LG Optimus GT540 Review

Introduction:

LG has been relatively quiet on the Android market. We have already reviewed its first device with Google's mobile OS, the GW620, and were left with rather mixed feelings. The LG Optimus GT540 is the second smartphone with the platform by the manufacturer, and it comes in a quite futuristic form, kind of reminding us of the Batmobile. However, functionality and experience quality often come first in the users' wish lists. Get ready to see if the Optimus GT540 will ultimately rise victorious like a true Optimus Prime, or will eventually fall in the battle for the love of customers.

Design:

There's no doubt that the LG Optimus GT540 has some distinct Transformers-like looks, due to the specific curves of the top and bottom. The handset is by no means among the smallest ones, but feels very natural in the hand. It can be easily operated with one hand only, similarly to most of the Android phones of this caliber.

The LG Optimus GT540 is made of plastic, textured like brushed metal. It feels fine in the hand, and due to the phone's weight and solidness, doesn't feel cheap.



You can compare the LG Optimus GT540 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

LG is really walking a knife edge with these resistive touchscreens it places in its smartphones. First the GW620, now the Optimus. The 3" panel in the GT540 is definitely one of the better resistive screens we have used, but the experience can by no means be compared to that of the increasingly popular capacitive displays. Anyway, at least the image quality is very good, not only because of the utilized HVGA resolution, which works great on that screen size, but also thanks to the very rich and saturated colors. We even wondered if it is not AMOLED at one point, but once we looked at it from an angle, we realized we were dreaming.

The South Korean manufacturer has utilized both touch-sensitive and physical keys for the control scheme of the LG Optimus GT540. Right below the display you have resistive menu and back keys, while below them are situated the physical send, home and end buttons. Thankfully, they are all nice and easy to use. The same goes for the search key and camera shutter on the lower right, but the volume rocker, which is situated on the left is just a bit on the harder-to-press side. That is in case you don't use your fingernails to press it. The back only has the 3MP autofocus camera with no flash.

Interface:

Even though the LG Optimus GT540 has Android 1.6 Donut, we immediately noticed that it runs incredibly fast. There's absolutely no lag while navigating around the interface or using different applications. We wanted to see how far it can go, and installed Raging Thunder II (Lite version, of course, we ain't giving money for games, we are serious businessmen). As you know, the game is quite heavy and manages to render difficulty to even some higher-end Android 2.1 phones like the HTC Legend. Surprisingly, the LG Optimus GT540 proved to be much more of a device for the power user in this respect and ran the game perfectly smooth. The specific curves of the top and bottom sides also made the phone feel very comfortable while holding it in landscape mode.

LG has added its own home screen to the software, which is actually not very different from the standard one. You have the option of choosing the number of home screen pages, as it can be between 3 and 7. You can also create categories in the main menu, so as to put some order there.



As it has become popular these days, the LG Optimus GT540 is a phone that can provide you with access to social networks. The SNS app serves as a hub that includes some nice apps for access to Facebook, Twitter and Bebo. These can also be integrated with your phonebook, in case you want to see updates and information from your online friends there.



Messaging and Connectivity:

We are completely satisfied with the email application on the LG Optimus GT540, since we encountered no issues whatsoever setting up our personal account, send/receive emails and work with attachments. Pretty smooth experience overall.

In addition, the Optimus comes with Gmail, as well as Google Talk and the standard messaging apps, which all work very nice. As you'd expect, the landscape on-screen QWERTY keyboard of the LG Optimus GT540 is not the most spacious one, considering the relatively modest 3-inch screen. It is still usable though, mostly because of the utilized resistive touch screen technology, which allows you to use your fingernails in order to press.




The LG Optimus is 3G-capable, supporting HSDPA 7.2 Mbit/s, but it also packs Wi-Fi for those cases when a hotspot is available. That said, the browser you'll find on the phone is pretty similar to the standard one for Android 1.6, but LG has not missed the occasion to add a few touches. Basically, the manufacturer has incorporated an expandable field on the right, which provides you with options to refresh the page, go back and forth, add a bookmark, open a new tab and access the settings. We were a bit disappointed to find out that this is all the personalization LG has done, because it means you still have to rely on those annoying magnifying glass icons in order to zoom in/out. Neither double-tap, nor one-touch zooming is available. Downloading the Dolphin Browser from Android Market will not help, as the Optimus has a resistive screen with no multi-touch support, and Dolphin's solution for one-handed zooming is just as lame. Other than that, the LG Optimus once again demonstrates its prominent performance as pages load relatively fast and scrolling is very smooth.



