Smartphone LG Optimus 4X HD – It is one of the only and the first device of LG that has Nvidia Tegra 3 platform. In addition to a powerful system-on-chip LG Optimus 4X HD has a 4.7 IPS-display, 16GB of internal memory, high-capacity battery and runs on Android 4.0. Technically, LG Optimus 4X HD is the closest rival of Smartphone HTC One X. One X also built on the platform Nvidia Tegra3, and has comparable performance. But there is one difference – HTC One X has been known and sold to users, all the advantages and disadvantages, while the LG Optimus 4X HD is still a dark horse. Let’s see how successful is the first quad core smartphone of LG.

Appearance and ergonomics | LG Optimus 4X HD

It seems that LG Optimus 4X HD is like Samsung Galaxy SII, but in close comparison it becomes clear that the only unifying feature of the device can be considered unless the rectangular case.

Dimensions of 4X are same as the smartphone HTC One X, which is not surprising. But what is surprising is just how different the two devices. Even when you have in the hands of HTC and LG, is difficult to understand how much they have in common yet not compare the size and does not look within specifications.

Except for the characteristic bulge at the edges of tempered glass, the eye does not catch hold. The front side is covered with tempered glass, which is located under the 4.7 “display, camera, proximity sensor, light sensor and three virtual buttons” Back “,” Home “,” Menu “. At the top there is an oblong slit earpiece.

Volume rocker on the left side has a specific texture. The course of the buttons is quite tight. Key projects over the body are just enough so that it was easy to feel blindly. The right side panel is made in the same style, only it lacks any buttons or connectors. At the bottom is placed MicroUSB-connector and the microphone hole.

At the top end there is a power button / lock, 3.5 mm jack, and another microphone. As with the volume keys, power button with no problems. It has quite a tight turn.

The perimeter of the housing surrounds two silver rim “on the metal.” No functional load they carry, and are nothing more than a decorative element. To predict how long such a material is able to maintain its presentation difficult, but for the time spent with smartphones, chipped or worn they are not there cannot be said about the small scratches.

Removable back cover for its texture resembles PRADA Phone by LG 3.0. Despite the seemingly rigid plastic, tactile feel as though in the hands of the soft-touch plastic. Due to what has been achieved this effect is unknown, but the tactile sensation of the smartphone pleasant, although materials such as those used in the HTC One X or the LG Optimus 4X would be clearly preferable. Along the edges of the rear panel has a round, which makes the body more visually subtle. Unlike the HTC One X, which is simply impossible not to notice the camera, the Optimus 4X HD is much more modest. Located next to the lens flare is just below the logo, and below two slots of multimedia speakers.
To remove the cover, it has a special groove near to the MicroUSB. After removing it, gives you access to the battery os 2150 mA / h card slot (supports hot swapping), and SIM. Note that the NFC antenna is built into the back cover, as evidenced by the appropriate inscription on the inside.

All items are closely adjusted to each other, but when squeezing body begins to crack. Many people wonder how easy to use so many smart phone. The answer: those who are not accustomed to the devices with a large screen, it may be difficult, since the dimensions (height and width) LG Optimus 4X HD is really rather big. If you have had experience in operating a smartphone with a screen 4.3 “or more, you are unlikely to confuse with the size of 4X HD. Get your finger to the line or press notices can be included in any grip, but whether this key on any of the sidewalls of the body, the ergonomics of this is not affected.

The operating system and interface of LG Optimus 4X HD

LG’s portfolio, this model is the third, which uses a new (not the most current) version of the operating system, Android Ice Cream Sandwich. The first phone with the Android ICS in LG, is LG Optimus L7, the second was the LG Optimus L5. And then came the turn of LG Optimus 4X HD. I’m sure many of our readers know that the transition to the new LG smartphone OS version, and the firm changed the shell Optimus UI, received the serial number of 3.0. Optimus UI 3.0 is one of the most interesting of all the shells that I have ever seen. In addition to visual changes, users will also expect a great smooth drawing interface. With high probability, the users of smartphones in 2011 production will never see Optimus UI 3.0 in their devices.

Part of the interface options only available when the SIM-card is inserted

At the bottom of the screen, four shortcuts to Quick Launch are present there. There are five ways to unlock the screen. The most colourful of them – the first – “Unlocking the finger.” When you touch the screen with your finger under the manifest image of the desktop, or running application. As the user moves the finger increased “window” in which you can see what is hidden behind a screen lock. Everything is made so beautiful that you want to repeat the unlock process over and over again.

