LG AKA hands-on

Our smartphones match our personalities, so it’s no surprise that some business oriented folks might use a BlackBerry – or how a fitness conscious person might side with something with a rugged frame. For the younger crowd, the LG AKA has an intriguing factor with its hip and stylish design. What’s especially cool and different about the AKA is how it’s the first smartphone with “personality.”

Design

Right from the get-go, the thing that instantly draws us to the LG AKA is the colored plastic cover that goes over the front of the handset – it doesn’t entirely cover the front, as the top is left exposed to show off some nifty eye animation (we’ll talk more about it in the interface section). Donning an all-plastic body, one that has a textured pattern that makes it easy to grip, it’s really cool that the handset is available in all sorts of colors. Not only do the front plastic covers match the handset’s paint job, but LG has gone further by coming up with nifty looking animal cartoon designs to give the handset that quirky appeal to the young.

Display

On the front, the LG AKA is sporting a sizable 5-inch 720 x 1280 IPS display. We can’t complain much about it, as it perfectly fits the mold of an entry-level smartphone. At the very least, it’s detailed enough, delivers nice vibrant colors, and offers wide-viewing angles – the essentials in making it a decent offering.

Interface

Even though it’s running Android 4.4 KitKat, it’s running the same LG custom skin we see in many of its smartphones – like its flagship in the LG G3. However, seeing that this is primarily targeted to a younger audience, LG enhances the experience by adding in “personality” in the form of some cool looking animations. For example, as the plastic cover is placed over the display, these wandering eyes begin to animate. Even more animations are found throughout the UI to give it that quirky appeal, so it really caters to the younger crowd.

Processor and Memory

Under the hood, the LG AKA is powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz processor coupled with 1.5GB of RAM. From our quick look, the LG AKA manages to exhibit some smooth animations and doesn’t seem to suffer from any noticeable lag or slowdown. Then again, it has yet to be tested against some processor intensive applications – like running some of today’s 3D intensive gaming titles.

Luckily, the phone is accompanied with 16GB of expandable memory, which is more than sufficient in size for nearly anyone.

Camera

Around the back of the phone, there’s an 8-megapixel camera, which like the LG G3, is complemented by a laser auto-focus assist. Naturally, this should help the camera to quickly adjust its focus on the fly – to help minimize and reduce any blurriness. Something tells us that the younger audience will primarily be concerned about adding all sorts of effects to their shots.

Expectations

The LG AKA is currently available in South Korea, so it’s up in the air at the moment if the handset will make its presence known anywhere else. Despite that, it’s one of those handsets that cleverly adds “personality” in the form of cool animal cartoon animations throughout the interface – while also sprinkling in these cool cases that give the phone some quirkiness. It’s not for everyone, of course, but for the younger audience, we can definitely see its appeal.