LG is making another push into the Android market that will put it beside fellow Asian companies, HTC and Samsung, which have both gained significant following as Android manufacturers. LG did not hesitate to pack the latest technology and design into the Optimus 4X HD, its latest Android handset.
The LG Optimus 4X HD is the Korean company’s attempt to break public perception that its mobiles lack quality software, high-powered internals, and quality builds. Let us start with Optimus 4X HD’s design and body. The handset measures 5.21 inches tall, 2.68 inches wide, and 8.89-mm thick; it weighs 141 grams, about the same size as a Samsung handset.
The Optimus 4X HD’s biggest feature is a 4.7-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels or 312ppi, one of the sharpest in Android handsets. It gives close to a 180-degree viewing angle and the resolution is close to the sharpness of retina displays.
LG smartphone’s power/standby button is on the top and beside it is the 3.5-mm headphone jack. LG put the volume control on the left-hand side, the micro-USB port on the bottom, but it removed the HDMI slot even if the USB supports MHL. LG Optimus 4X contains an 8-megapixel autofocus or face-focus camera, with LED flash on the back, along with the speaker. There is also another camera on the front for video-conferencing.
LG packed a quad-core 1.5GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 processor into the 4X HD, the first LG handset to have a quad-core, with 1GB of RAM. The company also gave the smartphone 16GB of memory, a 2150mAh battery, and added a Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip for wireless communication with other NFC-equipped devices.
Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.3) is the core of the 4X HD’s software department, and this is matched by the Optimus UI 3.0, LG’s latest UI. Users will find three touch controls on the bottom of the display and a menu button. Long pressing the home button will display recently used apps. They can customize the lock and home screens and create shortcuts to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.