In the setting of the lock screen you can choose from five widgets. It is not clear why the illustration of clock or calendar gets its name because neither they nor the other is not able to display relevant information such as events from the calendar. As a shortcut, shortcuts can be set to any of the available applications on the Smartphone, including downloaded.

 
To start using the inverse of the HTC Sense 3.0/4.0 operation, the user does not need to move the shortcut into the area with a circle, it suffices to choose the right and pull it into any of the possible directions.

If necessary, lock the screen you can go to the menu notifications. It’s enough to pull down the upper area of the screen. Here you can see the current events, notifications and icons to change some of the functions of a smartphone. The number of recent app is limited to ten. The default is five. The user can set the order and type. Note that the transition to Android 4.0; some manufacturers has abandoned the use of fast switches.
Unlock the screen you get to the desktop, which, of course, adorned weather widget. Its interface has been redesigned, and now it looks like a three-dimensional object. Clicking on, it will launch full-screen application “weather” followed by the beautiful animation. Weather data is synchronized with the server Yahoo Weather.
The default number of windows desktop is 7, while in the HTC Sense 4.0, Xperia UX – five. To add widgets, shortcuts, wallpaper, or use the familiar setting of an earlier version of OS gesture – click on the retention of free space. The second method is to call the same settings – the “+” in the upper right corner of the screen.

To add a widget, just select from a list of desired and transfer it to any free space. If such were not available, you will be prompted to add another box. To view all the windows and used the familiar gesture – Pinch. After completing such a gesture, you can choose which of the windows will be the primary or the Add / Remove window. Despite the fact that officially automatically sorts of labels when adding widgets appeared only with the release of Android 4.1, we’ve seen it before, such as smart phones like Motorola, and now LG. Remained unchanged and the number of branded widgets that LG has assiduously ignored.

In the settings of the desktop there is the choice of topics, animation, effects, accompanying the transition from one window to another, scroll wallpaper, along with the movement of windows, circular scrolling desktop and backup / restore user settings for the main screen. When you select one of the four present an opportunity to preview the changes the desktop and the applications menu. If you change your theme widgets, shortcuts, and their location does not change, but change icon labels, and background image.

If you prefer, you can change the icons without having to change themes. To do this, hold your finger to click on the icon for a little longer than it takes to run the corresponding application. In its upper right corner will brush, and the second press on the label will call the list of various icons. In each topic there is about 80 choices, among them 26 Latin letters. If none of the 80 options you do not like by clicking on the top left of the screen, you can always opt for a similar list for other topics. If this is not enough, user can set the image from the Gallery or from the camera. Thus, the interface is really a smartphone can do is unique.
In addition to icons in the settings there is a choice of effects. Their number is seven, but regardless of the type, scroll windows desktop is a pleasure, because none of them is characteristic of the system freezes.
Some of the labels support scaling. For example, the label of “Calendar”, which is present in all Android-smartphone, can change its size from the usual, occupied a square area of the screen to the entire working area occupied by the screen. The same applies to the labels “Weather”, “player”.
Remove labels / widgets and is accompanied by a beautiful animation.
Panel labels at the bottom of the screen is presented in the form of four labels. Their location, except for the label to enter the menu “Applications” can be interchanged. Is a unique opportunity to change the number of labels, from one to six pieces. Supported by the grouping of shortcuts to folders, including in the Quick Launch bar.
Another unique feature lies in the application menu / boot / widgets. The default number of labels in the first two tabs displayed in the form of a matrix of 4X5, but there is another option – 5×6 matrix, which is 50% higher than the first. The number of windows is unlimited. To remove the applications need to click on the icon “Settings” at the top right of the screen and to indicate which of the applications you want to delete.
The following is a brief description of  installed applications

Gestures

Management functions of a smartphone with gestures have been implemented in the first model, based on Nvidia Tegra2 – LG Optimus 2x. In LG Optimus Black number of gestures has increased several times. In LG Optimus 4X HD again returned to a moderate set of gestures. With their help, you can: move objects on the desktop, turn off the sound for incoming calls and alarm clock or pause the video playback. The developers have taken care of demanding users and added the ability to adjust the sensitivity of the inclination of the device.

Messages

In fact, there are no changes. There are two ways to enter text – a familiar, full-size keyboard and a second – handwriting, which knows how to run. Other features of note are a large number of emoticons. The disadvantages of all devices on the Optimus UI 3.0, include the lack of feedback when typing or using the touch sensitive keys. In this case we are talking about the vibration. Sometimes developers understand the logic of it is simply impossible. Perhaps, soon give up and the sound effects, and then typing will be done at random, without vibration and sound. Interestingly, when an incoming call vibration works fine. The first time, the smoldering hope that the problem is due to damp the firmware, but no, just forget about it.

