LG Optimus One P500 review: One and a half

Introduction

The LG Optimus One may not be your average killer gadget, but it sports a tempting pricetag, solid build, a nice looking set of features and Android 2.2 Froyo. And with the Optimus One in your hand, you are free to mock and tease those seemingly superior phones, which are still stuck on Eclair – now that's priceless!

Indeed, the Optimus One offers an awesome price-to-features ratio among modern Android smartphones. With 1 million units sold already, the LG Optimus One P500 seems to be a popular option and it’s not difficult to see why.

LG Optimus One P500 official photos

True, it's only got a moderately clocked CPU running at 600MHz, but with the performance boost from Froyo it feels reasonably fast and responsive most of the time and the plenty amounts of RAM give it enough app-toggling punch. Here go the rest of the specs:

Key features:

• 3.2" 256K-color capacitive TFT touchscreen of HVGA resolution (320 x 480 pixels); Multi-touch input
• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
• Dual-band 3G with HSDPA (7.2 Mbps)
• 600MHz CPU running Android 2.2 Froyo; 419MB RAM
• 3 megapixel autofocus camera; face and smile detection, geotagging
• VGA video recording @ 18fps
• microSD card slot, up to 32GB, 2GB in the box
• Standard 3.5mm audio jack
• Standard microUSB port (charging)
• GPS receiver with A-GPS; Digital compass
• Wi-Fi b/g; Wi-Fi hotspot functionality built-in
• Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP
• Accelerometer for screen auto rotate; Proximity sensor
• FM radio with RDS
• Office document editor
• Portrait and landscape on-screen QWERTY keyboard
• Social networking integration
• DivX/XviD support
• Smart dialing
• Excellent loudspeaker performance

Main disadvantages:

• Slow CPU makes editing Office documents a chore
• Camera is just 3MP, has no lens protection, no flash and no dedicated shutter key
• No Flash support in the browser despite Froyo
• No front facing camera

Digging inside the camera settings you can almost get lost – smile shots, face detection, face-tracking effects, beauty and art shots and so on. At 3MP it’s a no-frills camera but certainly one for casual users to have so much fun with.

The LG Optimus One P500 at our office

Then there are the Facebook and Twitter apps which come preinstalled and the video player has DivX/XviD video support – the LG Optimus One P500 knows good fun. There’s a serious side to it as well, the Office document viewer/editor will help you get some work done.

Overall, the Optimus One can’t compete in the Android big league but great value for money is likely to draw many people away from feature phones (which is a huge market to tap into).

It’s not without its limitations – editing a complex Office document is painfully slow and video playback stops short of VGA resolution.

But when you’re buying cheap, you know you’ll have to make compromises – jump to the next page to see if there’s anything lacking in the hardware department.