After HTC, another Asian company decided to move into uncharted territory, I am talking here about smartphones running Windows Phone 7 OS.
With Optimus 7, we see the first step from LG in this direction. Regardless of the hardware restrictions imposed by Microsoft, Optimus 7 is trying to distinguish itself from the crowd, with a nice design and excellent assembly quality of the device. All Windows 7 smartphones require state of the art hardware and this is not a bad thing for the end user, just a little bit of a drag from the manufacturer’s point of view. Let’s see the main specs of Lg Optimus 7:
Key features:
• 3.8" 16M-color capacitive TFT touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• 3G with HSDPA (7.2 Mbps) and HSUPA (5.76Mbps)
• Windows Phone 7 operating system
• 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, 512MB RAM
• 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and geo-tagging; Panorama photos with the Panorama shot app
• 720p video recording @ 24fps
• 16GB of built-in storage
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Standard micro USB port (charging)
• Wi-Fi b/g/n; DLNA support via PlayTo
• Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP
• Accelerometer for screen auto rotation
• Landscape on-screen QWERTY keyboard
• FM radio with RDS
• Office document editor
• Social networking integration
• Built-in A-GPS receiver
• Comes with a choice of free apps via LG AppStore
• Voice-to-text functionality
• ScanSearch augmented reality app
Full specs here.
To make their baby unique, LG added a few applications, like the PlayTo app that gives the phone DLNA capabilities, the Panorama application for the 5 MP camera and Scan Search for weather forecasting and for using your phone as a guide when you’re searching for a good cup of coffee. It’s not much but nevertheless, LG tried to customize the device as humanly possible, following the strict guidelines from Microsoft.
At 3.8 inches wide, Optimus 7 has a pretty small display, compared with other Windows Phone 7 devices, but it compensates with a smaller retail price. And this is kind of important, because all WP7 phones are more or less the same in terms of hardware, so the price tag should play a significant role in choosing this kind of product.
LG’s retail package is modest, it contains the normal accessories with no extras, like the micro USB cable, the charger and the hands free set.
There’s no micro SD card in the box, but this is by no means a deal breaker, Optimus comes with 16 GB of internal memory which is a lot.
The smartphone measures 125 x 59.8 x 11.5 mm and weighs 157 grams, it’s a pretty big and heavy device. But it impressed me with its rock solid build quality, the housing is made of metal, with round shaped corners, it is an elegant and neutral design.
The screen is a TFT LCD 3.8” and has WVGA resolution, the colors are nice and bright, sunlight legibility is average and viewing angles are pretty normal for this kind of display.
On the front panel we find the usual proximity/ambient light sensors, the earpiece and the three keys mandated by Windows Phone 7 – Back, Windows and Search. On the right we find the micro USB port that serves both at data transfer and for charging the smartphone. On the back panel is the 5 MP camera lens with autofocus, led flash and a small mirror for self portraits. Under the metal cover we find a pretty decent 1500mAh Li-Ion battery which lasted for about 2 days with heavy use.
The nice curved design of Optimus 7 is very comfy to hold and the matte plastic on the front plus the brushed metal on the back panel are fingerprint resistant.
As for OS, all WP7 phones run the exact same software, with just a couple of preinstalled apps that make some difference.
The phonebook is very well integrated with social networking, the People hub shows you a list of all your contacts (phone contacts, social network friends, email pen friends – everything), with a search shortcut and an add contact button.
In terms of telephony, LG Optimus 7 scored pretty average, the in call sound quality is good and the signal reception is trouble free in most areas. Unfortunately, Optimus 7 lacks smart dialing.
The messaging department of Windows Phone 7 is pretty basic, efficient and almost the same in any device regardless of the manufacturer, it uses threaded view to organize your messages, you’ll see a list of conversations – each conversation consists of multiple messages visualized as speech bubbles, which are ordered by the time they were sent/received.
The multi media department is covered by Zune, both music and video player. They both have pretty minimalist interfaces, very intuitive and smooth running. You will have no trouble in using them, even if you are a noob in this kind of matter. The video player can’t play AVI files; there is no DivX or XviD support. However, the Zune software on your computer will automatically convert such files to .MP4.
You also get a built in FM radio, very user friendly with RDS on board.
In terms of audio quality, the phone provides a pretty accurate and clean output, both in the loudspeaker and headphones, nothing spectacular though.
As a multimedia tool, LG E900 has a 5MP autofocus camera and LED flash. Still images have a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels, while videos go up to 720p. The interface is minimalist and easy to use, LG tried to customize it a bit, the LG logo is clearly visible along with the Intelligent shot and Beauty shot modes. Image quality is average for a 5 Megapixels shooter.
The video camera interface is identical to the still camera, it has many features and settings too, you can record clips in 3 resolutions, QVGA, VGA or 720p. The camera defaults to VGA which is annoying. Videos are recorded in .MP4 file format at a ~23 fps frame rate; video recording quality is average, nothing special.
Connectivity is stellar, with Optimus 7 you get everything imaginable, world-trotting quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and fast tri-band 3G with 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSUPA.
The local connectivity is covered by Wi-Fi b/g/n with DLNA support (via the PlayTo app) and Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP.
For web browsing, Internet Explorer is the taster’s choice, of course, and is a very fast and easy to use browser, a major step forward from IE mobile 6, page rendering is perfect and fast, as are panning and scrolling. You don’t get Flash support though, but the 3.8 inch screen is pretty good for an enjoyable web browsing experience.
One important part of Windows Phone 7 is the Office hub, on LG Optimus is better than ever, you can view and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint docs.
LG comes with a GPS receiver too, with Bing Maps as the usual in house app, for fun purposes you get Xbox Live at the heart of the Games hub.
In conclusion, LG Optimus 7 is a very well built device, with some high tech specs and if the price tag suits your pocket, you can go for a ride.
For a monthly contract deal on LG Optimus 7, click here.
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