The LG Optimus G handset was announced on October 3 with a planned release date of November 11, and finally arrived on the Sprint 4G LTE system in the United States. Providing the Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 operating system out-of-the-box, with plans to upgrade to Jelly Bean 4.1 in the coming months, the handset is sleek and black, offering a stark departure from the typical Android smartphone. The handset also offers Google services like Chrome, Car Home, Gmail, Maps with Navigation, Search, Shopper, and YouTube out-of-the-box.
Optional Power Saver and Eco Mode features help conserve battery life, and the QuickMemo application lets you use a stylus to make notes or draw on the handset’s screen. The LG Optimus G also acts as a video and snapshot editor with its Video Wiz application. And the handset’s QSlide function allows you to read your e-mail, surf the web or write text messages while watching a video or movie. Not as wide or as big as the Galaxy S III but still delivering a large 4.70 inch screen, the LG Optimus G measures 5.19 x 2.71 x 0.33 inches (131.9 x 68.9 x 8.45 mm), and tips the scales at 5.11 ounces (145 g).
That large 4.70 inch screen delivers a resolution of 1,280 x 760 pixels, offered at 318 pixels per inch. This is the first phone from LG to use Zerogap Touch technology in a smartphone display, which eliminates the layer of air that usually exists between a smartphone’s LCD panel and glass. This provides truer colors and better viewing at extreme angles, and in direct sunlight. The IPS LCD screen displays more than 16 million different colors, and standard light and proximity sensors are on board. A second generation layer of Corning Gorilla Glass provides scratch resistance on the LG Optimus G 4G.
With a single charge talk time of 13.0 hours, the 2,100 mA battery delivers better than average 4G smartphone performance. And the LG Optimus G also delivers twice the normal amount of RAM memory of the typical 4G phone, at 2.0 GB. A full 32 GB of storage are built into the handset, the best offered by any smartphone, and the hardware package is centered around a quad core 1.5 GHz Krait central processor. The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 also includes an Adreno 320 graphics processor, and the handset offers NFC (Near Field Communications) wireless connectivity options out-of-the-box.
Dolby Mobile sound enhancement is built into the onboard music player, and at 13.0 megapixels, the rear camcorder delivers one of the highest megapixel counts of any smartphone. That rear facing camera delivers voice activation, exposure compensation, ISO control, a panorama mode and special effects package, recording video in 1,080P HD resolution. It is joined in the camera combo by a front facing chat cam, which can be used for capturing portrait snapshots as well as placing video calls.
