LG New Chocolate BL40

MORE: read our full review of the LG New Chocolate BL40

LG’s New Chocolate BL40 is an odd-shaped device that resembles nothing more than a Bang and Olufsen remote control from the 80s. New Chocolate is part of the name of the phone, irritatingly enough. It looks good, although the length is going to make it hard to fit into many pockets.

There aren’t many controls: two buttons on one side for volume and another to get to the main menu, and one on the other side to dial. The phone uses LG’s so-called S-Class operating system and has a touch-sensitive screen.

This worked well in our tests and gives easy access to all the built-in applications. It’s possible to download and run other applications although the process didn’t work when we tried it. The applications entry in the phone’s menus took us to an unrelated website.

It was also fiddly in other ways. Getting the phone to connect to our wireless network took a lot of hunting around in the menus to find the option to connect to a hidden access point.

Still, the main point of the New Chocolate BL40 is its look, and it will certainly have other people looking over when you pull it out of your pocket (although they might first have noticed it sticking out of the top of the pocket earlier).

MORE: read our full review of the LG New Chocolate BL40