LG has launched
the Optimus L5 in Europe. The L5 was first announced alongside the L3 and L7 at Mobile World Congress in February and will be one of the first Ice Cream
Sandwich smartphones from the South Korean manufacturer. The phone will become
available in Germany, France and the United Kingdom within the next two weeks.
The Optimus L5 is a mid-range phone with some fairly modest hardware features, but it does adopt a stylish design quite reminiscent of the Prada Phone released by LG earlier this year. It has a large 4 inch screen but with a 320 x 480 resolution it is left with a rather mediocre pixel density and less than impressive visual quality.
The LG Optimus L5
The Optimus L5 is a mid-range phone with some fairly modest hardware features, but it does adopt a stylish design quite reminiscent of the Prada Phone released by LG earlier this year. It has a large 4 inch screen but with a 320 x 480 resolution it is left with a rather mediocre pixel density and less than impressive visual quality.
Also quite disappointing,
for a phone that is seemingly quite modern, the Optimus L5 only runs on an
800MHz Snapdragon processor with 512MB RAM. Even though the hardware may be
fairly limited, the Optimus does come with Android Ice Cream Sandwich so that
users can benefit from an up to date software experience.
The Optimus L5
is a slim phone measuring just 9.9mm, and while it may not be the slimmest
available, it does employ Floating Mass Technology to give it the appearance of
being much more slender than it actually is. It also features what LG describes as a "perfect coexistence" between its soft casing and metallic accents
around the rim. Marketing-speak aside, this does result in a very stylish
looking phone.
LG has also
emulated its South Korean rival Samsung by introducing its own app store
towards the end of 2011, which will be available alongside Google Play on the
Optimus L5. LG SmartWorld provides exclusive content not available from the
standard Android app store and specifically tailored for LG phones.
The Optimus has
a 5 megapixel camera with an LED flash which performs well, but is let down by
its VGA video recording. The Optimus provides the option to upload images
directly to social networks such as Facebook but provides limited additional
features to make it stand out from other 5 megapixel smartphone cameras.
Entertainment
wise, the Optimus comes with good support for music and video although, as
already mentioned, the screen is not of the highest quality. Four gigabytes of
internal storage is provided on the Optimus, with 2.5GB available for user use,
although an additional 32GB can be added with microSD cards. 3G and Wi-Fi are
both available although the Optimus lacks DLNA support.
The Optimus L5
is a very stylish mid-range Android phone which benefits from all of the latest
Android features, although for people who care about hardware prowess the phone
may be a little less than impressive. This is understandable as the LG L-series
has been designed to place more emphasis on style and it is easy to see the similarities
with the earlier Prada Phone. The phone is light weight and comfortably sized and
for a phone of this price range it holds up remarkably well.
By
Simon Drew
Best Mobile Contracts
By
Simon Drew
Best Mobile Contracts
