Gadgetory

hi I'm Kent chairman senior managing editor cnet I'm here to talk about the LG optimus elite this is a new phone for sprint now you're probably saying yourself that you've seen a million Optimus phones and well you have actually that's not quite true it's more about a dozen or so but there have been quite a few of these phones of all sizes all shapes all capacities and feature sets the first is the LG optimus one which came out for Sprint is the LG optimus s quite a while ago but now we have the Optimus Elite now they elite in the name is a little interesting because there's really not a whole lot of the elite about it doesn't have that it's not like the 3d max we saw recently what has a three fancy 3d graphics it's not like did other Optimus phones we saw at mobile of Congress this is a pretty average android phone run gingerbread it runs on 3g it has an 800 megahertz processor what's more about this phone is just about functionality and it is about its eco-friendly design the phones made of recycled plus think it doesn't have anything harmful I know the boxes made of recycled material as well so I'm a pretty basic design very very very simple actually really straight lines just a couple curves here and there ok display not the greatest resolution does have 16 million colors has five home pages for your customization needs so you can pop in icons which it's whatever you like and down the bottom you see touch controls normal Android touch controls there's home there's back there's menu and their search up on the top there is a 3.5 mm headset jack there's a power control over here there's a volume rocker and on the bottom there's the micro USB ports you can use that for a charge or a sinking cable on the back of all the flash the lens for the 5 megapixel camera and a self-portrait mirror you don't see the mirror a lot these days so it's nice to see just helps with those manatee shuts take the back off and you will find the microSD slot you don't have to take the battery out too which is nice but you do have to take the battery cover off the battery cover is plastic which isn't the best but I'd like to text your material overall the phone weighs a little over 4 ounces so it does have a pretty solid feel on the hand as this is a touchscreen phone you'll have a virtual dial pad and a virtual keyboard virtual keyboard shows all the gingerbread enhancements does offer swipe as well so if you're into that you can use it features inside pretty standard 5 megapixel camera it's actually pretty nice it has quite a few options and it does have a photo quality it does have google wallet which is something I didn't expect especially on a phone of this caliber so that means you'll be able to use it if you can find any place that accepts Google Wallet of course but be able to use super payment so has NFC so you can use it for other tags as well so you know for movie posters or business cards or anything like that the phone does have visual voicemail so if you get a voicemail in it does transcribe it into text works pretty well it's not real stickler for punctuation so if your grammar not I wouldn't get too outraged about it but it is nice for drivers that you can just check your phone and see who call them what they say because of course if you don't have a headset you shouldn't be answering your phone in the car other features you have the standard Google applications that messaging and email you have Wi-Fi Bluetooth so you're pretty midrange feature set except for Google Wallet solid functional concentrating on communication a little play here and there though of course there's a music player does have some sprint apps fortunately you can remove a lot of them you can't remove the Sprint ID app which is annoying because I never a fan of that felt what feels a little like bloatware it makes lets you customize your phone so you'll have to ignore it if you can pricing is twenty nine dollars with a two-year contract and a mail-in rebate the phone also comes with virgin mobile where you're going to pay a bit more of course that is not without a contract I think that price is 149 as Optimus phones go pretty low into the pack has android phones go a little more mid-range but is a simple Android device performed well but just don't expect a lot from it i'm kent german and this is the LG optimus elite for sprint you