LG’s newest flagship will be released in the Philippines in a couple
of weeks. It succeeds the Optimus 2X that took the multi-core record and
LG has come back for a repeat. Check out our full review of the LG Optimus 4X HD after the jump.
NVidia played a huge role in bumping up
the smartphone wars with its latest Tegra 3 chip. It’s the first one to
come out with a quad-core processor that a lot of handset manufacturers
were excited to use. Among them is LG and that’s what the Optimus 4X HD
is using.
Design and Construction
Aside from the size, the Optimus 4X HD has not really departed from
the same design signature that they used in the L-series as well as the
earlier LG Prada 3.0.
The handset looks squarish, a bit rigid but with a little accents of texture and simplicity.
There are two variants that’s coming out — a black one and a white
one with a thin silver lining around the side. The front panel is all
covered with a thick sheet of glass with the 3 soft buttons found at the
bottom end that shows up with the backlit on.
The top side houses the 3.5mm audio jac, the noise-canceling mic and
the power button. The left side is where the volume rocker is positioned
while the right side is completely bare. At the bottom end is the
microUSB port and the microphone.
At the back is the large 8MP rear camera with the single LED flash,
both of which are flushed all the way to the top left side. At the
bottom end is the speakers. The back cover has that hard leather-like
finish to it, much like the one we saw on the LG Prada 3.0.
The Optimus 4X actually looks really bare on the exterior but all
that twin strip of silver and the texture polycarbonate body makes it
feel somewhat sophisticated.
The handset is pretty thin though, measuring 132.4 x 68.1 x 8.9mm — it’s among the thinnest we’ve reviewed so far.
Display
The HD display of the Optimus 4X is certainly something to consider.
With a horizontal size of 4.7 inches and a resolution of 1280×800
pixels, the pixel density of 312ppi has given it that retina-display level of clarity.
The display is sharp and clear even if you crank it up to maximum brightness (which is good when watching videos and movies).
There’s the issue of glare, especially in outdoor scenarios but
that’s a problem all other handsets have faced. You can increase the
display brightness to maximum level to counter this but that’s at the
expense of battery life.
OS and UI
As an Android smartphone, we expected the Optimus 4X to offer all of
the basic features and functionalities of the OS. Of course, LG was free
to add its own touches here and there, and they actually did although
the customization are very subtle and kept it within hair’s length of
the stock ICS.
The Optimus UI 3.0 has greatly improved and we’ve seen it work in the L-series that we reviewed before (Optimus L3
and Optimus L7). The one of the Optimus 4X HD is more fluid and smooth.
We notice though that form time to time, hitting the App launcher
causes that hour-glass status to appear for a split second (giving us the impression that there’s lag however insignificant it is).
In some areas, the Optimus UI 3.0 looks simple yet elegant. However,
we find the execution of the icons and widgets needed little bit of
creativity.
The virtual keyboard is simple, easy to use and well-spaced apart (the landscape mode is much wider too).
LG also added a number of really useful apps they’ve made just for the Optimus 4X. One is the Remote Call Service
which allows an LG technical support to remotely access your phone,
diagnose and repair it (like Remote Desktop for the PC). Another is a
native Backup service and a Cell Broadcast service.
The Optimus UI has gone a long way and we’re kind of liking it already.
Multimedia and Camera
Audio quality is good but we weren’t really that impressed. The
speakers are the back sounds good but is not loud enough at times. We’d
suggest just using a headphone with when playing songs or watching
movies.
The camera app also looks basic but actually has a lot of features
and settings. There’s a nifty Time Machine Shot that captures 5 frames
and allows you to pick a frame to use. Image quality of the photos
doesn’t seem to be that good.
