LG Optimus 7 Review

Introduction:

The LG Quantum for AT&T isn't the only Windows Phone 7 handset prepared by the South Korean manufacturer to introduce the new Microsoft mobile OS to the world. Across the pond, customers are being treated to the LG Optimus 7 – a candybar smartphone with a 3.8-inch TFT touchscreen, 5MP camera and 1GHz Snapdragon chipset.

Obviously, the LG Optimus 7 is yet another strict WP7 Chassis 1 offering, so hardware alone would not be enough to distinguish this device, having in mind the already strong competition from Samsung and HTC. So, what can possibly make the Optimus 7 that special handset stealing your sleep? Stay with us as we embark on a journey to find out!

The box includes:

• LG Optimus 7
• USB to microUSB cable
• Wall charger
• Wired handsfree
• User guide

Design:

We have rarely been impressed with the design of LG smartphones. However, it turns out that these guys do know how to craft a good-looking and solid device. We especially enjoy the large metal battery cover, which makes the phone feel extremely slick and gives it a sense of luxury.



You can compare the LG Optimus 7 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The LG Optimus 7 is one of the smaller Windows Phone 7 handsets for the European market, compared to powerhouses like the HTC HD7 and the Samsung Omnia 7. Still, its screen can by no means be called small at 3.8 inches. The capacitive display uses traditional TFT technology and sports a resolution of 480x800 pixels – standard for WP7 phones thus far. Neither the contrast, nor the color saturation are as spectacular as seen on a Super AMOLED display (present in the Omnia 7), but still, the TFT of the LG Optimus 7 has its advantage too, found with its higher pixel density, making smaller text look clearer and easier to read. The overall image quality is perfectly fine for today's standards though, although viewing angles could be better. Touch sensitivity is just fine, as we did not observe any issues.


Below the screen we find the three mandatory Windows Phone 7 keys – Back, Home and Search (apparently, Microsoft acknowledges the need of the modern user to find lots of information quickly). These are all physical keys, though we wish the travel of the Back and Search ones to have been a bit more pronounced. Anyway, they didn't pose to be much of an issue, and with the ingeniously-designed Home button, we think LG has done a tolerable job with the keys. What's interesting about the Home button is that it has the form of the Windows logo, so you actually push the Windows logo in. Not something to lose your breath over, but still a nice touch.


The Left side of the LG Optimus 7 is where the small and clicky volume rocker is located, while the top has the Power/Lock key and the 3.5mm headset jack. Although easy to find, the Lock key is incredibly small to the point where it can become a bit uncomfortable to use. Charging the device gets done through the microUSB port on the right. In the case of the LG Optimus 7, the port is protected by a plastic flap, which is a worse design decision than the Omnia 7's sliding cover. The phone also has a two-stop camera shutter, which is very comfortable.


On the back side of course awaits the 5MP camera that sits in a distinct circular area, along with the LED flash, a very small self-portrait mirror and a label that proudly says “HD Camcorder”. As we said, the large battery cover is made of firm metal and is simply awesome to have. It is elegantly removed with the press of a special button, giving you access to the 1500mAh battery and SIM card slot.


All in all we are pleased with the design of the LG Optimus 7. As we said, it feels pretty solid in the hand, and is also fairly thin. It will probably appeal more to smartphone users who want a functional, but still pocketable device.

Interface and Functionality:

Having a custom interface on top of the operating system may be a good or a bad thing. For example, having HTC's TouchFLO 3D on top of Windows Mobile 6 was great, as it gave the old platform a brand new look and feel... to an extent, that is. On the other hand, we've seen some really pointless custom UIs like the one in the Toshiba TG01 (first phone with a Snapdragon chipset), which made even WM 6.5's stock UI look cool. In this connection, it is probably a good thing that LG decided to stick with Windows Phone 7's stock interface...

No, seriously, each and every one of the handsets we've seen running the OS thus far uses the stock interface, so the experience you get out of the LG Optimus 7 is very, very similar to the rest of the WP7 squad. See our Windows Phone 7 Walkthrough for a detailed overview of the platform.

Basically, Microsoft Windows Phone 7 is centered around various hubs. Some examples of such hubs can be “People”, “Office”, “Games”, “Music and Videos”, etc. So, when you tap the “Music and Videos” button you won't be taken to a specific app, say, a multimedia player of some sort. Instead, you end up in an area where you can swipe left and right in order to reach different features (like the music controls) or content (like what's new in the Marketplace, or your song history).

The Home screen shows the so-called Live Tiles, which act like dynamic shortcuts to various apps, hubs or content. The Live Tiles are arranged in a vertical list, with scrolling up and down being is so responsive and fun, that you can even fail to notice the fact that about a fourth of your screen real estate is left empty. Thankfully, you can reorganize your home screen just the way you like it and have what's important for you first on the list.


