LG recently unveiled their new Optimus series devices in India, and we already got our hands-on with it. Today, we’ll have a look at the LG Optimus L5, a low-end device in the Optimus series of smartphones that came out with Ice Cream Sandwich stuffed in it.
As with all other Optimus series devices from LG, the L5 also adopts the L-Style design, making it look edgy and also, sturdy when held in hand. Let’s jump right into the review now, and explore what the device has got and what it could have had in it.
Design:
The LG Optimus L5 comes with the same L-Style design that LG has adopted for all of its other Optimus series devices, and looks like LG is betting big on this design. And it doesn’t look bad as well. The L5 has got edges that does not feel hard when held in hand, and also sports a rough back, giving you the maximum grip on the device.
Just like any other L-Style device from LG, the L5 also adopts a floating mass technology, which does not weigh heavy when held in hand. I give this a plus for LG for adopting such a brilliant weight reduction system. There’s a meta side, which ties the display and the back panel together, just like how the Optimus 4X HD was.
The front panel is pretty neat, with three buttons of which two are capacitive touch buttons and the home button is a physical one. The home button is very crisp and does not feel hard in the finger.
The sides of the device are also neat, with the metal strip binding the display and the back panel. Onto the left is the volume rocker and the top of the device has the regular headphone jack and the On/Off switch. The bottom of the device is equipped with the micro-USB connector, which acts as the charger, as well as the data transfer port.
The back panel is very sturdy and very light. This is one of the few devices that feels like there’s no battery in them when held in hand. The grip of the device is also really good, and it never felt hard in my hand even after prolonged usage.
Display:
This is probably the thumbs down part of the phone. While the users are used to the high-res displays in almost all the smartphones, the L5 comes with a normal display, which does not look rich. We did not get any concrete reason from the company for porting such a poor display onto this device, but then, for this price tag, the display should be fine with many people who’d opt for this device for many other plus points.
The display is a 4-inch display, just like the iPhone 5’s display. But then the resolution to support such a big display is not yet there. LG has given just 320 x 480 pixels resolution for this tall display, which feels quite bad.
Hardware:
The L5 is powered by a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich. LG has made a lot of really good improvements to their Optimus 3.0 UI, which has been cooked on top of ICS. The OS is pretty fast, and it performs for the processor it has got. With 512MB RAM, the device can power up apps quickly, and also, does not suck up so much battery.
But to our surprise, the processor is under-clocked. Meaning, it performed only unto 800Mhz eating up the 224Mhz to nowhere. There’s no reason for the company to under-clock this processor, but then, this is what they’re giving the users. I tested out some games on the device. One was the Angry Birds, and the other is Temple Run. Both the games were really sluggish due to the under-clocked processor. I wish LG reverts this with a software update.
The speaker quality is good. I somehow felt that the speaker was much powerful than the one which was in LG Optimus 4X HD. Even though the speakers are placed at an odd position, the sound quality was definitely good.
Camera:
Interestingly, L5 has got almost all the camera features (In terms of the software) that the latest iOS 6 has. The 5 megapixel camera with LED flash is capable of taking continuous shots, Panorama shots and normal shots. These are the three options that the comes with the stock Camera app, and I think this is a decent camera app.
There was a bit of lag after shooting a photo or video. The daylight shots are really good, and makes use of the power of 5 megapixel camera. The lowlight shots were pretty OK, and with the LED flash, it performed pretty well. There were some visible noise in the lowlight photographs, but still, that should be fine.
The L5 does not come with any dedicated camera button. With the help of the shortcuts from the lock screen, the camera app can be opened pretty quickly, and doesn’t make you feel like you are missing a dedicated hardware button.
But the major downside of the camera is the video recording. The video camera is capable of only VGA recording and I think this is a major downside for any smartphone that’s coming out in the market today. I remember VGA cameras when I got my WebCam about a decade ago. By the way, the device also lacks a front facing camera.
Software & UI:
I reviewed the LG Optimus 4X HD recently, and walked you through the Optimus UI 3.0. The Optimus UI 3.0 is one of the most intuitive Android UIs I’ve seen so far. I’m sure people would fall in love with the UI once they open up the device and use it regularly. The UI has been tailored, and LG has definitely put in a lot of effort in cooking such a UI, hinting about the future of Android on LG devices.
The Music Player is pretty straight forward, with controls that can be placed on the home screen. But I was finding it difficult to come out of an album and skip to next. I would have to press the menu button, and exit the playlist or album in which I’m in, which would lead me to all my songs. This sucked up a lot of my concentration when I had to change the songs while waiting in traffic signals.
The Buletooth streaming was also good. I regularly use my devices to stream audio and video onto my car’s stereo systems. My iOS devices’ audio quality exceeded when compared to the LG devices. Or intact any Android device. I’m not really sure if the audio quality was taking a hit only on the LG devices though. But still, it worked as expected.
There were also some bugs which I found while changing tracks with Voice Navigation switched on. You press the Next or Previous button on the Stereo, and it does not change the tracks, but fast forwards the track that’s currently playing.
I really loved the Media Home feature in the Optimus UI. It acted as a repository for all my media files, which is really good. The video quality was good, but it took some time to open HD videos due to the under-clocked processor.
One another feature that’s worth mentioning is the Quickmemo. It is a very powerful feature that not many of the users would know right away. The Quickmemo sits on the Notifications screen by default. You can scribble, let your child play with Quickmemo switched on.
Polaris Office suite is also installed by default, allowing you to view or edit word and spreadsheet documents on the move. This is not all. The LG Mobile TV service, which gives users access to some TV channels on the move. Of course, it requires an active data connection.
LG has designed an app called the RemoteCall Service app, which would allow the LG representatives to login into your mobile remotely to solve any technical issue you have. I think this is a brilliant move by LG, and I’m not sure if this would raise some privacy concerns with the users.
Battery:
The device held the battery tight for a day. May be this is the reason LG has under-clocked the devices’ processor. The battery performed better when compared to the LG Optimus 4X HD. For normal use, the batter lasted for about 8 hours on a regular day with sharing, tweeting and some hours of the device which is connected to WiFi.
Bottomline:
Overall, I give this device a plus for the weight, the cost, the UI and the stock apps that comes with the device. But there were some negative points that I think LG should’ve corrected. The camera’s VGA only video recording is a major drawback. Otherwise, I would recommend this device for those who are looking for a cheaper Android device, with a reasonable price tag.