LG Optimus Sol Review

Introduction:

There was a time when having a 1GHz processor in your smartphone was a pretty big deal, yet chips of such caliber are a pretty common sight even among mid-range handsets nowadays. Such is the case with the LG Optimus Sol, which besides the 1GHz silicon brags with its slim, lightweight construction and 3.8-inch Ultra AMOLED display. What kind of display is that, you ask? It is simply how LG refers to its AMOLED panels, and the Optimus Sol happens to be the first smartphone to boast one at its front.

On paper, the Optimus Sol has the potential to be a pretty decent mid-range offering, but whether it truly is one will become apparent once we take it for a spin. Read along, and we will tell you how the smartphone performs in real life.

The package contains:

Design:

The LG Optimus Sol looks and feels like a run-of-the-mill piece of plastic, just like the ones the smartphone market has more than enough of already. However, that shouldn't come as much of a surprise as the Sol is meant to be a cheap handset, so we will have to accept the fact that its body is made out of boring, flimsy plastic.

On the good side, the choice of materials makes the smartphone lightweight. Because if its dimensions, the Sol can be easily used with a single hand, and its waistline of 9.8 millimeters or 0.39 inches gives it a slim profile. Besides, its back cover is pretty resistant to fingerprints despite having a glossy finish.



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

There are three capacitive buttons underneath the smartphone's display and a front-facing VGA camera right above it. Pressing the buttons by accident is hardly likely to happen since there is a good distance between them and the bottom bezel of the device. The top side of the smartphone is populated by a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, a microUSB port protected by a removable cover and a lock button. There is also a secondary microphone for noise cancellation, which you do not get to see too often on handsets of this class. However, the volume rocker on the phone's side could have been exposed better.

The LG Optimus Sol is the first in the company's portfolio to boast an AMOLED display. Bearing the “Ultra AMOLED” moniker, LG's panels have yet to make a name for themselves, but we can say that we are pleased with what we see on our unit here. The Sol's 3.8-inch WVGA display delivers intense, saturated colors and deep blacks, which together bring images to life and make watching videos a pleasant experience. We were also satisfied with the display's outdoor visibility as it glows bright enough to be used easily on a sunny day.

However, when we put the LG Optimus Sol and the Samsung Galaxy S II side by side, it becomes apparent that the latter has the upper hand. Whites look whiter, blacks are deeper, and colors are noticeably more intense on the latter.  Besides, the Super AMOLED Plus display on the Galaxy S II is superior when it comes to displaying fine details and tiny text. As far as viewing angles go, both displays remain usable even when tilted to the extremes, but at certain angles, a greenish tint becomes visible on the Optimus Sol's Ultra AMOLED panel.

Overall, the LG Optimus Sol packs an eye-catching display, its body is slim and lightweight, but that is pretty much all that would really grab anyone's attention as its design is a bit boring. Now it is time to see what it has to offer in terms of functionality, so read along to find out.

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.

Performance:

We have to admit that the in-call sound quality of the LG Optimus Sol is pretty good, and that applies to both sides of the line. The earpiece produces rich, distinctive tones with nothing more but an occasional hissing sound when the volume is set to the maximum, while the secondary mic takes care of all background noises making our voice sound clear and distinguishable to the other party with only a slight hint of reverberation. Furthermore, the stock ringtones sound pretty loud through the built-in loudspeaker, located on the handset's back.

The smartphone's battery life, however, is nothing impressive. Its 1540mAh battery is rated for 4 hours of talk time, or 100 hours in stand-by mode, which are both figures below today's average. The smartphone's battery life is pretty standard. The handset is equipped with a 1540mAh battery, which can provide 350 minutes of talk time on a 3G network. In stand-by mode, it will take 375 hours before the battery runs out of juice. 

Conclusion:

Without any doubt, the LG Optimus Sol will have a hard time battling in the Android arena as there are plenty of similarly priced devices that do not skimp on features. Still, we have to admit that its Ultra AMOLED display is pleasing to the eye thanks to the saturated colors and deep blacks that it delivers. Besides, we are quite pleased with the way its slim, lightweight body feels in the hand, and with the above average in-call audio quality.

But despite a number of positives, drawbacks is what the Optimus Sol has as well. For example, the internet browser simply feels unpolished as it struggles with heavy Adobe Flash content, and the camera performance is far from stunning. We find it hard to say that the Optimus Sol would be the best smartphone to invest your money in, especially when there is a plethora of identically priced devices you can choose from.

The list of alternatives that we would recommend checking out includes the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, which, with its curved design and 1.4GHz single-core ship, is both better-looking and more powerful than the Optimus Sol. But if you are looking for a device with a smaller footprint, the Xperia ray would be a great choice – it has both a catchy design and a better camera. Other options worth your attention are the Samsung Galaxy W, which comes with a speedier 1.4GHz processor, and the HTC Desire S, which is pretty identical to the Sol in terms of specs, but is a tad more stylish thanks to its aluminum unibody construction. Additionaly, the LG Optimus 2X would make a great alternative to the Sol as it is equipped with a snappy Tegra 2 dual-core chip, yet can be found at an identical price.

LG Optimus Sol Video Review: