LG Optimus 4X HD hands-on (video)
The quad-cores have arrived and the first out of the blocks is LG's sequel to its dual-core Optimus 2X. The Korean phone maker has apparently recruited its "best engineers "on this wafer-thin slab of power and it shows; the phone is light and slim. It's taken a detour from the Prada Phone stylings we've seen on the Optimus Vu and L-series, but looks noticeably more mature than last year's efforts and Android's Ice Cream Sandwich is in attendance -- with some tweaks. Our video hands-on and impressions are waiting after the break. Until then, take a 360-degree tour of the device at our gallery below.
Our eyes were drawn to the HD IPS display(1280x720) found here; impressive viewing angles are coupled with vibrant colors and brightness. It may well be a pentile display beater, but we'll have to see whether it can take the crown away from Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus variant over more extended use before we call that fight. The quad-core chip here is NVIDIA's Tegra 3, with the same FOUR-PLUS-ONE core confusion arrangement offering a low-power option to eke out the battery-life. An LG spokesperson was very eager to show off the 2,140mAh battery. The thing is; it's exactly the same size as the dinkier 1,500mAh power pack found on the Optimus 2X. We're reserving our judgement on battery life for when we can do some real-world testing, but we're certainly not going to resist a bigger battery.
That quad-core processor was also put to good use with some new video playback bells and whistles. Alongside some high (and low) speed playback options, you can actually use pinch to zoom functions typically reserved for stills. Given that the phone records at 1080p, the quality of close-up footage remains pretty good. Web browsing was unsurprisingly lightning-quick, presumably courtesy of that processing power and while Ice Cream Sandwich looked (on the surface) to be a loose re-skin of stock Android 4.0, LG's interpretation often left us confused. From the homescreen, the far right of the three capacitive buttons -- which acts as the multitasker on the Galaxy Nexus -- takes up a settings role, offering up wallpaper and app options. We had to hold onto the home button to arrive at the task manager. An eight-megapixel camera stares out from the back of the device, packing those aforementioned full HD video talents, while a 1.3-megapixel front-facer will be watching your every swipe of that HD IPS screen. For photography fans, unfortunately, there's no two-stage camera button. In fact there's not a single camera button.
LG's stepped up to the powerhouse smartphone game again and it looks like they may have a better grasp on what we're looking for in a top-end Android phone. Hopefully it'll be able to compare favorably against other processor-packed devices -- because it looks like there's going to be competition for the quad-core crown.
