LG Optimus 4X HD: A Quad-Core Android Phone - hubbardripplexprem

At a Glint

Expert's Military rating

Pros

Runs Android Ice Cream Sandwich with NFC back up
Crisp, enlighten display
Effective musculus quadriceps femoris-marrow processor

Cons

Camera isn't A good every bit competitors'
Build feels a bit twopenny
Optimus 3.0 UI is a little clunky

Our Finding of fact

The LG Optimus 4X HD is a very regent phone, but the software and camera are lacking.

The LG Optimus 4X HD ($560 unlocked; monetary value as of 7/5/12) is LG's first foray into the quad-core world. Announced several four months ago at the Mobile World-wide Congress, the 4X HD is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, but that's not its lone foreground. It too has a 4.7-column inch display with a 1280-pixel-away-720-pixel resolution. The Optimus 4X HD is presently available in EEC and bequeath arrive in Asia, South and Central America, and Soviet Union in coming months. In so far, LG hasn't announced any Continent availability for the 4X HD. LG's Android phones oasis't been wildly successful here in the United States, but this model has what information technology takes to ready a splash in that country.

Design and Display

The Optimus 4X HD is superthin at 0.35 inch; nevertheless, it isn't going to win any awards in the beauty department with its barren front, rigid orthogonal condition, and textured plastic battery cover. We received a white version for review; it's much more attractive than the black version I saw at the Ambulatory World Congress.

The 4X HD has what LG is calling a "True HD IPS" presentation. Blacks look very deep, colors vivid, and whites sunshiny. The shield does suffer from oversaturation, though, As our color-BAR and grayscale tests showed. In our color-bar test, colours bled into each other; in the grayscale test, we had trouble differentiating the light-to-dark shades from 1 another. We've found oversaturation to be a fairly common job crosswise multiple phones. But saturation isn't ever a bad thing. We've already mentioned the good colors. Details usually were also quite sharp in photos, but text edition rendering wasn't sodding. Sometimes text looked a little pixelated and fuzzy when viewing certain websites. Only for gaming, video-observance, and nonchalant Web browsing, the Optimus's display is excellent.

Performance

As mentioned to begin with, the Optimus 4X HD is LG's first quad-core phone running Nvidia's Tegra 3 processor. This processor really has a smaller fifth effect to assistanc phones conserve battery lifetime. The fifth core handles fewer-demanding tasks much as active standby and music playback. The PCWorld Prove Center ran a series of benchmarks on the Optimus 4X HD including the Geekbench, Andebench and Sunspider benchmarks. The 4X HD outperformed its rivals, the Galaxy S Cardinal and the HTC EVO 4G LTE, in both Geekbench and Andebench by a world-shaking amount. Information technology placed last—only just just—with the Sunspider bench mark, which measures Javascript performance in seconds.

Public debate rages terminated wheter quad-core processors are needed on moving phones. Some argue that too few apps are optimized for a processor that powerful. Others argue that quad-nub ISN't necessary on so much a small device. But peerless area where the king of quad-core is copiously clear is in play. I ran a few graphics-heavy games on the 4X HD, like ShadowGun, Macrocosm of Gook, and Osmos HD. The games played smoothly and looked terrific on the 4X HD's display. When it comes to mobile gaming—especially games with 3D graphics—Tegra 3 phones have an reward.

The PCWorld Test Center careful the 4X HD's stamp battery functioning aside playing a video at full luminousness with the audio set at upper limit volume. The video recording file is a high-definition TV that plays at 720p incessantly in a loop-the-loop until the electric battery gives out, at which point the total battery living is logged by either our automated timekeeper application (on Humanoid tablets) or one of our fiducial testers standing aside with stopwatch in hand. After ii passes, the Optimus 4X had an average battery life of 6 hours, 28 minutes. The Galaxy S III had thirster battery aliveness by just over an 60 minutes (7 hours, 30 minutes), while the HTC EVO 4G LTE ran about a half hour yearner than the 4X HD (7 hours, 4 minutes).

Software

The Optimus 4X HD runs the Mechanical man Ice Cream Sandwich operating system with an LG-branded user interface running over IT, an port aptly called Optimus UI 3.0. One of its features is QuickMemo, which lets you take notes with your finger. Unhappily, this sport was nowhere to be saved along our review social unit, but LG says that all Optimus 4X HD phones leave send on with the app.

I'll admit that I'm not a fan of these manufacturer-built Android user interfaces. I think Android 4.0 is clean, attractive and refined—and doesn't need anything extra added to it. But as a good deal equally technical school reviewers and consumers plain, manufacturers are going to continue to slap their overlays over Android in order to differentiate their phones from the challenger.

The 4X HD also comes with collective-in NFC (near-field of honor communications) for making rotatable payments. You can habituate Android Radio beam, which is built into Android 4.0, to transfer photos, contacts, Web pages, and more to another NFC-armored Android 4.0 phone.

Camera

Like all other high-ending Mechanical man phone, the Optimus 4X HD has an 8-megapixel derriere-illuminated sensor. In my own hands-on tests, the Optimus 4X took okay photos inside and good photos outdoors. I took a some snapshots along a sunny day in San Francisco and was affected with their clarity and color. Indoor photos had a strange, yellowish cast to them. I also noticed a trifle graininess in some of my shots (click on our tranquillize-life test pic, at left, to enlarge) and a lack of sharpness. The cameras on the HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy S III are much improve than that of the LG Optimus 4X HD.

Bottom Line

Sometimes it is hard to not be envious of our neighbors overseas–they appear to get all the cold phones. Here in the US, we're still wait for at least unitary quad-CORE phone to make its way concluded here. The LG Optimus 4X HD demonstrates the business leader of a quadriceps-core processor, particularly in gaming. It also has a gorgeous display and the latest available version of Android to boot. The tv camera isn't as good As the HTC One phones surgery the Samsung Galaxy S III, however, and I wish LG had left Mechanical man 4.0 alone. But overall, the LG Optimus 4X HD has what it takes to compete with other top-of-the-line of credit Android phones, and I hope that LG brings a edition to the Combined States.