her themes were, the cover art display on her music player, the scratch resistant finish...and in an entry-level 3G phone no less. And with LG rapidly gaining popularity with it's aggressive marketing, and after hearing good reviews from some of my colleagues, I thought I'd do more research to find an LG phone that might be 'right' for me.

That night, I spent hours browsing the LG website, gadget websites, third party reviewers and came upon the LG-KF750, more popularly known as the LG Secret. It's the third in their Black Label Series, after the Chocolate phone and the Shine. And wow, for one thing, it was a beautiful, slim slider that looked very classy and sophisticated. It had a touch screen interface, a 5 megapixel camera, a built in accelerometer, 3G HSDPA network and all the 'basics' I look for a in a phone, like Bluetooth, mp3 capabilities, expandable memory and the like.

Aside from that, there are a few more 'extras', like the DivX player, slow-mo video recording, Wii-like accelerometer based games and even a document viewer (txt, pdf, doc, xls, ppt). There's a slew of features I have yet to discover and use since I have only had it for a day. My only caveat is the hook for the lanyard or wrist strap is located at the top-left side of the phone, which makes it difficult for me to put on a wrist strap while texting, so I'm sure that at some point in the future, I will drop this phone and I don't even want to think about what might happen then. But it is made from tempered glass and carbon fiber so it might be a little tougher than some of the slim sider phones out there.

And of course, the price. Actually, it's the price that really convinced me to get this phone. I got it for P14,890 on 6 months 0% interest, that's roughly P2,500 a month. If you have cash to spare, I've seen it on some stores in Park Square that sell for as low as 13,800 if you pay cash. I'm sure it'll be cheaper in Greenhills or Multiply shops and the like. To me, this is very reasonable if you factor in the features and the form factor. And of course, the happiness it brings me to have something new and shiny...priceless. :)

That's it for now, I'm not done playing around with my newest gadget. And now I need to hide all my credit cards in a block of ice or risk having nothing to spend by the time I go on my US vacation. Even retail therapy MUST have limits you know?