LG Optimus G review

The LG Optimus G has arrived, and comes complete with a whole new level of smartphone technology.

It’s another evolution for the Korean brand, with the new handset the second quad core option the firm has released. However, it’s the first to use Qualcomm’s S4 Pro chip, which will bring an LTE-ready quad core handset to the masses for the first time.

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When you pick up the Optimus G, you can tell it’s a handset that’s worthy of being dubbed a flagship by LG. There’s a real weight to it (well, only 145g, but it’s much heavier than the Samsung Galaxy S3) but that adds to the premium feel rather than feeling overly heavy.

The design language is impressive, if a little bland. The plastic casing feels a little slippery in the hand, and while the white casing with silver inlets looks impressive, the front of the phone is still the faceless black slab we’ve come to expect from most handsets these days.

It’s not LG’s fault, as there’s only so much you can do to innovate on the design front, but with the Optimus G its definitely decided that minimalism is best, with a silhouette that mimics the iPhone 4S.

There is one big difference though: the 13MP camera sensor (which may only arrive on Korean models, according to hints dropped by LG) juts out slightly at the rear, which led us to worry it may get slightly scratched. There’s an extra lip to help protect the lens though, so it may survive a fight with the desk every day.

There’s no removable battery, no expandable memory through a MicroSD slot – although at least there’s 32GB of internal storage to help out on the media front, which should be more than enough for most people.

To summarise: it’s a well-designed phone with plenty to be proud of from an aesthetic standpoint. However, while it doesn’t come under the same ‘cheap-feeling’ category as the Galaxy S3, it doesn’t have the premium feel of the HTC One S or the iPhone 5 in our opinion.

Add to that it’s pretty anonymous when viewed straight on, and you have to wonder how LG plans to make this leap of the shelves when placed next to the competition.

However, if you do pick up the phone from the melee, you’ll be in for a nice surprise, as it’s one of the fastest we’ve encountered so far. That’s not surprising when you consider it’s got one of Qualcomm’s most advanced CPUs inside, which has been teamed with 2GB of RAM.

This meant that no matter what we threw at it, the LG Optimus G was able to open and flick between apps with aplomb. This is down to Cross Tasking, as LG calls it, which means each core is able to operate at different speeds to enable more efficient multi-tasking.

The final thing we’ll look at is the screen (well, it’s the first thing you’ll probably look at) as LG is touting both its clarity and power efficiency.

We saw tests that compared it to Samsung’s Super AMOLED HD screen, which showed that it was able to use less power at higher brightness, as well as offering more natural colours thanks to a full matrix of RGB colouring.

In truth, it’s a screen that looks great and is as sharp as a pin, but doesn’t have the same ‘wow’ factor as the AMOLED, which offers better contrast ratio and brightness. There are many display snobs out there that don’t believe Samsung’s favourite screen type offers ‘true’ images, but in our eyes its still the more impressive.

That’s not to say LG’s is poor by any means – but we do prefer watching movies on the S3, and not just because we can pop them over on a microSD card.