LG Optimus GT540

Editor's Review of the Optimus GT540

Announced only in January 2010 in time for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the still unreleased LG GT540 Optimus is LG's second Android-powered smart phone next to the GW620. The entry level handset aims to be the mobile phone of choice for the budget-conscious techies.

At a glance, the Optimus is one great looking handset. It sports a plastic casing that looks very much like metal and has a tapered and roundly curved top and bottom for a sleek design. Choose from three colours: black, pink and white to further customise your phone.

The Optimus is slightly bigger than other mobile phones in its category at 109 mm. long by 54.5 mm. wide. The Optimus is around 13 mm. thick and weighs slightly more than 115 grams. It also features a 3 inch resistive touch screen display capable of 256k colours. Screen resolution is pegged at 320 pixels by 480 pixels. This handset also has an accelerometer sensor that automatically rotates the user interface.

You can use the Optimus to surf the net via Class 10 GPRS networks, Class 10 EDGE networks or go high speed with HSDPA 7.2 Mbps. Further, you can connect via any wireless b/g network with this handset. Like similar smart phones, you get Bluetooth connectivity as well as the ability to connect your phone to laptops and desktop computers with its microUSB port.

The camera is a decent 3.15 megapixel affair with an auto focus, geo-tagging and face detection features. This makes pictures of up to 2048 pixels by 1536 pixels possible. You can also record VGA videos at 15 frames per second. The Optimus also features a full music player capable of playing back WAV, WMA, eAAC+ and MP3 files. Video playback supports MP4, Xvid, WMV, DivX, H.263 and H.264 formats. And if these are not enough for you, you can always tune into your favourite FM radio station with the built-in radio or play with the pre-loaded games.

The Optimus comes with an internal memory of 130 megabytes, extendable up to 32 gigabytes with a microSD card. This would be great to store your pictures, music and videos.

The Android OS promises seamless integration with Google's online tools like Google Docs, YouTube, Gmail, GTalk and Maps (the Optimus is GPS capable!). But LG goes beyond that and integrated social networking sites into this phone. Now it will be easier for you to check and update your Twitter, Bebo and Facebook accounts. You can also have the updates sent right to your phone.

A single charge of its lithium ion battery is enough to provide power for up to 5.5 hours of talk on a 2G GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 network and more than 7 hours on a 3G network.

Limitations

The touch screen on the LG GT540 Optimus is great with vibrant colours and good image quality, but if you have ever used a phone with a capacitive touch screen display, you will notice a slight difference and that the resistive display would pale in comparison.

The lack of a secondary camera is a telltale sign that this handset will not be able to support video calls. Moreover, the 3.2 megapixel camera has no LED flash that would make it unsuitable for taking pictures at night.

Also, unlike others running on Android Éclair, LG's second Android contender is limited to Android 1.6. This literally makes you want for a better, more fine-tuned operating system.

Lastly, considering that this is aimed at first time smart phone owners, the lack of a physical keyboard might be a turnoff for those who have been enjoying QWERTY or alphanumeric keyboards.

These are small trade-offs, however, considering that this is an entry level smart phone that is aimed at first timers and the budget conscious. Yet, there are other more price-competitive phones that have basically similar features as this one such as the HTC Smart.