The LG Optimus 7's main menu consists of a vertical list of your apps and hubs. This is also the place where you'll find your third-party applications. Of course, you can choose whatever you want from this list and take it to the home screen.


Sure, the interface of the LG Optimus 7 doesn't have any distinguishing points from what's found in other Windows Phone 7 devices, but it's still a great UI, with beautiful animated transitions and easy access to the phone's capabilities.

The People Hub plays the role of a phonebook in the LG Optimus 7. First, you naturally have a list with your contacts. In addition to your SIM and phone contacts, here you can also integrate people from Facebook, Windows Live, Outlook or Google. Fortunately, Facebook contacts automatically get their profile pictures assigned to make your phonebook a bit more colorful and enjoyable.


Windows Phone 7's integration with Facebook continues as you select a certain contact. For instance, you can easily write on this person's wall or check what's new with them, including new images that they have uploaded, as well as the latest activity. Contacts, like most other things in WP7, can also be added directly to the home screen of the LG Optimus 7 for lightning quick access to them.

The LG Optimus 7 sports an awesome email client. You can easily set up Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo! Mail or a Google account. Of course, you can also set up custom POP or IMAP accounts, which will require the input of some more info like server addresses. Once you're done, it is pretty cool to see all of your text correspondences start pouring in right away. Emails are visualized in HTML format, while the one thing missing more notably is a universal inbox feature, which can be found in Samsung's bada or Apple's iOS 4.


The Calendar is completely in line with the overall clean look of the operating system. You can synchronize it with Windows Live, multiple Exchange ActiveSync accounts and Google Calendar, with the latter having to go through an Exchange server as well. It is a good touch that you can color-code your different calendars for better organization.



Internet and Connectivity:

Internet Explorer is the name of the game when it comes to web browsing on the LG Optimus 7. Apart from some interface specifics that we are not very happy with, we can't help but admit the new Internet Explorer's awesomeness.

Completely in line with the latest and greatest achievements in the area, Internet Explorer delivers fast loading times and buttery smooth scrolling. The same goes for zooming, which you can do by either double-tapping or using pinch-to-zoom. Both options work flawlessly, with double-tap being very accurate, more so than on Android, and about equal to what you get on the iPhone.


The user interface is also an important part of a mobile internet browser though. There are good and bad things we can say about the one on the LG Optimus 7. First off, we don't like that there is no full-screen option in portrait mode. Fortunately, you can view web pages in full-screen when in landscape mode, but then another issue arises. There is no address bar at the top, meaning that you have to return to portrait mode to enter a new web address. This isn't a big deal, since switching orientations is very snappy, but still we cannot see a clear reason why they didn't put a simple address bar at the top of the page. However, Safari, for example, isn't without its issues either, as it lack a full-screen mode whatsoever.

In terms of connectivity options the Optimus 7 is quite a performer, sporting quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G (900/1900/2100MHz). It can also establish a data connection through its Wi-Fi chip. The phone also packs Bluetooth 2.1 for local wireless connection, as well as A-GPS, which works very well with Bing Maps. Unfortunately, there is no navigation software for WP7 as of now that supports turn-by-turn voice directions, but we hope the guys from Redmond will fill this gap as soon as possible.

Camera and Multimedia:

The camera interface of the LG Optimus 7 is very simplistic. There's a camera/camcorder switch, digital zoom buttons, and a settings key. The latter gives you to a menu with the pompous name “Photo Smart Settings”. It includes basic stuff like resolution, brightness, white balance, effects and quality, as well as some more specific options such as Intelligent shot (like scene modes), Beauty shot (tries to remove visual imperfections) and ScanSearch, which is a beautiful piece of augmented reality software. Powered by information from either Google or Bing, LG's ScanSearch feature uses the device's onboard camera and digital compass to show you the exact direction of of various points of interest ranging from restaurants, cafes and banks, to hotels, schools and pharmacies. When you hold the phone in front of you, as if you're about to take a picture, the POIs pop up as in a typical augmented reality app. When you tilt the phone down, it switches to an overview 2D map that shows your location and the POIs around you. Pointing the phone to the sky, on the other hand, will display the latest weather forecast. The app shows you points of interest that happen to be up to 5km from you.


The photos that we took on a cloudy day turned out to have decent sharpness and detail, though noise was an issue at times. Color reproduction is generally good, although some of our shots came out with inaccurate white balance when using auto mode. There is no special macro mode on the handset, but we tried a few close-ups and they turned out surprisingly good. Exposure levels are just fine, as objects are illuminated decently, but dynamic range on the LG Optimus 7 is certainly not point-and-shoot grade yet.



We were a bit saddened to find out that indoors, the 5MP camera performs extraordinary weakly. Significant noise and blurriness are present even in conditions with lots of light, while in darker situations the photos get just terrible. Unfortunately, the LED flash is useless. Seriously, we tried to think of some possible application it may have and ended up with nothing.

