The world cried out for a dual-core smartphone and LG and NVIDIA answered the call. Actually, the world only ever dreamt about multicore mobile architectures up until late last year, but sometimes that's all it takes to get those zany engineers engineering. So here we are, in early February 2011, beholding the world's first smartphone built around a dual-core processor, the Optimus 2X. This is a landmark handset in more ways than one, however, as its presence on the market signals LG's first sincere foray into the Android high end. Although the company delivered two thoroughly competent devices for the platform with the Optimus S and T in 2010, they were the very definition of mid-range smartphones and the truth is that Samsung, HTC and Motorola were left to fight among themselves for the most demanding Android users' hard-earned rubles. So now that LG's joined their ranks, was the wait worth it?Nothing much has changed since we first met this phone under its codename of Star a couple of months back. One uninterrupted slate of glass covers the entire front, broken up only by the earpiece grille at the very top. Four capacitive touch buttons keep the 4-inch WVGA LCD company, along with a front-facing camera just to the right of the LG logo. As we said in our preview, this is an uncomplicated and restrained design, evidence perhaps that LG chose to spend its time and money on what lies beneath the skin.
The glass front slopes off on its left and right edges before being engulfed by a metallic frame that wraps around the whole handset. Fit and finish between the two is absolutely perfect. The third component to the 2X's external setup is a flexible matte plastic cover that accounts for its entire rear section. It's stupendously easy to remove and replace while still forming a very good seal with its surrounding elements. The austere black back (there'll be brown and white versions too) is decorated with a silver column running through the middle brandishing a "with Google" slogan, which ends in a slight bump near the top, designed to accommodate the 8 megapixel camera module. We're happy to see another little glass cover here protecting the lens from accidental damage.
Overall, the Optimus 2X feels very well put together. It is rigid and unyielding, and although its construction materials are nothing special, the cumulative result is a highly pleasing one. Attention to detail is evident throughout, as even such simple things as the power / lock button and volume keys (the only physical controls on the 2X) feel perfectly measured and built. The screen does suffer from a bout of excessimus bezelitus and we'd have preferred non-capacitive Android buttons, however those are design decisions we'll just have to live with at this point. You'll find the bezel at least partially justified when you open up the rear and see how densely packed the 2X's internals are.
The star of that internal show is undoubtedly NVIDIA's Tegra 2 system-on-chip. It's highlighted by two 1GHz Cortex-A9 CPU cores and eight GeForce GPU cores, yet still finds the room to include native HDMI and dual display support. Pairing those two together means you can see content on your Optimus 2X and your nearest HDTV at the same time, though that capability isn't available when playing back video (only the bigger screen gets the moving picture feed). We still found plenty of use for the dual display functionality, particularly when browsing or showing off pictures on the handset, but it also helps tilt-controlled games like the preloaded Shrek Kart transform the 2X into a very slick-looking motion controller for big-screen gaming. It takes quite some graphical prowess to be able to execute this "HDMI mirroring" technique, particularly when displaying 3D games and not just stills, but the 2X does it without a sweat.
The world cried out for a dual-core smartphone and LG and NVIDIA answered the call. Actually, the world only ever dreamt about multicore mobile architectures up until late last year, but sometimes that's all it takes to get those zany engineers engineering. So here we are, in early February 2011, beholding the world's first smartphone built around a dual-core processor, the Optimus 2X. This is a landmark handset in more ways than one, however, as its presence on the market signals LG's first sincere foray into the Android high end. Although the company delivered two thoroughly competent devices for the platform with the Optimus S and T in 2010, they were the very definition of mid-range smartphones and the truth is that Samsung, HTC and Motorola were left to fight among themselves for the most demanding Android users' hard-earned rubles. So now that LG's joined their ranks, was the wait worth it?
LG Optimus 2X review
Hardware
Nothing much has changed since we first met this phone under its codename of Star a couple of months back. One uninterrupted slate of glass covers the entire front, broken up only by the earpiece grille at the very top. Four capacitive touch buttons keep the 4-inch WVGA LCD company, along with a front-facing camera just to the right of the LG logo. As we said in our preview, this is an uncomplicated and restrained design, evidence perhaps that LG chose to spend its time and money on what lies beneath the skin.
The glass front slopes off on its left and right edges before being engulfed by a metallic frame that wraps around the whole handset. Fit and finish between the two is absolutely perfect. The third component to the 2X's external setup is a flexible matte plastic cover that accounts for its entire rear section. It's stupendously easy to remove and replace while still forming a very good seal with its surrounding elements. The austere black back (there'll be brown and white versions too) is decorated with a silver column running through the middle brandishing a "with Google" slogan, which ends in a slight bump near the top, designed to accommodate the 8 megapixel camera module. We're happy to see another little glass cover here protecting the lens from accidental damage.
Overall, the Optimus 2X feels very well put together. It is rigid and unyielding, and although its construction materials are nothing special, the cumulative result is a highly pleasing one. Attention to detail is evident throughout, as even such simple things as the power / lock button and volume keys (the only physical controls on the 2X) feel perfectly measured and built. The screen does suffer from a bout of excessimus bezelitus and we'd have preferred non-capacitive Android buttons, however those are design decisions we'll just have to live with at this point. You'll find the bezel at least partially justified when you open up the rear and see how densely packed the 2X's internals are.
Tegra 2
The star of that internal show is undoubtedly NVIDIA's Tegra 2 system-on-chip. It's highlighted by two 1GHz Cortex-A9 CPU cores and eight GeForce GPU cores, yet still finds the room to include native HDMI and dual display support. Pairing those two together means you can see content on your Optimus 2X and your nearest HDTV at the same time, though that capability isn't available when playing back video (only the bigger screen gets the moving picture feed). We still found plenty of use for the dual display functionality, particularly when browsing or showing off pictures on the handset, but it also helps tilt-controlled games like the preloaded Shrek Kart transform the 2X into a very slick-looking motion controller for big-screen gaming. It takes quite some graphical prowess to be able to execute this "HDMI mirroring" technique, particularly when displaying 3D games and not just stills, but the 2X does it without a sweat.
That HDMI cable -- bundled in the box, as it should be -- is also put to good use with 1080p video content, which looks sharp and plays back flawlessly on the 2X. As we noted above, the mirroring capability is dropped when handling video, but that's unlikely to be an issue because we can't imagine a usage scenario where you'd need to see a video feed on both displays. Getting the HDMI connection up is a zero-setup affair and playback switches between devices on the fly -- disconnect your HDTV while watching a video and it flips over to the Optimus 2X and its integrated speaker; hook it back up again and within a second it's back booming at you from the HDTV. Just seamless. Scope out the video below for a demonstration of this phone's video-crunching credentials.
The world cried out for a dual-core smartphone and LG and NVIDIA answered the call. Actually, the world only ever dreamt about multicore mobile architectures up until late last year, but sometimes that's all it takes to get those zany engineers engineering. So here we are, in early February 2011, beholding the world's first smartphone built around a dual-core processor, the Optimus 2X. This is a landmark handset in more ways than one, however, as its presence on the market signals LG's first sincere foray into the Android high end. Although the company delivered two thoroughly competent devices for the platform with the Optimus S and T in 2010, they were the very definition of mid-range smartphones and the truth is that Samsung, HTC and Motorola were left to fight among themselves for the most demanding Android users' hard-earned rubles. So now that LG's joined their ranks, was the wait worth it?
LG Optimus 2X review
Hardware
Nothing much has changed since we first met this phone under its codename of Star a couple of months back. One uninterrupted slate of glass covers the entire front, broken up only by the earpiece grille at the very top. Four capacitive touch buttons keep the 4-inch WVGA LCD company, along with a front-facing camera just to the right of the LG logo. As we said in our preview, this is an uncomplicated and restrained design, evidence perhaps that LG chose to spend its time and money on what lies beneath the skin.
The glass front slopes off on its left and right edges before being engulfed by a metallic frame that wraps around the whole handset. Fit and finish between the two is absolutely perfect. The third component to the 2X's external setup is a flexible matte plastic cover that accounts for its entire rear section. It's stupendously easy to remove and replace while still forming a very good seal with its surrounding elements. The austere black back (there'll be brown and white versions too) is decorated with a silver column running through the middle brandishing a "with Google" slogan, which ends in a slight bump near the top, designed to accommodate the 8 megapixel camera module. We're happy to see another little glass cover here protecting the lens from accidental damage.
Overall, the Optimus 2X feels very well put together. It is rigid and unyielding, and although its construction materials are nothing special, the cumulative result is a highly pleasing one. Attention to detail is evident throughout, as even such simple things as the power / lock button and volume keys (the only physical controls on the 2X) feel perfectly measured and built. The screen does suffer from a bout of excessimus bezelitus and we'd have preferred non-capacitive Android buttons, however those are design decisions we'll just have to live with at this point. You'll find the bezel at least partially justified when you open up the rear and see how densely packed the 2X's internals are.
Tegra 2
The star of that internal show is undoubtedly NVIDIA's Tegra 2 system-on-chip. It's highlighted by two 1GHz Cortex-A9 CPU cores and eight GeForce GPU cores, yet still finds the room to include native HDMI and dual display support. Pairing those two together means you can see content on your Optimus 2X and your nearest HDTV at the same time, though that capability isn't available when playing back video (only the bigger screen gets the moving picture feed). We still found plenty of use for the dual display functionality, particularly when browsing or showing off pictures on the handset, but it also helps tilt-controlled games like the preloaded Shrek Kart transform the 2X into a very slick-looking motion controller for big-screen gaming. It takes quite some graphical prowess to be able to execute this "HDMI mirroring" technique, particularly when displaying 3D games and not just stills, but the 2X does it without a sweat.
That HDMI cable -- bundled in the box, as it should be -- is also put to good use with 1080p video content, which looks sharp and plays back flawlessly on the 2X. As we noted above, the mirroring capability is dropped when handling video, but that's unlikely to be an issue because we can't imagine a usage scenario where you'd need to see a video feed on both displays. Getting the HDMI connection up is a zero-setup affair and playback switches between devices on the fly -- disconnect your HDTV while watching a video and it flips over to the Optimus 2X and its integrated speaker; hook it back up again and within a second it's back booming at you from the HDTV. Just seamless. Scope out the video below for a demonstration of this phone's video-crunching credentials.
Once you get past those well executed headline features, however, there's a certain scarcity of real utility to be had from this dual-core chip. The trouble is that smartphones haven't really lacked for processing firepower in a good long while. What applications do you run on your mobile that can choke a 1GHz CPU, whether it be a Snapdragon, Hummingbird or an A4? There aren't many, right? And there are even fewer that have such a demanding overhead while running in the background -- which happens to be NVIDIA's big selling point for Tegra 2, that it allows you to multitask without ever getting bogged down. The chart below illustrates this well, but it also provides your absolute best case scenario -- you'll need to be engaged in a CPU-intensive process while decoding music in the background, another CPU job, and downloading / installing applications. As soon as you back off, say by switching off the background music and allowing your foreground process to have all the processing power (and thereby complete its task more quickly), the benefits of having a dual-core machine will become far less tangible.
SPECIFICATION
| General | 2G Network | GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 |
|---|---|---|
| 3G Network | HSDPA 900 / 1900 / 2100 | |
| HSDPA 900 / 1700 / 2100 | ||
| Announced | 2010, December | |
| Status | Available. Released 2011, February |
| Size | Dimensions | 123.9 x 63.2 x 10.9 mm |
|---|---|---|
| Weight | 139 g |
| Display | Type | IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches (~233 ppi pixel density) | |
| Multitouch | Yes | |
| Sensors | Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass | |
| - Gorilla glass display - Touch-sensitive controls |
| Sound | Alert types | Vibration, MP3 ringtones |
|---|---|---|
| Loudspeaker | Yes | |
| 3.5mm jack | Yes, check quality |
| Memory | Phonebook | Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall |
|---|---|---|
| Call records | Practically unlimited | |
| Internal | 8 GB storage, 512 MB RAM | |
| Card slot | microSD, up to 32GB, buy memory |
| Data | GPRS | Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 - 48 kbps |
|---|---|---|
| EDGE | Class 12 | |
| 3G | HSDPA, 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 5.76 Mbps | |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi hotspot | |
| Bluetooth | Yes, v2.1 with A2DP | |
| USB | Yes, microUSB v2.0 |
| Camera | Primary | 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash, check quality |
|---|---|---|
| Features | Geo-tagging, face and smile detection, touch focus, image stabilization | |
| Video | Yes, 1080p@24fps, 720p@30fps, check quality | |
| Secondary | Yes, 1.3 MP |
| Features | OS | Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo), upgradable to v2.3 |
|---|---|---|
| Chipset | Nvidia Tegra 2 AP20H | |
| CPU | Dual-core 1 GHz Cortex-A9 | |
| GPU | ULP GeForce | |
| Messaging | SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM | |
| Browser | HTML, Adobe flash | |
| Radio | Stereo FM radio with RDS | |
| Games | Yes + downloadable | |
| Colors | Black | |
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS support | |
| Java | Yes, via Java MIDP emulator | |
| - Social networking integration - HDMI port - Google Search, Maps, Gmail - YouTube, Google Talk - DivX/Xvid/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player - MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ player - Document editor - Organizer - Voice memo/dial/commands - Predictive text input |
| Battery | Standard battery, Li-Ion 1500 mAh | |
|---|---|---|
| Stand-by | Up to 400 h |
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