LG is now turning into a tough competitor in the mobile market. The company recently unveiled the new Optimus 4X HD in India, and we’ve got the review units with us now. With a overwhelming 720p HD display, an amazingly fast ROM and a neat and tidy design, the company is all set to take the mobile industry for a swirl.
Many people, including me, did not think until now that LG could make a pretty good device like this. A very well designed, light, and neat Android running device, with a powerful configuration. This does not mean that the device is perfect edge to edge, but still, this is just a clear sign that LG is taking their mobile market seriously. I spent about 20 full days with the device, and tried to use this as my primary device, and never thought I was missing something except for some features, which I’ll discuss in the upcoming paragraphs.
Before we jump into the review, let’s have a quick look at the configuration. The device comes with a GB of RAM running on a quad-core Tegra 3 processor with a HD display and 8 megapixel camera, all these tied up with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). And all these comes in a good price in the market.
The 4Cast User Voice:
Hardware:
The smartphone’s major selling point would be its display and its size. The device is 5.21-inches tall and 2.68-inches
wide with a brilliant display. And I did not feel any heaviness when holding it in hand. The sides are covered with a silver bezel, which feels good, but then, this is just as normal as any other bezel on a smartphone. The device did not feel bigger when held in hand, and the people who saw me carrying this device did not think that I’m holding a 5.2 x 2.6-inches device in hand. The hardware did not suck. I have used a lot of Android devices previously, and most of it was not upto the mark when compared to this Optimus 4X HD. The device performed really well with the software it came with. LG has definitely tweaked their ROM a lot to make it faster and work better with the configuration of the device.
The picture shows you the back panel of the device, and you’d have started thinking that the panel is not that rich when compared to other mobile devices. And yes, that’s true. That was the thought even I had initially, and I still wonder why LG decided to have such a finish for the device. But still, that did not bother me when using the device. We’ve always got these flashy cases to cover things up.
Now, let’s talk about the hardware that’s built into the device. The processor is the core for any smartphone that’s coming up these days, and the users have started to look at the numbers that are tagged to the device instead of just the make or the company from which they’re buying the device. Taking this seriously, LG has packed a powerful Quad-core processor into the device, which is in turn backed up by a 1GB RAM module. You could feel the speed of the processor when you start using this device.
The sides of the device are pretty good. The device has got an not-so-visible volume rocker on the left side. The back of the device has the NFC chip, kept embedded in the back panel with a cautionary message. The rear camera is placed towards the left of the device with a LED flash, which works pretty when during low-light situations.
The back also has a big LG logo embedded into it, and at the bottom left is the speaker, which I think has been placed at a wrong place. The audio is not clearly audible when you hold the device in hand, due to the speaker’s placement.
The top of the device has got a neat 3.5mm headphone jack and a power button. The micro USB port for both charging and data transfer is placed at the bottom of the device, all alone. On the front of the device, is a front facing camera, and the ear piece. And then comes the three capacitive buttons which does not get activated when the screen is unlocked. Interestingly, LG has given an option to configure the duration for the light to stay on. But I liked using these button, since they weren’t harsh on my fingers.
Overall, the device looks and feels sturdy. And the Gorilla glass saved me from scratches directly on the screen. We’ll look into some more features of the device now.
Display:
After the Retina display, this is probably the best display I’ve seen in the recent times. The text no the display are crisp and sharp, and you’ll want to keep looking at the display. The gorgeous 1280 x 720 IPS display is really brilliant, and the device’s large dimensions make the objects on the display gorgeous.
Compared to the HTC One X’s display, the device is much better. But then, there’s no anti-glare protection to the display, and you can imagine the number of fingerprints that the device’s glass display could accumulate when using the device. But still, its Gorilla display, so the user need not have to worry about the scratches that the dust may cause of the display, while wiping the device.
The device’s display provides a 180 degree viewing angle, which is good. But then, I still felt that Retina displays were not harsh on my eyes when the brightness is high, even though the display is 312 PPI IPS display. As I had mentioned earlier, LG’s display would be the major selling point for this device. Also, the company has got the PenTile display in place, which is the technology behind this gorgeous display.
But still, there’s a gap that exists between the display and the front casing, giving us an impression that the display is well behind the front panel, which most of the other cheap phones have. Overall, I would give it a Go for the HD IPS display in the Optimus 4X HD.
Camera:
The 4X HD comes with a 8-megapixel HD camera, but I never felt that the camera was a 8-megapixel camera. The camera outperformed in capturing vibrant colors and had HDR quality images, which gets pixelated when expanded to the max. For some reason, I thought the camera could have performed even better. The 1080p videos are great, but the quality did not really match the other competitors like HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S III. I think there’s some problem with processing thew dynamic range videos in the system. I also wish LG to improve their camera with a firmware update in the near future.
