Gadgetory

LG isn't a company that's gotten or frankly earned much tension this year the attention it has gotten aside from the less than positive buzz surrounding the lg optimus View has been entirely focused on its flagship smartphone offering the Optimus G kind of like this one right here I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is our full review of the lg optimus G for AT&T let's get to it right out the gate let's note a couple variations between this unit and the global version of the Optimus G aside from the usual Radio changes to accommodate a TTS American GSM HSPA and LTE bands there's been a significant reduction in the cameras resolution from 13 megapixels in the global and sprint versions to 8 megapixels on our AT&T unit here more on that later there's also the usual carrier level customization to the software and the AT&T branding on the back which is stay with me here the most beautiful carrier branding I have ever seen I know that sounds a little like saying the most beautiful dead rodent stuck to my new cars bumper I've ever seen but it's true it's not silk screened or painted on but rather an embossed metal logo and it exists entirely beneath the Gorilla Glass 2 backplate the lens for that 8 megapixel camera and it's LED flash also reside beneath the back panel up here in the corner and the counterpoint is the speaker down here on the lower right which by the way puts out sound that is wimpy wimpy wimpy of course you can't expect much from any speakerphone shoehorned into an eight point four five millimeter device which we can see on the side here volume keys are here on the left as well as the tray for the microSD and sim card slots the power standbys and the thumb position on the right if you're right-handed and there's a bonus there's an LED notification light ringing the button and it illuminates on alerts it only lights up for a little while it only lights up red and you can't see it from all angles so it's not perfect but all the same we are very glad it's here up top and at the bottom the side construction changes from glossy pewter finish to stippled plastic end caps furnished with all the usual accoutrement EDD phone jack microphones and down here some screws that don't hurt the look at all finally up front here this display is a 4.7 inch 768 by 1280 true HD IPS plus display with a pixel density of 320 PPI it uses LG's new zero gap touch technology which in the words of LG has its sensor film printed directly on the cover glass beneath that display are three capacitive keys in this instance home back and menu arranged in the inverse of Samsung's latest favored implementation underneath all that is quite a significant powerplant the lg optimus G features the Qualcomm Snapdragon s4 pro which offers quad core processing power in addition to LTE compatibility first 480 that's running at 1.5 gigahertz and backed up by 2 gigs of RAM and 16 gigs of storage expandable to an additional 64 gigs of storage via microsd that's all powered by an embedded 2100 milliamp hour battery before we move into software though we need to talk about how this device feels in the hand in short like an expensive piece of jewelry now the Optimus G isn't the first phone to be made from all glass and it's certainly not the first one to have this kind of handling challenge it's just something to be aware of and if you value aesthetics the trade-off is well worth it LG is recalling its roots in beautiful hardware design with this smart phone it's a little wide for my taste but it's 145 grams feel incredible absolutely premium in the hand of course it's a fingerprint magnet but that's an alright sacrifice to make when your phone feels like a finely crafted Swiss watch or something seriously it feels like a luxury item it definitely surpassed my expectations that's all well and good but what about the softer side of the equation of course I'm talking about the software load that LG is to the Optimus G what are we looking at here like many manufacturers LG hasn't had the best record when it comes to updating its smartphone OS so users will want to be sure they're happy with what LG is shipping out of the box specifically that is Android 4.0.4 with the LG UI or if you prefer the Optimus UI running on top now this isn't one of the more subtle Android skins on the market we're talking something much more in line with what Samsung offers a complete re skinning and rethinking of Android it takes a lot of cues from Samsung's nature UX offering actually with the out of the box settings giving you a lock screen with ripple effects and floating leaves on water and drippy water sounds that sound like they've been ripped right from a Galaxy s3 our favorite mode here dewdrop expands a bubble across the lock screen when swiped exposing more and more of the underlying home screen until the phone just unlocks once you get into the UI itself the visual enhancements just keep on coming there are seven different home screen animations to choose from when swiping between panes and the software supports landscape homescreen right out of the box it's not all cosmetic enhancements LG has built some enhanced functionality here too like the shortcut toggles in the notification drawer some of it is lifted straight from Samsung like the Y's screen smart stay analog the picture-in-picture video player was pioneered by Samsung's Galaxy s3 but here LG uses a different implementation now whether it's better or worse than confining the video to a floating window is up to you but LG's version has a critical distinction it works with YouTube that's a win in anybody's book overall the software that LG is shipping with the Optimus G does almost as much as the hardware to surprise us in a good way it's stable it's fast and it's useful and that's a triumvirate that's surprisingly difficult to achieve so now that we know what the Optimus G is bringing to the table let's see how all those specs perform on the test bench and out in the fresh air from a fluidity and responsiveness standpoint the Optimus G is a speed demon the you I almost never bogs down or trips and most of the time it's hard to believe this thing isn't running jelly bean with its project butter enhancement even after a solid day of use with a lot of apps running that fluidity remains intact in a word it's awesome that speed translates to the network connection as well we tested the optimus G on AT&T LTE network here in Boston and data speeds were consistently excellent averaging between 15 and 20 megabits per second down and about half that speed up though as you can see it peaks in off-peak hours thankfully that 2,100 milliamp hour battery inside handles the load with a plum even with moderate to heavy use the device usually lasted me the whole day with more than 20% to spare the 8 megapixel camera does well especially considering its downgrade from the 13 megapixel version on the Sprint version and the global version there's still some noise in darker shots but HDR mode is there to compensate for that my favorite mode is the moment before capture mode which starts shooting several seconds before you hit the shutter button allowing you to capture moments that you might have missed otherwise and that's called time catch shot finally from an audio perspective voice calls still being in fashion on these devices we call smartphones the Optimus G shoots par voice calls sound fine from both ends and cellular reception keeps up with what we've come to expect from modern communication devices the speakerphone is definitely on the weak side though delivering audio that's tinnier and quieter than we've come to expect and whatever you do don't leave the phone on its back if you've set an alarm or you're expecting a call the speakers so muffled in this position that you'll never hear a Tring to be frank we weren't expecting to like the lg optimus G as much as we do sure it's packing an impressive first in its LTE meets quad-core powerhouse but LG has been a company all about doing something first for a while that's nothing new thing is usually they haven't been doing first - well we're happy to see that the optimus g doesn't fall into that rut it's a well-made spec packed feature heavy smartphone that looks beautiful feels great in the hand and puts its First's to good use it feels a little on the fragile side and it's mediocre audio performance leaves something to be desired but we'd be proud to carry one and we give it an 8 out of 10 folks that's gonna do it for our full video review of the lg optimus G for AT&T if you want to read our full text review please do so visit us at pocketnow.com that's also where you should leave a comment if you want it responded to we don't always get to all of them but we get to a lot more of them at pocketnow.com than we do here on YouTube however please do throw us a thumbs up here on YouTube if you liked what you saw follow us on Twitter the official account is PocketNow 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