Friday, 2 August 2013
So Here's Another Huge Smartphone (or phablet) In The Market By LG
LG seems to following Samsung's footsteps as the new phone LG Optimus G Pro
Looks Much Like Samsungs Galaxy Note Series Phablets
What Is It?
It's a bigass phone made by LG to compete with Samsung's bigass phone, the Galaxy Note II.
It has a 5.5-inch 1080p HD screen, it's running Android 4.1 (Jelly
Bean), and it has Qualcomm's screaming fast quad-core Snapdragon 600
processor clocked at 1.7GHz.
Who's It For?
People
who want a lot of screen real-estate. People with big hands, or people
with small hands who don't mind using two hands on their phones.
Design
It
is, frankly, so much like Samsung's Note II that the two could play a
Freaky Friday-style prank on their owners.. It's got Samsung's classic
rounded, glossy, plastic back. Up front there's a home button that you
physically press down, which is flanked by a menu button and a back
button. There is a very thin bezel up front, which is a nice look. The
biggest difference between it and the Note II is the lack of a built-in
stylus. (Above, from left to right: Galaxy Note II, Optimus G Pro, and the Galaxy S4.)
Using It
While the
phone is decidedly quick, there's just no getting around how unwieldy it
is. One-handing it is a difficult proposition. I have
larger-than-average hands, and it's a real strain to get into a position
where my thumb can reach both the top and bottom of the screen. It was
possible for me, but just barely. It also feels extremely prominent in
your pants pocket. Every time I bent down to tie my shoes I was
wondering if the screen or my pocket would break.
To be fair
to the the Optimus G Pro, these issues aren't unique to this phone. It's
a big-phone problem, and one that hasn't stopped people from buying the
Galaxy Note or Note II.
The Best Part
It is very, very fast. Right up there with the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4. It flies though home screens, app drawers, and opening applications. HD games (such as Dead Trigger) play like butter. It actually feels a little faster than the S4, and just slightly slower than the One.
Tragic Flaw
Good
God, LG really needs to smarten up its software or (more preferably)
just give up and let Android do its thing. LG's skin is exceptionally
unintuitive and bad. Example: The app drawer is just a clutter mass of
apps without any order by default. Luckily, you can choose to sort them
alphabetically. Unluckily, any new apps you install still get stuck at
the back, regardless of alphabetical order. This is dumb. The menu
system's layout is perplexing, and the remote control app (it has an IR
blaster) is about as good as the app on the HTC One or S4, which is to
say, not good.
There's
a whole quick menu in the notification panel (boosted from Samsung),
quick apps which can hover over your other apps (boosted from Samsung),
and even an option that can tell when you're looking at it so the screen
stays on (again, boosted from Samsung). What it can't do is something
simple like auto-adjust your screen's brightness to the ambient
lighting. The option is there, it just doesn't work. At all. The Optimus
G Pro's keyboard has the worst auto-correct on any mobile device I've
ever used. The one positive is that LG's bad software somehow manages
not to slow the phone down at all (can't say the same for Samsung's
TouchWiz), but it's still awful. Replacing the homescreen with Nova
Launcher and replacing the keyboard with SwiftKey 4 solves some, but not
all, of these problems.
This Is Weird...
The
phone has a physical button on the upper left side called the
QuickButton. By default it's set to take a screen cap of whatever is on
screen so you can then draw notes on it with your finger. Pretty much
useless. Luckily, you can remap it in the settings so it opens up your
camera application, and while it will work as a shutter button,
technically, it doesn't have a two-stage press to it, so it doesn't work
very well.
Test Notes
- We tested the Optimus G Pro on AT&T's LTE network in Mumbai and Pune, and in both locations it got better than average reception, and solid data speeds when it was on the LTE network. We got 25Mbps downloads and 15Mbps uploads when we had a strong signal.
- The screen is very nice. Text looks great on it, as do videos. It's not as good as the screen on the One or the S4, but it's certainly better than the screen on the Note II, which isn't a surprise given that it's 1080p vs 720p, both at 5.5 inches.
- Despite the king-sized 3140mAh battery, the phone's battery life is fairly middle-of-the-road. That screen sucks up a lot of juice. On days of heavier use, I'd only make it to about 6pm. When I used it less, it'd go well past midnight. Your mileage may vary.
- Despite the 13MP camera in tow, photos are just okay. Shots are reasonably sharp, but colors tend to be washed out, and it really struggles with contrast. It does a better job in low light than the Galaxy S4, but it doesn't come anywhere near the HTC One or Nokia Lumia 920
Should I Buy It?
If
you're absolutely sold on owning a phone this big, well, it's the best
giant phone presently out there. That said, Samsung is bound to release a
Galaxy Note III in the months to come, and HTC is rumored to be
unveiling a big one, too, so if you can wait, do. Or just get an HTC One
or a Galaxy S4. Their screens aren't that much smaller and both phones
are infinitely more useable because of simple ergonomics. We'd
definitely recommend either of those phones (and the Nexus 4, and the
iPhone 5) over the Optimus G Pro. That said, if you want something with
size and speed and you want it right now, have at it. [LG]
-
LG Optimus G Pro Specs
• Network: AT&T
• OS: Android 4.1 with LG's skin
• CPU: 1.7 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600
• Screen: 5.5-inch 1920x1080 IPS LCD (401PPI)
• RAM: 2GB
• Storage: 32GB + micro SD up to 64GB
• Camera: 13MP rear / 2MP front
• Battery: 3149 mAh
• Dimensions: 5.91 x 3.00 x 0.37 inches
• Weight: 5.64 ounces
• Price: Starts at 34199 r.s.
WAPWING.wordpress.com