LG Optimus Elite hands-on

Chiming in at the same time as Sprint’s other upcoming eco-friendly Android smartphone, the LG Optimus Elite is set to bring happiness to budget conscious individuals starting this coming Earth Day, April 22nd. At Pepcom’s EcoFocus event held in the Big Apple yesterday night, we managed to get a quick sneak peek at this $29.99 on-contract device headed for Sprint, which will also be made available as a prepaid option courtesy of Virgin Mobile.

Taking into consideration the eco-friendly initiatives of the LG Optimus Elite, like how it’s constructed out of some recycled plastics, it’s hardly the most chic looking thing our eyes have feasted upon. Aside from the pristine white paint job it’s donning, there’s nothing particularly alluring about this entry-level smartphone. Sure, it’s light weight and hardly noticeable in the hand, but the plastics tend to come off as cheap feeling – albeit, at least there’s the satisfaction of knowing you’ll be saving the planet with it.




Up front and center, the Optimus Elite’s 3.5” HVGA (320 x 480) touchscreen is passable for most things, like making out small text, but it’s quite obvious that individual pixels stand out. Additionally, its color reproduction is rather tepid in tone, and more importantly, fails to capture the glint in our eyes – even more when it doesn’t sport the best viewing angles too. Meanwhile, its 800MHz single-core processor hums decently with most basic tasks, but we can’t even fathom how it’ll perform under pressure with processor intensive stuff. Nevertheless, it’s running Android 2.3 Gingerbread with Sprint’s ID pack on top of it – so yeah, it’s anyone’s guess when it’ll be upgraded.



As for the rest, it features a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, microSD card slot, 1,520 mAh battery, Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, aGPS, and 512MB of RAM. Indeed, this isn’t the handset that’ll cause people to be filled with eagerness, but for those who want to live up to their beliefs about saving the planet, this is undoubtedly the thing you ought to pick up – especially when it’s priced easy on the pockets for $30 on-contract.