(Click here for a larger view of LG's LG-GM730)

LG provided relatively few technical details of the LG-GM730, but said the device will be the first phone to ship with the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, thanks to a newly announced agreement between LG and Microsoft. Under the terms of the agreement, which builds on a pact announced last November, LG will make Windows Mobile the primary OS for its smartphones, increase the number of phones in its portfolio, and provide up to 26 Windows phones by 2012.

Pictured below with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Young Nam, vice chairman and CEO of LG, said, "New LG phones running Windows will take advantage of the excitement in this dynamically growing market."


Microsoft's Steve Ballmer (left) and LG Electronics' Yong Nam (right) intensified their collaboration centered on Windows Mobile
Source: LG Electronics
As well as being a boost to Microsoft, the agreement dramatizes the scope of LG Electronics, which says it employs more than 82,000 people globally and had 2008 global sales of $44.7 billion. Also at this week's Mobile World Congress, LG said it would collaborate with Intel on a new line of MIDs (mobile internet devices), based on the latter's energy-efficient "Moorestown" processor and the Linux-based Moblin operating system. (For further details, see the coverage on our sister site LinuxDevices.com, here.)

The LG-GM730

LG did not release information about the CPU or memory complement its new LG-GM730 will provide. However, it called the device the "most functional and easiest to use smartphone ever created." This lofty pitch apparently revolves around the LG-GM730's add-on "S-Class" user interface, depicted on the phone below.


LG's LG-GM730
According to LG, S-Class features four customizable home screens that are wrapped around a rotating 3D cube. The interface "eliminates nested menus wherever possible, providing more direct access to features and applications," says LG, adding that S-Class will become standard across all its phones, whether they run Windows or not.

PC Magazine writer Sascha Segan reports that S-Class features an usually wide variety of tactile graphics. "For instance, to tune the FM radio on an S-Class phone, you turn a virtual dial with your finger. To set the clock, you move the hands with your finger. And to scroll through a menu, you flick a line of icons," he writes.

Hardware features disclosed by LG for the LG-GM730 include the following:

• A 3-inch touchscreen display with 400 x 240 resolution
  
• A five megapixel camera with a Schneider-Kreuznach lens
  
• GPS
  
• WiFi
  
• Bluetooth 2.1
  
• Dimensions of 4.32 x 2.24 x 0.46 inches (109.9 x 56.5 x 11.9mm)

LG says the LG-GM730 will include viewers capable of opening Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and PDF documents. The phone will also offer a "location-based" SMS feature, the company says.

Further information

For more information on the latest agreement between Microsoft and LG, see the Microsoft website, here.

For the report on the S-Class interface by PC Magazine's Sascha Segan, see the publication's website, here.

Finally, another alliance with LG was announced yesterday by Intrinsyc Software, which says LG will use its Destinator navigation software "on multiple models of handsets, running on Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile operating systems."

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