Build Quality and egronomics

The phone had a solid built, but at 129g is slightly on the heavier side. It has black rubber plastic body with metal trimmings on the edge, which is home to the micro USB port at the bottom, the power/lock button on the top along with the 3.5mm jack and the volume control on the right side.

The 3.2inch screen has a wide bezel, which has the speaker groove on the top  beside the proximity sensor and the prominent LG Branding. The Android buttons have been placed below the bezel, with a single large button in the centre which groups home and return controls and two separate buttons on the side for  options  and search. These buttons have a solidity to them and the ergonomically located curved volume  and power/lock buttons provide crispy feedback.

For a 3.2 inch screen, the 320x480 pixels resolution is quite high , thereby providing a good contrast between images and text and a visibly bright sceen.When used in the sunlight , there is visible colour fading and loss of contrast but the text remains readable. Thus,sunlight legibility cannot be termed as great. 

INTERFACE

It’s 600Ghz CPU is surprisingly very quick. While running a number of third party and native applications, there was hardly any lag time which, undoubtedly makes this phone’s Froyo OS (much faster OS) shine over other competitors Including Galaxy 3. Although, one thing that must be mentioned is that with a number of apps open there was definitely a time lag between the moment when the call button was clicked and the moment when the call was actually made.

LG’s customization is quite minimal, with the homescreen and the bottom panes featuring the call, contacts, Menu/Home, Messaging and Browser. You can keep 7 homescreens, but disappointingly , there is just one wallpaper for all of them. But, live wall papers are also available.

The phone is bundled with the official facebook and Twitter applications as well as other apps as Taskiller, AG Indian Newspaper (to view a wide collection of online newsprint media), Bollywoodji (for the latest Bollywood news), Ndrive, Layar, Photofunia, ThinkFree Office (viewer, no editing), YouTube, PNR Status Checker, Indian Music, and the Aldiko e-reader.

A major advantage that the 2.2 OS has over the 2.1 OS is the native Froyo browser, which has inbuilt flash support and provides excellent performance. Opera mini for Android can also be downloaded, for greater interface including multi tabs.

Another froyo advantage is that it has the ability to install apps on the SD card and allows you to keep a variety of apps without ever worrying to delete them.

PERFORMANCE

CALL: During our tests, there were no call drops. The volume of the earpiece was sufficient but audio pick up was not very strong. Call clarity in both handset and handsfree mode was good for both the parties, but in loudspeaker mode, some distortion was evident at high volumes. Handsfree as well as earpiece volume could have been louder.

Audio: Audio playback has balanced bass and treble levels, and is quite good with both the loudspeaker and the bundled handsfree. However, at higher volumes, some distortion is audible in the loudspeaker’s output.

Video: The  screen’s 256K colours max  is not very often prominent, but slight banding can be seen in certain videos. Both Xvid and DivX are supported, and during our testing, except for some stuttering with some AVI files, almost all the videos played perfectly without any hiccups.

Battery:  The battery life is about 18 hours with average use. This is better than average for an Android phone and is probably due to the more efficient Froyo OS and a slower CPU.

Camera: For a 3MP camera the picture sharpness, colour accuracy (slight red hue), and noise levels are all quite good. The settings of the camera, though basic are quite sufficient. There is no flash available ,and under low light  quite a lot of noise is evident, but then again, this is to be expected  from a sensor that size? Video recording is rather poor, but is tolerable when one considers the sensor again.

Verdict
LG Optimus One P500 stands out among its competitors for its up to date Froyo OS, fast performance and a number of bundled apps.

Available for Rs 13000,this phone is loaded with  features ,although one has to make do with a   relatively low resolution camera (3MP without flash) and the lack of free Office document editing.
 

Build Quality and egronomics

The phone had a solid built, but at 129g is slightly on the heavier side. It has black rubber...