GPS:

The mapping software that comes preloaded on the phone is Google Maps without Navigation, as the LG Optimus GT540 runs Android 1.6. First we had to face a small problem with the app - it wouldn't load any maps, until we came up with the ingenious idea of restarting the phone. Once we got that working, we had to wait for just a few minutes until we got our location fixed, while activating A-GPS made things work immediately.

Camera:

LG has customized the interface of the camera, giving you quite a few options to mess around with, including focusing modes, brightness and contrast, white balance, shooting modes (like Beauty shot and Panorama), ISO, scenes and so on.



Image quality with the 3MP autofocus camera of the LG Optimus GT540 is bearable in case you take photos mainly on the outside. Such shots have nice sharpness to them, providing some decent details. Meanwhile, colors are relatively well saturated and correctly reproduced. Brightly lit areas have a tendency to get overexposed, but this won't be that much of a problem when it's not a super-sunny day.


Moving indoors produces somewhat blurry and noisy photos. On the whole, we are disappointed with the indoor image quality. Moreover, the Optimus lacks a flash, which limits the possible usage scenarios to an extent.


You can use the cam of the LG Optimus GT540 to record VGA resolution videos, which is okay, but they are also captured at mediocre 17 frames per second, which is not really okay. Moving the camera around will cause quite a lot of distortion, so you'll have to hold the Optimus as steady as possible.

LG Optimus GT540 sample video at 640x480 pixels resolution.

Multimedia:

The LG Optimus GT540 is a strange concept when it comes to its multimedia playback capabilities. You can flawlessly play Xvid files with resolution of up to 640x360 pixels, and you can even go beyond that resolution, but the performance will be getting worse with each additional pixel.

Now for the surprise: you cannot play MPEG-4, DivX or H.264 videos on the Optimus. At least we couldn't run our tests files, which have always worked on other Android devices (we mean, the MPEG-4 ones). So there you have it - a nice Xvid-capable Android smartphone, crippled by its inability to play other popular codecs.




Unfortunately, we couldn't test the headset that's going to come in the box of the LG Optimus GT540. However, we tried playing some tunes through the loudspeaker and it proved to be an average performer. Its loudness can get decently high, but it may as well introduce you to some crackling, especially on some heavier songs. Lowering the volume just a bit takes care of that problem and leaves you with a normally powerful speaker.

Performance and Conclusion:

Transferring your voice over the wireless network with the LG Optimus GT540 is really a pleasant experience. The Optimus' earpiece sounds perfectly fine, with voices being quite audible, but on the other side things are even better, with even higher loudness and easier to comprehend voices. Calling is near perfect on the LG Optimus GT540.

The 1500mAh battery powering the LG Optimus manages to provide some serious standby time - about 21 days, while talk time is rated at 5.5 hours. A pretty satisfying performance on the overall, at least for today's smartphone standards.

Concluding whether a phone is a decent investment is (almost) always a difficult task. Of course, it all depends on the user's preference - whether or not they like the design, whether or not they need certain features, or would sacrifice them for others... it's obvious that there isn't a perfect phone. So, is the LG Optimus GT540 a good investment according to us? Yep, it is. That's purely one of the fastest mainstream Android smartphones we have ever seen. Sure, it has a nasty resistive screen, but if this particular drawback is not that much of a problem for you, then we guarantee that you won't regret the reliability and responsiveness the LG Optimus GT540 will offer you.

Among the possible alternatives to the Optimus is the older HTC Hero, which relies heavily on its Sense UI and sexier teflon-coated body (if you get the white version). It benefits from a capacitive screen, but falls short when it comes to performance. The HTC Legend should also be considered, because it sports a spectacular design too, and adds the needed horsepower that lacked in its predecessor, plus the latest OS version. The Optimus is made of plastic and runs an older build, but still outpaces the Legend, so it all depends on whether you'd prefer design and some extra features to a seamlessly smooth performance.

We can't really compare the LG Optimus GT540 to higher-tier smartphones like the Desire or Nexus One, because it isn't meant to be stacked up against those beasts. However, the Optimus is a pretty decent mid-range Android handset, which, if priced correctly, can prove to be the best in its class.

LG Optimus GT540 Video Review: