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The LG Optimus is a new Android phone available only on a pay-as-you-go tariff from O2 for £150. It’s only LG’s second Android phone after the InTouch Max, and it’s a completely different animal: it has a 3in touchscreen rather than a QWERTY keyboard, and it’s much slimmer and easier on the eye. Sadly, LG hasn’t learned any lessons from the InTouch Max and the Optimus uses Android 1.6 rather than a newer 2.x version. While it’s an upgrade from the InTouch Max’s Android 1.5, it means you’ll miss out on a slew of new features, such as support for multiple accounts, multi-touch and improvements to the camera application. LG includes a copy of the QuickOffice viewer and its own Social Networking app. The latter lets you connect to your Facebook, Twitter and Bebo accounts, but the interface for each service is sparse – you can’t retweet, for example – and contacts imported from these services can’t be merged with contacts on your SIM, so you’ll end up with duplicates. There’s also a video editing app, which is unusual. This lets you create slideshow videos of a group of photos, for example, with a range of cheesy effects available. It can also take a video and extract the best scenes based on movement, faces or landscape changes. It’s no match for a proper desktop video editor, but it’s a fun way to spice up videos to send to friends. Design-wise, the Optimus is pleasingly slim, with rounded ends and an attractive brushed-metal finish. The case is actually made of plastic and it’s quite light as a result, but still feels well built. As well as dedicated buttons for answering, hanging up and Home, there are two touch-sensitive controls for the Menu and Back functions, but there’s no cursor control.
If you have the money and prefer PAYG to contract, the Optimus might be good value. However we found the design a bit bland, and the fact that LG hasn’t yet shipped an up-to-date version of Android is disappointing. There are better phones at this price.
