LG Optimus Black Review

The LG Optimus Black was announced a while back, March 2011 to be precise, but the device appeared on our shores much later in July. People awaited the LG Optimus Black with much anticipation as it offered brilliance on a budget. 

Does it really stand up to its name? Does it deliver brilliance? Lets Find Out!

Build Quality

The Optimus Black is possibly the most well built phone in LG’s stable, only after the 2X. With a slim profile and tapered glossy black accents, the device also has a tough front glass and a brilliant camera. The device is built to last and will not fail to deliver in that respect. The plastic is of superior quality and the device does not rattle or squeak from anywhere.

The Price of the Device is about : Rs. 19,800 in the Market

Camera & Multimedia

The device features a brilliant 5mp Autofocus camera on the back that does HD video at 720p (watch sample below). The picture quality  from the 5mp snapper is absolutely stunning, the camera focuses with precision and the LED does a wonderful job of eliminating darkness. The camera is also snappy at taking pictures and responds quickly.

Video quality is pretty great and almost close to what the iPhone 4 has to offer in good light, but kind of waivers in low light.

The front facing camera is simply superb quality and works just fine with Skype and other video softwares.

Audio from videos is low, but in game audio and music sounds are loud. The preference file some where needs to be tweaked to output proper audio. the speaker is fairly loud when the audio is proper. But, not as great as we would have like it to be.

The display is absolutely brilliant with a 700NIT brightness. The brightest display on a mobile device ever, makes the quality of the display that much better, whether indoors or outdoors. The only drawback of a very bright display is low battery life.

Phone & Messaging

The earpiece and microphone are great to pick up sound, but one unfortunate error in the design of the Optimus black prevents you from using the phone as a PHONE. every time you hold the phone in your hand, the network drops. So much so that we went able to get through a decent phone call to test audio quality. At first we thought the device was defective and got a replacement test unit, but alas!, still no proper network. So how good is a phone thats not a phone? its pathetic, is what it is, purely pathetic.

The touchscreen is a 4 point multitouch which allows for a simply great messaging experience, not to forget the iPhone style keyboard. The network issue prevails here as well, as you grip the phone to type, the device looses network.

Data & Battery

The Optimus Black is almost Satan’s child when it comes to how hot it gets on a data connection, its almost impossible to handle. The device gets blazing hot and starts to loose battery at an alarming rate, flat dead in 25-40 minutes. With data off, you get about 4 hours of talk time along with about two days of standby.

Not having been able to test internet performance we can’t comment on the battery life beyond that.

Conclusion

Its a pity that LG let us down yet again, we really liked the device when we got it at first. The device has good specs, excellent build, brilliant cameras and a very – very bright display. A great touch screen and decent hardware, but the device basically fails at being a phone. The death grip network loss issue is beyond excuse and cannot be mended with any kind of fix. ( except a full silicon cover or gloves on the users hands) the phone also performed poorly in the benchmarks.

We had a lot of expectations from this device and feel totally let down. LG really needs to step up their game, they have possibly good hardware, but something somewhere went wrong with the Optimus Black.

[xrr rating=2.5/5 label=”We Rate The Optimus Black : ” imageset=shiny_yellow_star display_as=fraction_stars]

Unboxing Video

Review Video

Video Sample