While smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One are pushing 4G into the hands of more and more people, there's a segment of the market that simply can't afford these premium 4G handsets.
LG
is doing its best to cater to this market, launching its Optimus F5
handset to provide the prepaid market an affordable 4G-enabled device.
At AUD$299 outright (roughly $US285, £185), the handset certainly ticks
the affordable check box.
A quick perusal of the spec sheet also
promises plenty of features you'd expect from a higher-class of phone. A
4.3-inch IPS display, 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor and 8GB of
internal storage expandable via MicroSD would all be appropriate for
devices costing significantly more.
While it only comes with the 4.1 version of Jelly Bean
running the show, the benefit of affordability over most up to date
software should be enough to keep the budget-conscious happy.
Design
Can
you say iClone? Of course you can. But that's almost exactly what the
handset looks like front on. The screen proportions, the bezel, and even
the front camera and earpiece look like they were magically transported
directly from Jonny Ive's brain. Of
course, there are differences too. There's no hard home button, for a
start. Instead, the standard Android trio of touch sensitive soft
buttons line up below the F5's screen.
The IPS display is vibrant and colourful, with great viewing angles and a decent resolution at 960 x 550 pixels at 256ppi. The
bottom of the device houses a MicroUSB port, while the left of the
phone is home to the volume rocker and the power button lives on the
right hand side.
The removable plastic back is a glossy white with
a fancy diamond pattern, which surrounds the phone's 5-megapixel
camera. Take it off, and you can see the removable 2150mAh battery, SIM
card slot and MicroSD port. The
plastic backing the phone is a little bit slippery. That diamond
pattern isn't actually textured onto the case, unfortunately, and the
slippery plastic feel does make its way onto the sides of the phones as
well.
The overall feeling is that the phone could slip from your
grip at any second. Mind you, phones like the Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5
have the same sort of feel, so it's hardly a deal-breaker. The
F5 is also much chunkier than you'd expect. At 9.3mm thick, it's hardly
what we'd call fat, but it does feel significantly wider than the
premium phones of today.
It's also feels heavier than it looks, coming in at 134 grams.
Power and the passion
While
power users will hate the lack of the most recent version of Jelly
Bean, there's no denying that the 4.1 version, coupled with the
dual-core Snapdragon processor, actually makes the F5 sing.
Animations are smooth, transitions are fast and the integrated features are nice too.
LG has stuffed its QSlide functionality, previously seen on the Optimus G,
into the F5. It lets you multitask, adding different apps on top of
your current screen and adjusting the transparency so you can keep doing
what your doing.
There are QSlide apps for video, memos, internet, calendar and calculator, and two can be used at a time. The QSlide apps work pretty well. We saw a video of the Family Guy playing back in a transparent window while the main phone switched between apps and took notes.
LG
has also bundled in its Quick Memo function, which lets you take a note
on F5's and can stay on the screen until you're ready to clear it away.
Useful for taking down a phone number then calling that number. One
other nifty feature is the ability to customise pretty much any botton
on the home page, making icons bigger or smaller for convenience, as
well as changing the icon image.
This includes the ability to
take photos and use the subsequent image as an app icon. Which is kind
of neat, really, when you think about it.
Early Verdict
This handset isn't meant to compete with the likes of the Galaxy S4 or Xperia Z. It's a mid-range handset aimed at converting prepaid customers to 4G.
But
given its snappy performance and bargain price point, there's a lot to
like about the F5, in a way that sees it competing with phones double
its price. The handset itself seems well-made, and while it's not going to win any beauty pageants, it certainly doesn't look ugly.
There
are question marks over the 5MP camera, and we haven't tested to see
how well the processor performs under duress, but overall, this looks
like a really promising handset for affordable 4G access.
LG has had a good run of form with its Optimus series of smartphones. The Optimus One
was a solid little thing for a good price, then it branched out and up
into fancy phone territory with the quirky dual-core charms of the Optimus 2X, before tackling high style with the skinny Optimus Black.
Now
LG has another demographic in its sights – fans of the hot trend for 3D
technology. The Optimus 3D is the first smartphone to launch with a
"glasses-free" 3D display, enabling users to take still photos and
record videos in full 3D, then play them back in 3D on the phone's
cutting-edge 4.3-inch display.
