LG Optimus One (P500) Hands-on and Review [With Pics]

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Our rating: (3.5/5)

A decent budget phone from LG, though lacks a few features. It’s a good first Smart phone with Android 2.2 with auto focus camera.

LG Optimus One is a good shot at it, here’s some pros and cons on why it’s a decent budget phone.

The phone comes with these accessories

• Phone
• 2GB SD card pre-loaded
• In ear headphones
• Power adaptor
• USB Data cable (A separate USB Cable)
• A pouch/cover (Although you’d want to order one)
• A free WiFi card valid for 2 months (I couldn’t detect it’s signal from my home at least)

Here is a list of pros and cons.

Pros

• Decent 600 Mhz processor – Faster than other budget phones of 2010.
• OS: Android 2.2 Froyo, will be upgradable to Android 2.3 as confirmed by LG. Most other phones even the costlier ones are still being upgraded to 2.2. Kudos LG!
• Camera: 3.0 MP camera with Auto focus– It takes decent pictures with the auto focus, read the cons – it doesn’t have a camera flash. This also records video at 18FPS
• Resolution: HVGA 320X480 – Unlike other budget phones (HTC Wildfire and Samsung Galaxy 3) like with QVGA resolution. Having a decent resolution let’s you install more games like Angry Birds and important apps like Skype.
• Has Google apps, well most of the other budget phones do too. You can’t fully utilize an android phone without Google Maps, GMail or even Google Goggles.
• GPS, A-GPS and a Digital compass for your navigation needs. It’s a decent one, although it sucks not to have voice directions in India.
• Not too Heavy – Although it’s supposed to be lighter with the smaller 3.2’’ inch screen. I guess it’s the battery that the humans couldn’t shrink as they did with the memory cards.

Cons

• Doesn’t have Camera flash – Although other budget cameras have evolved to have cameras. If you’re looking to do low-light photographs, then this might disappoint you.
• No Track ball – Most budget Android’s phone’s touch sensitivity doesn’t still match that off even the first gen iPhone2G. I think having a trackball reduces the pain of scrolling long pages and input fields on a page.
• Comes with a lot of crap ware installed, who the heck would use an “Infant vaccine tracker”? Not cool. You can of course “root your phone” to remove the bloat-ware.
• No Front Camera – This is much needed in any present gen smartphone. I think 2011 will be about Video calling, with 3G services soon to be up in India. We’d hope to see a 3G revolution with affordable data plans and video call replacing a normal voice call. Your wife would surely want to check on you if you’re having lunch at work 🙂

How to root your LG Optimus One?
We at woikr believe that it’s the user’s call to root/utilitize the phone to it’s full extent. Along with the other rooting guides, here’s one more.  You can use Z4Root App from the Android Market to do a temporary/permanent root. Head over to this rooting guide for further details. This is the another one click root methods available to root a large number of devices.

Detailed pictures

How to order one?
After searching for all the major local outlets to get the phone – Croma & Hyper City at Hyderabad. I’ve decided to purchase the phone online. I’ve ordered the phone from FlipKart on a late Sunday evening and me and my wife were excited. It’s her first Smart phone and I didn’t want to disappoint her. I’ve got the phone in my hands in less than 2 days of ordering it. The ordering process and shipping was really smooth and perfect. Kudos to the FlipKart team.

LG Optimus One cases?
I’ve faced a lot of problem getting protective cases for LG Optimus One and my dad’s Wildfire. Then comes Fommy.co.in for rescue. It’s got a great list of phone accessories for shipping in India. I’m yet to receive the Amzer Silicon case that I ordered (black and purple). But my experience with them before has been good.

The Verdict
LG did well to come into India’s budget smart phone market. The phone definitely gives a strong competition with it’s likes in HTC and Samsung and I’d say has been great to use till now. We rate it 3.5/5 and a phone that you can buy. Sure if you’ve got a little more patience, you can wait for super fast LG Optimus 2X which will be out in a couple of weeks.

[Update – 14th June 2011] This phone might get Gingerbread after all (by July 2011). Here’s a teaser video posted by LG Italy of the phone running the Android 2.3. No information till date on when the India editions will receive this update yet. Watch this space for more info.

[Update – 11th September 2011] The Gingerbread Android 2.3 upgrade is now available for the LG Optimus One in India. To upgrade to the new Android version, follow these steps.