[royalslider id=”15″]The camera is being used not up to the power the processor and the GPU has. I agree, the processor, display, GPU are really great, and powerful. But the camera can be pushed up to use all these power to process the images. Interestingly, the camera app is fun. There are some realtime effects, that are power consuming. Overall, I would give the camera a 5 out of 10 in the rating scale.
Software and LG UI 3.0:
LG has heard all the customers complaints on this, I would say. The LG’s new UI 3.0 is just brilliant, and I personally loved working on it.
The LG’s UI 3.0 comes with some interesting transaction effects, and these obviously require a beefed up processor. If LG would want to demo their UI’s fluidity, this would be the device they should be using currently. The GPU of the device is definitely a plus point for this device.
I was there at the preview event for Optimus 4X HD, and I was like, “LG definitely has a good development team.”, after seeing the UI of the device. I hated the LG’s UI until the company released UI 3.0 a few months back, and the UI is definitely worth appreciating. Its not as fancy as the HTC’s Sense UI, but still, its decent, neat and works really great for their phones. The boot-screen now animates in a decent way with LG’s logo appearing after some visual effect of a ball.
The new UI brings in a lot of cool and quickly accessible features like Quick Memo, which lets you draw right there on the screen, no matter where you are. The Quick Memo was the much talked about feature during the launch event, and I pretty much liked it. The feature naturally sits on the Notification Center, but then, you can activate it by pressing both the buttons of the volume rocker which is present at the left side of the device.
LG has really worked on the icons this time. The Messages, Contacts, and some of the default apps now feature a new icon. Also, the icons of the applications are completely customizable. As in, you can set any photo from your library as a app icon with just a few taps.
Now, lets get into the lockscreen thing. LG is probably one of the few who has adopted a different style for unlocking the device. You will have to just slide your finger anywhere on the screen, when it is locked, and you’ll be able to peak into what’s there under the lockscreen. A nice circle would appear as you slide your finger anywhere on the screen, and there’s another circle which when touched while sliding gives a quick and small haptic feedback. I spent quite a bit of time playing around with this thing whenever I used to think of something while the device was in hand. This killed my boredom in most of the meetings.
Next up that’s worth talking about is the page transaction effects. I loved the Carousel and Flip effects, which are shown while navigating between the pages. There was zero lag even after enabling all these animations, but then, the battery drained off much more quicker than it could have performed. Indicating that the processor resource consumption has gone high.
Unlike most of the Android phones, I did not face any Force Quit situation or low memory situations during my review period (20 days and more). For the new LG UI 3.0 on the 4X HD, I would give it a 8 on 10.
Battery:
Well, this was one thing I was disappointed about. May be because I had all the transaction effects and other things like Push notifications enabled? I am still not sure. But the batter life was pretty poor for me. After about 3 days with this device, I immediately called up the LG people to know more about this issue, and I was told that the review units are just like that, and the final units that ships to the customers would have a better battery life.
The phone heats up while performing some processor intensive tasks. The heat was sometimes enormous, and I had to place the device in a cloth to cool it down. This might be because of the battery issue, but then, I will keep you posted about the happenings in the final version that ships to the customers. The heat is produced near the camera region, and you will be able to feel it (If this occues in the customer devices too) when you talk over the phone.
The devices’ 2150 mAh battery was pretty good for normal use. And I would rate it 7 out of 10.
Performance:
We’ve discussed a lot about the performance of the device, and the device feels like it has tightly been coupled with Android 4.0.3 and the LG UI 3.0, making the user feel the fluidity when working with the phone. The benchmark results were also pretty good when compared to the other devices of its category, and I would not complain anything about this devices’ performance capabilities.
Talking about the 3G performance, the device was able to pick up 3G speeds even when the signla bars showed just one single bar.
I would give the device a 9 of 10 for its performance.
Call Quality and Messaging:
The call quality was good and the voice was crisp during the tests. I did not find any dropped calls during the phones’ review period. Usually my iPhone drops the calls pretty frequently when I pass by some regions for no reason. But then, the Optimus 4X HD performed well in this, and I was pretty happy about it.
Messaging was also good, and if you’ve been an Android user, you’ll not feel any difference in the Messages app on this device. It comes with a normal SMS messaging app, with MMS and Email capabilities built into it.
Bottomline:
LG has come out with a really cool device, and this would stay on my recommendation list for those who do not want to go behind Samsung. The L-Style design has worked out for LG and I’m sure they’re going to be adopting the design in their future phones. The UI and the display would be the two things that would be the selling point for this device. With the power of Android, beauty of LG UI 3.0 and the device’s powerful processor, this would be the phone that could break them into the major mobile market competitors list.