Task Manager

With a gigabyte of RAM, you cannot worry about how much is now available. But Optimus UI and HTC Sense are the most voracious of shells, causing the amount of free RAM is much smaller than might be expected. For example, after downloading about 420-450 MB of free memory, but once you start using the device, its amount drops to 250-300 MB. Of course, this does not cause any complications during the operation smartphone, but if you think that it was slower to react to your actions, run the “Task Manager”. This utility is designed to control the amount of free RAM and is capable of unloading unwanted applications from memory, freeing up additional resources. Clicking on the tab “found” you can see what applications have been downloaded and, if necessary to remove unused.

LG Tag +

To take full advantage of this application requires the presence of NFC-tags. To our knowledge, complete with a smartphone for the CIS countries will not be delivered. Accordingly, the functionality is embedded in the LG Tag +, will not be used. However, if you have special tags, they can be used to switch the setting device. Initially, the device contains three modes – “the car”, “office” and “sleep.” The fourth item is for customization, although the first three can also be customized according to your discretion. To activate any of the tags requires a contact between the rear panel of the device (NFC antenna is located on the back cover), and NFC-tag, so that will be running a programmed sequence. For example, in the “Dream” is a mute, dimming and start the music player or FM-receiver.
Something like we’ve seen in the Motorola Droid RAZR, only when the change occurred in the profiles depending on the location of a smartphone, that is, using the coordinates obtained via satellite.

Media Home

The purpose of this utility – run multimedia applications when connected to your phone MHL-adapter. Given the lack of LG Optimus 4X HD Interface HDMI, the function will be claimed by those who like to see built-in camera footage material on the TV screen.

SmartShare

Application similar to the functionality of Media Home, but using DLNA-transfer protocol. Files can be transmitted to your mobile and from your phone to any compatible device.

LG SmartWorld

The utility, which contains free application from Play Market. To use it you have to register.

Polaris Office

Capable of universal application to act as a file manager, and applications to work with office files (DOC, XLS, PPT). All files can be synchronized with the server Box.net
If you have accounts on Facebook or Twitter, to synchronize the phone book with these social networks do not need to install separate client application, you need to log in at any of them, then all contacts will automatically appear in your smartphone.

In general, Optimus UI 3.0 interface looks pretty interesting. In it there are so many widgets as in other shells, but the possibilities of personalization, configuration and operation, Optimus UI 3.0 is among the leaders.

Platform of LG Optimus 4X HD

As has been said in the beginning of the review, LG Optimus 4X HD is first, and so far the only device on the platform of Nvidia Tegra3, which includes a processor with four cores to handle a major task, and 12 cores for graphics. CPU clock speed is limited to a frequency of 1.5 GHz. Enthusiasts have found a way to increase it to 1.8-1.9 GHz. RAM is 1 GB and 16 GB is reserved for storing various information, of which 12.3 GB are available to the user. Since the phone does not support memory cards, this volume does not seem enough.

When you connect your smartphone to a PC are 5 types of compounds – Charger, MTP (Media Transfer Protocol), USB-modem, the installation utility company to work with the device and PTP (Photo Transfer Protocol, is used in cases when it is not supported by the MTP). As you can see mode “Removable Drive” (USB Mass Storage) is absent. It was replaced by MTP. The file system device allows you to copy files to the internal memory with a size of 4 GB. Copying an 8.3 GB movie took over 10 minutes. At this time, the smartphone does not respond to almost any action.

The browser supports viewing HD-video, Flash, and can display pages in an ordinary, not mobile, form. Properly handle the formatting of text. To zoom in, just need to double click. If the font size is still too small, it can be increased manually, and then again two clicks the text to be adjusted to fit the screen. Supported by a separate brightness and save pages to read without going online. Whatever it was, but we recommend that you use a browser Chrome. It has several advantages and only a lack of lack of support for Flash. Those who are not planning to play games in your browser, this disadvantage is unlikely to seem serious, because most of the videos uploaded on Youtube, and view it using the Settings application.
Quad core smartphone LG Optimus 4X HD comes with the battery capacity of 2150 mA / h or 7.8 W / h Given that the same characteristics of HTC One X is satisfied only 1800 mA / h battery, it can be assumed that the length of time of Optimus will be higher. In practice, all is not so. In a typical operation, the reading of Twitter, Facebook, browser, data transmission over 3G-network, the device can hold out for a working day. It is hoped that with the release of new firmware while the increase. Well, as compensation can enjoy high-speed transmit / receive data via Wi-Fi and 3G-networks.
The results

Music Player

The application for listening to music has a minimal number of settings, and also visual design cannot boast of anything. In the setting specifies how long a player will be turned off, and select the sound effects. In any case, it is unlikely users waiting for something unusual.