But thanks to what LG calls the
phone's "tri-dual" technology – a dual-core processor, dual cameras and
dual-channel memory – the Optimus 3D comes with a massive price tag. The
cheapest monthly tariff for this monster 3D phone currently stands at
£35, with SIM-free prices currently around the £500 mark.
We've
dusted off the Celluloid Movie Maker for a session with the new 3D
phone - check out what we thought with flickering images:
Is it worth paying such a hefty early adopter tax in return for LG's –
and the world's – first glasses-free 3D mobile phone display? The
Optimus 3D is as hefty as its price tag, but at least you're getting
your money's worth in terms of sheer physical bulk. The 4.3-inch 480 x
800 resolution screen is surrounded by a large black plastic bezel,
making the LG Optimus 3D feel like a whopping great rubbery brick in the
hand. Beneath
the screens sit four capacitive touch buttons. They're in a bit of an
unusual order, with LG opting to be a pain in the arse by lining them
up, from left to right, in the order of Menu, Home, Back and Search. The
Menu button shouldn't really be given prime location on the left-hand
side. We'd prefer the much more frequently pressed Home or Back to be
there, as it's the easiest spot to find without searching.
These
buttons are backlit, but the light only comes on when you press one of
them. Which makes the backlight absolutely useless, as there's no point
in a button lighting itself up once you've just pressed the wrong one. A
weird feature, that. The LG Optimus 3D is also a fat little monster, coming it at 11.9mm thick – much chunkier than the 8.5mm Samsung Galaxy S2. It also weighs 168g, so is much heavier than the S2's 116g or even the larger HTC Sensation's 148g. There's
what appears to be a camera shutter button on the bottom of the
right-hand side, where camera buttons usually congregate. But it's not a
camera button – it simply toggles the camera between 2D and 3D modes
when taking shots, or can be held down to launch LG's separate 3D
interface when using the Optimus 3D. The
only vaguely interesting physical design feature here is the metallic
strip along the phone's rear, which houses the Optimus 3D's two camera
sensors and its LED flash. It's one nice touch in an otherwise quite
generic lump of black plastic. The
rest of the phone is your standard modern smartphone layout. Power
button and 3.5mm headphone jack along the top, volume up/down rocker
along the right-hand edge, then USB and HDMI connectors safely hidden
behind little plastic stoppers in the top-left corner. It
feels solid and heavy, which isn't a bad thing because our brains tend
to associate gadget weight with quality, but the Optimus 3D is a very
bland plastic black rectangle on the outside. Hopefully the "tri-dual"
thrills inside will make up for this uninspiring design.
Offering Verizon Wireless subscribers yet another glossy-looking 4G
LTE smartphone to choose from, the LG Spectrum is a variant of the LG Optimus LTE, also seen in a different form on AT&T as the LG Nitro HD.
The
LG Spectrum packs in a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor and 1GB of
RAM, which results in generally snappy performance around the menus and
while using apps. However, the phone still runs Gingerbread (Android
2.3.5), with an Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) upgrade expected at an
undisclosed date.
What
immediately grabs your attention is the crisp 4.5-inch display, which
shines at 1280x720 resolution at 329 ppi, making it one of the sharpest
screens on the market. It's protected by Gorilla Glass, which keeps the
screen impressively free of scratches.
You'll have to look very
closely to spot individual pixels, though in regular day-to-day use, the
display impresses consistently whether viewing videos or browsing the
web. It's a bit prone to fingerprints, but that's a small price to pay
for a fantastic screen.
The
LG Spectrum sports a slim and sleek build, at just 0.41-inches deep,
with a front facing camera up top and three touch buttons at the bottom.
The center Home button resembles a physical one due its silver sheen,
but like the Menu and Back buttons around it, the phone must be powered
on to use it.
On the back, you'll find a black-and-silver
checkerboard pattern atop a very slick, shiny cover. Without any sort of
tactile grip, it's sure to slide around in some users' hands,
especially as the weather heats up, but it's an attractive and sturdy
backing that can be pretty easily removed from a notch on the bottom of
the phone.
