The LG Optimus One was launched to much fanfare back in September, with the South Korean gadget giant hosting a global press conference to show it off. We flagged up our reservations at the time given its low power innards, but now we can tell you whether it lives up to the hype or not. We’ve been toting the Android 2.2 phone around for the last week, so read on to find out what it’s really like to use in our LG Optimus One review.
We’re flat out confused by LG’s reticence at jumping onboard the Android bandwagon in the UK. While it’s perfectly happy to make powerful, slick looking handsets with 1GHz chips baked in for its native Korean market, all we’ve got over here so far are low end numbers. The LG GW620 had an excellent keyboard admittedly, but is almost a year old, while the more recent LG GT540 has an awful screen and is crippled by network bloatware.
The LG Optimus One marks the first time LG’s managed to release an Android phone with the latest build of Android on, and while it’s much more usable than previous models, it still fails excite us with so much competition. Let’s take a look.
Build
The build is solid, if a bit bland
While Apple and HTC strive to outdo each other in aluminium unibody sexiness, LG’s been plodding along cranking out perfectly usable, inoffensive, but unexciting designs, and the LG Optimus One doesn’t stray from this. Its smooth plastic faces remind us of a slightly upmarket LG Cookie Fresh with a metal band around it, but at least we can’t complain about the size: it’s sturdy and feels much thinner than its 13.3mm depth, and will nestle comfortably in your hands.
On the top of the LG Optimus One, you’ll find the prerequisite 3.5mm audio and power/screen lock button, while the right hand side sports volume keys. There’s no shutter button to launch the camera, but we do like the physical row of buttons below the screen which you’ll never have any problems firing. It’s a very inconspicuous phone, which may be a plus or minus in your books – it’s a red cross rather than a green tick in ours.
Screen
The 3.2-inch touchscreen on the LG Optimus One is a step forward for LG in that the company has finally switched to more responsive capacitive technology for registering prods. That means multitouch gestures now work, and we found pinch to zoom on web pages and Angry Birds worked efficiently. The screen viewing angles are excellent too and visibility outdoors isn’t a problem.
Yuck. If you're going to replace the stock Android keyboard, at least make a better one, LG.
But the LG Optimus One display’s resolution is a paltry 480×320, and by today’s standards looks a little grainy. LG’s awful keyboard only accentuates this. It’s not as bad as the HTC Wildfire‘s screen by any means, but we’d urge you to check out the screen for yourself before slapping down for this phone as you may or may not be able to see the difference. At this size, we’d prefer not to settle for anything less than 800×480 for lengthy eBook or even brief email reading.
Camera
The camera is very ungood.
The three megapixel camera with no flash on the LG Optimus One is atrocious, but we can’t say we expected any better. Check out the VGA video we shot below on a grey day in London last week: not only is it unbearably choppy, but there’s even some bizarre Dali-esque distortion as the buildings stretch. We thought we were in Inception for a second watching this back.
It’s a little bit disappointing after LG’s previous Android effort in the UK, the LG GW620, had a perfectly serviceable five megapixel sensor.
Android 2.2
The good news is that the LG Optimus One is running Android 2.2, the latest version of Google’s mobile OS, which means you can run lots of the latest apps which require it, like Chrome2Phone, make use of mobile WiFi hotspot support and set up a proper screen lock with a pin number. Power consumption is also at its most efficient in Android 2.2, and we never had a problem getting through a day at full tilt with WiFi and 3G blazing on the LG Optimus One, and two days of normal use.
LG has put the WiFi/Bluetooth/GPS/profiles toggles in the notification bar. We're big fans of this, Google.
Performance with the 600MHz processor is pretty zingy so long as you don’t do anything too taxing – the brilliant RockPlayer video app is all but unusable – but unfortunately, it’s not a dazzling interpretation of Froyo by any means.
Firstly, LG’s stripped also stripped a core feature out, which is a shame. Flash 10.1 video streaming isn’t included, presumably because the low power processor won’t handle it, which we suppose is understandable, though you’d think if the year old Motorola Milestone/Droid can handle Flash, this could.
Angry Birds works perfectly, and for some, that might be enough
Then there’s LG’s software skin draped over the top of Android. It’s fairly unobtrusive, with five homescreens, core apps locked to the dock at the bottom and connection toggles in the pull down notification tray. But the keyboard is worse than the native Android QWERTY: in portrait, it’s just 0-9, and in landscape it’s unresponsive. Considering the HTC Wildfire and HTC Legend have similarly sized screens and are comfortable to type on, we have to say LG’s dropped the ball big time on this front.
It’s also worth noting that Android 2.2 is about to be superseded any day now by Android 2.3 – don’t expect a rapid update when it hits. LG hasn’t bothered to update the LG GW620, which is stuck on lowly Android 1.5 almost a year after launch.
Verdict
The LG Optimus One doesn’t do a great deal wrong, bar the camera, but it also fails to stand out from the crowd. Sure, it’s one of the first cheapish phones to run Android 2.2, but what good is that when LG has scooped out some of the best features in it?
The LG Optimus One is on sale now for around £20 per month on contract, but there are just too many options at the same pricepoint to make it worth a look: if you want a pay as you go Android phone, the Orange San Francisco packs a better screen for much, much less, while the beautiful and much more high end HTC Legend lingers around the same mark as well on contract. LG, get back to the drawing board and come back when you’ve got a Samsung Galaxy S rival good to go.