The widget allows players to two touches to update the status on social networking sites, add a song to favourites, or go to the playlist.

When playing a music player on the lock screen is not displayed because of the possibility of a rapid transition in the menu notice, where the player controls are present.

Video Play

Functionality of the built-in player of the most extensive that we had to meet in smart phones. All videos are displayed with a preview and summary of the video – the name and duration. The right of the present circle / half circle, which indicates which of the files you overlooked until the end. When you run this file, you will be asked to continue playing or start over.
Apart from the fact that the player supports all popular video files, it is possible to choose the playback speed from 0.5 x to 2, view the list by running the video. The latter allows you to find the right moment to go to with it, without being distracted from the process view in the main window. Once you determine what time you want to go, just click on the image in a small window.
One of the trends among the top smartphones this year, is necessary to have the display with the HD-resolution. Company LG, one of the largest suppliers of displays for mobile devices, has equipped its offspring corresponding matrix: diagonal 4.7” resolution of 1280×720 pixels. As with any other display of the manufacturer, it was given its own name, in this case – True HD IPS. From the first two words can be guessed that the matrix has a “real HD-resolution”, which is not the super AMOLED.

Despite the achievements unit LG Display, are chosen for their own devices, not the best solution. It happened with the LG Optimus 4X HD. The matrix has a good supply of brightness, natural color reproduction and viewing angles are not bad, but because of the air gap between sensor and touch screen / glass part of the merits of just lost. For example, the display in HTC One X is more preferable, because it seems the image painted on the shell. Lack of air gap has a positive effect not only on the angles, but also the behavior of the display in bright sunlight. Finally, another drawback of the matrix in the LG Optimus 4X HD is overpriced minimum brightness, which negatively affects the work with the smartphone in the dim light.
In the display settings there is a choice of one of three fonts, font size, and installation of lighting touch keys. Here is the menu to calibrate the motion sensor, which we mentioned above.

Camera of LG Optimus 4X HD

In contrast to the displays, with the cameras in mobile phones and smart phones LG has always had everything not so smooth. This sensor is set to Sony. Given that the company supplies the camera for most of the vendors, it could be assumed that this time the situation will change for the better. The miracle did not happen.

In addition to the basic matrix in the 8 megapixel smartphone & 1.3-megapixel front camera. With it you can make video calls and chat on Skype. The maximum resolution of the camera in the “Photos” – 1280×960 pixels, in the “Video” – 1280×720 pixels.

The interface has undergone some changes in the viewfinder, but it was not for its own sake, but only because there are new features.
In the camera, the left side of the screen is occupied by the labels change the settings. In the upper right corner displays the current settings (flash, resolution, focus, memory and battery power). On the right, switch camera / video mode and enter the gallery, as well as the touch key lock frame. Recall that for the fixation can be used by the volume keys, however, with the camera will not focus.
Among the interesting features of the camera mode is worth noting, “The Time Machine” by photographing and “Stupid people” and “backgrounds” in the video recording. Time Machine is able to take pictures before you press the shutter. Use this mode can be in situations where you should not miss an important shot, for example, racing, shooting animals or small children. After pressing the trigger on-screen displays five images taken at intervals of several seconds.

In the information about photo displays the values of the chamber in which the image was obtained – the flash, focal length, white balance, aperture and so on.
In camera mode the user gets the same settings as in photography except for the choice of ISO settings and the type of focus. When shooting video, you can enable the use of backgrounds or those distortions. The background of the substrate can act “Disco”, “Cosmos,” “Sunset” or something from the video footage. Their purpose, rather, they use the scheme remained unclear to me.
The delay in the appearance of LG Optimus 4X HD in many countries market due to several factors, one of which is that the company intentionally delayed the way up to start selling Samsung Galaxy S3. The second reason – not ready for mass delivery. In all this there are positive aspects, such as the LG are aware that the main advantage of the smartphone – the cost.

LG’s got a good device, which has its own advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is the interface Optimus UI 3.0.

Pros:
+Optimus UI interface + 3.0
+ Display
+ Features
+ Video Player
+ Memory Card
+ The quality of communication

Cons:
– Materials
– No Dual Shock Vibration typing
– Quality photos and video does not comply with the flagship title
– Unstable autofocus during video recording
– expected cost