Also
on the back is the 8-megapixel camera lens, which is accompanied by a
small light – the whole of which only slightly juts out from the rest of
the cover. In addition to photos, the lens can also shoot HD video up
to 1080p resolution. The
top of the phone includes the physical power button, a 3.5mm headphone
jack, and a mini-USB input, which is covered by an attached flap. The
left side of the phone includes a lightly raised volume rocker, while
the right side is completely free of buttons and inputs.Included
on the LG Spectrum is 4GB of internal storage, but unlike some phones,
we weren't able to access this space by connecting the phone to a
computer. Luckily, the phone also comes with a 16GB microSD card, and it
can accommodate 32GB cards as well. The card is found behind the back
cover above the 1830 mAh battery and adjacent to the SIM card.
The LG Spectrum is available on Verizon Wireless for $199.99 with a
two-year contract, with the full retail price for the phone listed at
$589.99.
LG desperately needs a reboot at the sharp end of the smartphone
market - can its slim quad-core offering, in the shape of the
much-vaunted Optimus 4X HD, step up to the plate?
We got a few promises from LG in the form of offerings like last year's Optimus 3D
– but that just felt a bit gimmicky. LG needs to pull something out of
the bag if it wants to muscle in on an arena now dominated by Samsung,
HTC, Sony and Motorola.
On paper the Optimus 4X HD appears to
have it all. Thin and light, a True HD-IPS screen, all the connectivity
options you could ever hope for, NFC, 8MP HD camera, Ice Cream Sandwich and a Quad-Core processor. And
had this been early 2012, then this would have blown the competition
out of the water. But a few months (and a Galaxy S3 / One X release)
later, it doesn't feel that revolutionary. Especially when you look at the price.
SIM
free and offline, you'll pay around £430 ($670). On a contract, expect a
two year deal at around £26 ($40) a month to get this handset for free.
Price wise, it's mildly cheaper than Samsung's flagship Galaxy S3 but is on a direct collision course for your vote with something like HTC's current baby, the One X. As
far as the dimensions go, this is a handset that should fit comfortably
in the palm if you've got decent sized pincers. It's very square to
look at and instantly makes us think of the Samsung Galaxy S2.
In
fact, aside from the lack of a physical home button and the inclusion
of an LG logo, you could quite easily get the two confused at first
glance. It's only marginally bigger at 132.4 x 68.1 x 8.9mm, and heavier
at 133g.
The
beauty of no home button is that LG has made the screen a little bit
longer (it uses the soft keys that Google much prefers but some
manufacturers eschew). We did have issues occasionally when holding it
with one hand as reaching down to the bottom of the screen with a thumb
led to it feeling like we may drop it.
But there is a great
decorative metal trim around the sides which we found gave us something
to hold onto. And another warning – it is an absolute fingerprint
magnet.
Want to know which quad-core beast is the fastest? Check out our test of the 4X alongside a Samsung Galaxy S3 and HTC One X:
Round the sides, there's little to remark on: a volume rocker up
left, a power/standby button and headphone jack up top and the charging
port down below. We do have to give special mention to the rear panel
where you'll find the camera and LED flash. LG
has really done something special here and given it a brushed, hard
plastic feel which really does make it feel a premium device. It's
actually the same as the back found on the LG Prada 3 and that, combined with that metal trim, gives it a feeling of quality.
As
far as the screen goes, it's fairly good. Yes, the resolution is spot
on – it's a True HD-IPS LCD capacitive job. And yes, LG does make
amazing TVs so we expected something good. The resolution is 720x1280
(312ppi density) spread over a 4.7-inch screen. But there's a slight
problem with it. Recent
handsets have had the screens moved really high up against the glass
protecting them from the elements. So, on a handset like the Samsung
Galaxy S3, Sony Xperia S or HTC One X, you get a really vivid, sharp, almost-too-perfect display.
But
on the Optimus 4X HD, there is a huge gap between the screen and the
glass. So much so that we think we could see the gap when we held the
phone at an angle. And that means that some of the amazing clarity is
lost in the ether.
It also meant that occasionally, taps didn't
register and left us wondering if this was actually a resistive display
like those we used to use. Not so often it annoyed us, but often enough
to evoke a sigh and a grunt. We
also felt a little let down by the lack of a notification LED. They are
a bit marmite. But there is something handy about being able to glance
at your phone without touching it to see if anything needs your
attention.
Third party apps like NoLED are all well and good – but they're no substitute for the real thing.
