LG Optimus Black - A dark sense of disappointment

After reviewing a slew of high-end dual core Android smartphones recently, it was actually a relief to go back to the humble single-core Android phone category. And there seems to be quite a bit of action around the Rs. 20k price bracket. Ever since Samsung pegged the S-LCD version of the Galaxy S at Rs 19,990 in retail; it seems to have had a very successful run. Now, with the Samsung Nexus S available for the same price as well, the choice just became wider.

The LG Optimus Black surprised us with the price it has been pegged at. The box price of the phone is Rs 21k, while it is retailing for just under Rs 20k. this puts it squarely in competition with the above mentioned rivals, inlcuding the iPhone 3GS.

Look and Feel
Straight out of the box, and two things catch your eye. First, the weight, or the lack of it! At less than 110 grams, this phone glides squarely in the featherweight category. Second is the sense that despite being a 4-inch touchscreen, the phone isn't very big. It fits nicely in the hands, and can be used very comfortably with the same hand holding it, albeit in portrait mode.

The build quality is very good. No rough edges here. The top panel of the phone has the 3.5mm headphone jack, the power key and the microUSB slot. The right side panel has been left clean, while the left side panel houses the volume rocker and the G- key.

The rear panel has a metallic tinge to it, and feels pretty solid. On the top left of the panel is the camera and the flash, with "with Google" printed right next to it. You know immediately that this is an Android phone! Disappointingly, you will need long nails to open this battery cover comfortably. This sort of mechanism gives it a very cheap Chinese phone feel. Why LG, why?

Features
For a price of just under Rs 20k, the Optimus Black does come across as a pretty loaded phone, spec wise. The 4-inch IPS LCD display is touted as the "best display in the world". However, while it isn't the best, it is actually very good. We will give you the details of the performance later in the review. Below the display, four touch based keys reside- menu, home, return and search. Every time you touch them, they light up, and the one particular one that is touched glows in blue colour.

With 2GB internal storage and microSD taking it up to 32GB more, storage space shouldn't be an issue. Particularly if you are going to store a lot of music on the device. Speaking of which, the music player is integrated in the drop down notification bar. Every time you pull it down, the basic pause/play and previous/next keys are right there.

Camera wise, the 5MP clicker at the back and the 2MP camera at the front do offer potential, at least on paper. However, that doesn't really translate into performance, in reality.

The Optimus Black comes with Android 2.2 preloaded on the phone. Wrapped over that is LG's Optimus 2.0 UI. We quite liked it, since it offers a lot of HTC Sense-esque features, while not feeling sluggish or heavy like the Sense. We had seen this UI first on the Optimus 2X, and the same slickness continues here, albeit with minor tweaks. Seven screens can be seen at once with the simple pinch gesture.

The really unique feature here is the G-key, or Gesture key. The way it works is that certain gestures can be implemented to do certain tasks. For example, press the G-key and double shake the phone to open the camera. These commands/actions can be modified in the settings menu.

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Sateesh.smart