In my previous review of the LG Quantum Windows Phone 7 device I went over various features of the phone such as battery, design, and the over specs available on the phone. In this review, I’ll be reviewing the LG Marketplace available on the device.
With Windows Phone 7, OEMS (i.e. LG, Samsung, HTC etc.) cannot modify the user experience so they have to innovate in different areas such as hardware and software available on the devices. For the software, OEMS can deliver apps in ROM or OEMs can deliver apps via a dedicated Marketplace (i.e. app store). Via the marketplace, LG can distribute exclusive software for users of the hardware. This is a great way to differentiate from competitors because lucky for us developers, users want apps!
LG does have a good selection of apps in their marketplace. Seems they have built their own internal apps and they have partnered with some app developers to include in the LG Marketplace. Best part about the apps is they are all free! Even some of the third party apps where usually there is a cost to the apps.
One of the other advantages LG Marketplace has is they are the only Marketplace as far a(as I can tell) that have augmented reality apps. If you read my post on augmented reality and Windows Phone 7, you will know the possibility is there and the LG Marketplace confirms it. Now Microsoft needs to open this up to all developers!
Augmented Reality
LG Marketplace has a few apps that take advantage of augmented reality and the camera APIs available on Windows Phone 7. The first application is called Scan Search. Scan Search is a Yelp like application but will find various places like restaurants, hotels, banks etc. and show you on the screen the distance you are to it (Yelp for iPhone has a similar augmented reality feature)
As you can see by the image above, it shows various places by using your camera, so as you hold up your camera it will use the compass and GPS to attempt to locate the place of interest. Interesting concept and have tried to use it but the only problem is it won’t give me a route to the place I want to go to. Some of the other features it has is you can take a picture of a book cover, CD cover, movie poster cover and barcode and it will attempt to find information for you.
The other application is Look n Type. This application leverages the camera API to allow you to look in front of you while you walk and text. You have the ability to create a text message, email or a tweet for your twitter. I tried to use it while I was having a conversation with my wife but that didn’t go over too well 
Here is a video explaining Look n Type
Again, this is the only device I can tell that has an augmented reality app and leverages the camera APIs on Windows Phone 7. To me this is somewhat of an advantage to LG and a great way to differentiate their hardware.
Other LG Apps
There are some other apps provided by LG Marketplace that I think are worth a mention.
- Tool Box – This is essentially a lot of single type apps that you would have to download individually all grouped into one. It comes with a World Clock, Unit Converter, World Holidays, Date Calculator, Sale Price Calculator, Level, Flashlight and Random Number generator. All these type of apps you can most likely find in the regular marketplace but quality may not be as good and then you get cluttered with icons.
- Panorama Shot – This again is another application that leverages the camera API on Windows Phone 7 and allows you to take multiple pictures and the app will stitch together all the images to make one big panorama image. I have used this and is useful and can get some pretty cool pictures.
- Voice to Text – This app leverages the Microphone and allows you to record your voice and it will translate it to text for you. You can create a voice memo, tweet, email or text message. I’ve used it to send a text message and is fairly accurate.
- Caddy Buddy – For the golf players out there this app may come in handy and provides target distance, green inclination and manage score card. Have not tried this app out because as I’m typing this, there is another snow storm heading our way
There are a few more apps in the LG Marketplace but these are they ones I that I found myself using. There is also a Workout Tracker (i find it too much work to track my workout ), a image editor (rather do that on a desktop) and a stream to DNLA compatible devices from LG Quantum (don’t have any).
Apps You Usually Pay For
To differentiate itself some more, LG has also decided to provide some apps that you would usually have to pay for in the regular Windows Phone 7 marketplace for free in the LG Marketplace. Here is a breakdown of all the apps with cost in Canadian dollars.
- Doodle God (Regular Price $3.49) – Didn’t get this game so didn’t keep on phone
- Cocktail Flow (Regular Price $3.49) – Been wanting to try this out but it didn’t have a trial mode. Pretty nice app and great UI. Glad I was able to try it out for free!
- Color Sprouts (Regular Price $2.49) – My daughter loved this app, basically a colouring book but a cool feature is it uses Bing Image APIs to find more images and converts it so it can be coloured on.
- envision for Basecamp (Regular Price $10.99) – I don’t use basecamp but if you do you can save yourself $11 if you had the LQ Quantum device
- Krashlander (Regular Price $1.09) – Cheap price but this game is pretty addictive. The controls are a little lacking but useable.
- Colorize (Regular Price $1.39) – Another image editor. Again would rather edit images on a full desktop
- Weave (Regular Price $2.49) - RSS news reader
- Talking Ragdoll (Regular Price $1.09) – Used it for 5mins and then got rid of it. Loses it’s appeal very quickly.
- Mobile Sommelier (Regular Price $3.49) – Food and wine pairing app. Have not used it yet as I’m not an avid wine drinker.
Summary
With Windows Phone 7, OEMs don’t have the option to change the user experience of the operating system but they do have the option on differentiating on the hardware and the software that is included on the phone. In my first post I went through some of the hardware features of the LG Quantum 7 phone.
In this post I went through some of software features that are available such as Augmented reality apps, some LG apps and some third party apps that you would usually have to pay for in the regular marketplace. Overall I think LG has done a good job in providing some good apps. The actual phone hardware to is not at the top of my list but not at the bottom. Out of all the devices I have I would say this is number two of four because of the slide out keyboard.
In my opinion, for OEMs to win market share with Windows Phone 7 they will have to provide some apps either in ROM or via the custom marketplace and they have to do this in combination with the carriers.