Saturday, Jan 15, 2011
Gulf News
Handset can last almost two days on a single charge thanks to a high-capacity battery
Dubai Don’t go looking for frills with LG’s latest Android phone, the P503 (Optimus One). It’s strictly for the cost-conscious buyer and does not hide the fact.
One of the best things is that it comes preloaded with the Froyo. Most Android phones on the market now ship with Android 2.1 (Eclair) and some high-end models have received firmware upgrades to the latest Android 2.2.
The phone feels solid, but pleasantly so, with a slightly rubbery snap-on back cover for a little extra grip. The edge of the phone features a pleasant metallic strip.
On this strip sits the volume toggle, which is a solid, metallic rocker; a 3.5-mm headphone jack and power button on the phone’s top; and a micro USB connector on the bottom.
Customisation
LG has done a bit of customisation to the Android interface. The face buttons are large and easy to get at.
LG has even cut out the icons and made them illuminate when pressed. The multi-touch enabled capacitive touchscreen is a big improvement over the earlier Optimus GT540 Android phone, which came with a resistive 3-inch HVGA display.
The 3-megapixel camera on the Optimus One has an auto-focus feature but not an LED for lighting up dark subjects. Photo quality is decent, good for casual snapshots for web use.
Optimus One is powered by a 600Mhz CPU. In addition, Android 2.2 supports Flash Player. But since Optimus One runs on slower processor, you need to download a third-party application to run the latest Flash files.
Optimus One lets you to just say your key words while touching the mic button on the screen to search information in a fast and easy way, by Voice Search. Voice commands can be used for searching the Internet and navigation.
What can be a minor annoyance is the small 3.2-inch screen size. While it helps make the unit more portable, the onscreen keyboard gets cramped which slows down the typing speed. Thus, you need to rotate the device in landscape mode whenever you want to use the keyboard at a comfortable pace.
Storage space
The device’s internal storage of about 150MB, 170MB internal storage, can be expanded up to 32GB using a microSD card.
It’s one of the fewer Android handsets that can last almost two days on a single charge, primarily is due to the high capacity 1500mAh battery.
Priced at Dh1,199, it is one of the better priced models in its category. Obviously there are faults, but at this price point, sacrifices are inevitable.
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Pros
n The user interface is as good
n Good battery life
n Low resolution (320x480 pixels)
n Reasonable price
n Bundled turn-by-turn GPS
Cons
n 3.2-inch display for web browsing just feels inadequate with a problematic pinch to zoom.
n The 600MHz chip is just not adequate for mobile Internet
n The accelerometre doesn’t work quite well in the messaging mode
n Low megapixel camera without flash
n VGA video capture
features
Pros
n The user interface is good?n Good battery life?n Reasonable price?n Bundled turn-by-turn GPS
Cons?n 3.2-inch display for web browsing just feels inadequate with a problematic pinch to zoom.?n The 600MHz chip is just not adequate for mobile internet?n The accelerometer doesn’t work quite well in the messaging mode?n Low megapixel camera without flash
— N.K.C.
Optimus One
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By Naushad K. Cherrayil?Staff Reporter
Gulf News 2011. All rights reserved.
