LG Optimus Pro Review

Interface, Functionality and Software:

The Android 2.3 Gingerbread is overlayed with the Optimus UI of LG, which is basic, but functional. The nicest feature in it are the connectivity switches in the pull-down notification bar, which make turning the GPS or data radio a breeze.


Because of the physical keyboard you gain the whole screen while typing in portrait mode, which is very handy when updating your Facebook status, sending messages or browsing. The interface rotates in landscape mode, which evokes the virtual keyboard when needed, and is more suitable for watching movies, for example.

The main menu is scrollable downwards by default, instead of sideways in pages, but you can quickly change it to the other layout with a couple of different pages via the context menu.


The 800MHz processor is aided by only 256MB of RAM, which sometimes makes the LG Optimus Pro choke when too many apps are taking their toll at once. Likewise, the interface is not the best example of smooth sailing, but is not annoyingly slow either.


Browser and Connectivity:

The Gingerbread browser on the LG Optimus Pro is not a speed demon, but does job - the low resolution, however, doesn’t make it look pretty at the least. Panning around doesn’t work while zooming with a pinch in or out, and text reflow requires double-tapping first. The Qualcomm chipset, which powers the Optimus Pro, doesn’t support Adobe Flash..


The phone sports basic 3.6Mbps 3G connectivity radio, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS, FM Radio and… that’s about it. The basics are covered, but don’t expect anything out of the ordinary. .


Camera:

The LG Optimus Pro camera interface is just a step above the stock Gingerbread camera UI, and there are no preset scene modes to choose from here, just a few basic effects to spice things up if desired.

The pictures resulting from the 3MP shooter are pretty bad – murky, lacking focus and detail, and with inaccurate color representation. High-contrast areas are a a challenge resulting in underexposed regions.

Video capture is done at 640x480 VGA resolution with 24fps – a number that the phone managed to hit outside, but the clip still appeared choppy, and exhibits soft murky imagery with lack of detail, bordering on ugly.

LG Optimus Pro Sample Video:




Multimedia:

The music player is basic as well, without any bells and whistles like equalizer presets or embedded song recognition. LG Optimus Pro’s loudspeaker is of average quality with fairly clear sound, but the volume is not strong enough.

Video playback is one of the positives, since the DivX/Xvid codecs are hardwired in the chipset, and it ran our MPEG-4/DivX/Xvid samples up to 720x480 resolutions without a hiccup.