The camcorder can shoot in HD 720p resolution, which is perfectly satisfying. However, there's a bit of a stutter at times, and with an FPS rate of 24, the produced video is far from smooth. Detail is mediocre, while the captured sound is of somewhat poor quality.

LG Optimus 7 Sample Video:



Multimedia on the LG Optimus 7 is handled by the Music + Videos Hub. It doesn't need much introduction though. This is where all the partying happens and we have to say that Windows Phone 7's way to get things done is very suitable for the job. It is really fun to see the artist you are listening to take up the background space with a panoramic image – it immediately makes the experience better than what you get on most of the competition.


Besides the playing track/video, in this hub you will also find some other data like a history of the media that you've consumed (gee, we hate the sound of that). From the menu you can jump to your music library, videos, podcasts, FM radio or the Zune Marketplace.


One drawback of the music player is that it too relies on a very simplistic interface, meaning that its options are quite limited. That's very unfortunate with the LG Optimus 7, which could have really used an equalizer (read: bass booster) when playing music through the supplied earphones. Music quality is passable for the most part, but loudness is not high enough, and when you reach the highest volume levels, nasty crackling noises start to occur. And that's in headset mode! Once you get to the loudspeaker – actually the LG Optimus 7 lacks a dedicated loudspeaker, it uses the earpiece – things get even worse, with weak and overly-sharp sounds.

The LG Optimus 7 plays MPEG-4 video files at resolutions of up to 720p. However, if you sync DivX or Xvid videos with Zune, it will automatically convert them to MPEG-4, so that you can watch them. Although it's not an AMOLED display, the LCD of the Optimus 7 is still good enough for casual watching of videos, even more so when you take the 3.8” diagonal into account.

Software:

The Office Hub is probably a place where Windows Phone 7 users will spend quite a lot of time. And unlike what we experienced with Microsoft's great new browser, we were a bit underwhelmed by what we found in the Office Hub. Basically, OneNote support is just fine, but Word, is very limited, especially when it comes to formatting options. Of course, you can also create, view and edit Excel files (there's a fine selection of available functions to choose from) on the LG Optimus 7, as well as view and edit PowerPoint presentations. However, editing here comes down to just editing text.


You can download additional software for the LG Optimus 7 from the Marketplace Hub, which is home to about 1000 apps right now. There's obviously a lot of catching-up to be done in this area by Microsoft, but it's still a decent selection for a start. WP7 shows potential for fine gaming capabilities with the available titles, with things getting even better when you add the Xbox Live integration with the platform. You can do stuff like personalizing your avatar, track various achievements and scores, as well as see requests.


Inside the Marketplace Hub, LG has added its own “LG apps store”, where you'll find about 10 more free apps by the manufacturer, such as “Metro Scanner”, “Photo Stylist” and “I'm a musician – Guitar/Piano”.


“Play To” is a good addition by LG that allows you to stream multimedia content through DLNA to an HDTV, Windows 7 PC or Xbox 360. We've already told you about the other exclusive app you'll get with the LG Optimus 7 – ScanSearch, but there's also the “Panorama Shot” app, which does exactly what its name suggests – panorama shots.

Performance:

During the call quality testing, the LG Optimus 7's speaker once again proved to be sub-par. We experienced enough loudness, but quality was below average, which is really a shame when it comes to such a high-end device. When you happen to be in a noisier environment, it can even get difficult at times to tell what your callers want to say. The microphone of the Optimus 7 though seems to be one of the best we've seen, as both sound quality and loudness on the other end of the line are near perfect. If it wasn't for that nasty earpiece, we would have rated the Optimus 7's call quality very high.

Energy for the LG Optimus 7 comes from a 1500mAh unit, which is enough to guarantee a solid one day of usage. The battery should be able to provide up to 8 hours of talk-time or about 17 days of stand-by, which is one of the best performances out of a WP7 handset so far.

Conclusion:

The LG Optimus 7 arrives at the market to be one of the more compact Windows Phone 7 handsets available initially. It's practicality doesn't come at the expense of usability though, as its screen measures the fantastic 3.8 inches. It has an overall good-looking and solid design, mainly thanks to the large metal back cover, and all the needed hardware to make it a worthy WP7 offering, such as the popular 1GHz Snapdragon chipset.

The software is pretty much the same as what you'll find on the other WP7 handsets, except for the several specific apps that LG is throwing into the scene. The most notable of them are the “ScanSearch” augmented reality feature and the “Play To” DLNA app. All in all, LG deserves credit for taking the time to develop the custom software in order to make the LG Optimus 7 a bit more intriguing for the customers.

What we don't like in the Optimus 7 however, are its photo and video taking capabilities, as well as the mediocre call quality. If you can't get past that, or don't like the phone for some other reason, it might be a good idea to check out the Samsung Omnia 7 with its brilliant Super-AMOLED display, or the HTC 7 Trophy, which also carries a 3.8” diagonal, but with the tried and true flavor of HTC.

LG Optimus 7 Video Review: