LG Optimus Sol Review

Interface:

LG's Optimus UI installed on top of Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread is what runs on the Optimus Sol, but it has a twist added to it. The Dark UI theme that the interface is tweaked with is designed to use as little white light as possible in order to minimize the power drawn by the phone's display. However, the changes are minimal, so the battery life gain is probably not that significant. Other than that, the Optimus UI has remained pretty much intact – simple, yet functional. You get seven home screens that you can customize to your taste with shortcuts or widgets. Should you like to do so, you can change which one of them gets brought up when the “home” key is pressed.


Running the whole show is a 1GHz MSM8255 chipset by Qualcomm, which features the Adreno 205 GPU. You also get 512 megabytes of RAM, which is a fair amount for a mid-range device. And the experience is pretty smooth for the most part, with only an occasional hiccup every once in a while. Navigation is fluid and responsive even when a live wallpaper is beautifying your home screen.

Typing on the phone's on-screen keyboard does take some getting used to as the display seems somewhat narrow at first, or at least when in portrait mode, but it doesn't take long before you get the hang of it. When it is in landscape mode, typing on the virtual keyboard is a piece of cake as it is well-spaced and sufficiently responsive.



Software:

With the exception of a file browser, you get all the essential software bits pre-installed on the LG Optimus Sol, but then again there is nothing spectacular in the list. Facebook and Twitter clients, an applications manager, an app for taking notes, and Polaris Office come out of the box, as well as apps that let you use the phone's Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA functionalities. However, there is one app that we find to be a really nice treat, courtesy of LG – its very own RemoteCall application. It lets you connect to an LG representative for remote assistance should you be experiencing technical bumps with your smartphone.


Internet browser:

The smartphone's built-in internet browser looks promising on paper – it comes with Adobe Flash support, text reflow, and a neat menu for switching between opened tabs. However, it is plagued by one major problem, namely that having the Adobe Flash plug-in on makes the browser choppy and unresponsive, not to mention that Flash animations glitch-up and overlap the browser menu bar. For a smooth web browsing experience, we would definitely recommend having Adobe Flash turned on only when needed.



Connectivity:

No connectivity feature that you are likely to ever need is absent on the LG Optimus Sol. You get a 7.2Mbps 3G radio, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n with support for Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA, and Bluetooth 3.0. Besides, the GPS module takes only 30 seconds to pick up your location from a cold start, and only about a second or two after that.


Camera:

On the back of the LG Optimus Sol we find a pretty average, 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus. Its interface offers a handful of shooting scenes, face detection, and the ability to take panorama photos, which is enough to satisfy the needs of the casual photographer. Unfortunately, the camera has no flash, so forget about taking any party shots in the disco with the Sol.


We took our sample shots on a cloudy day and we can say that the exposure level and color reproduction are both pretty accurate, although colors tend to lean a bit towards the warm side. There is a noticeable lack of detail, however, so the photos would be usable only in small size, for posting on social networks or for making small prints. Things turn even worse when shooting indoors, as the plentiful amount of digital noise gets blurred by a heavy anti-noise algorithm, thus killing all fine detail. Still, as long as there is enough light around, photos look acceptable.

In terms of video, the LG Optimus Sol is capable of capturing 720p footage, but its quality is below par. Details in the video are noticeably missing, and the microphone is not capable of recording voices clearly. Surprisingly, the video camera supports continuous auto-focus, and we have to admit that it is very responsive.

LG Optimus Sol Sample Video:



LG Optimus Sol Indoor Sample Video:




Multimedia:

It may be rather basic, but the audio player that the Optimus Sol comes with gets the job done. It can list your tunes by artist, album or by song name, and a set of media controls are always easily accessible through the Android drop-down notification bar. When it comes to playing back flicks, the built-in video player handles MPEG4 and DivX/Xvid videos of resolutions up to 720p HD. Thanks to the Ultra AMOLED display, watching videos on the Optimus Sol is a fun experience.