The good old smartphone has held the highest echelons among the mobile phone segment. However, now we have a new category of devices that will be the flag bearers for exclusivity – 3D phones. The first one to arrive in our test center is LG Optimus 3D, a phone that LG (smartly) launched before the HTC Evo 3D, in India. We did a detailed hands-on of the Optimus 3D the moment it arrived in our territory. And now here is the full-fledged review.

Look & Feel

Let’s forget about its standout feature for a bit and besides that, it is a bit of a disappointment in the looks department – it’s thick, and heavy (168 grams). There is a silver strip running down the entire length of the back panel and this adds a bit of shine to the otherwise simple look. Despite its weight, the rubberized feeling does help when you are holding the phone and typing a message with the same hand. The ‘top heavy’ nature of the phone can be a bit disconcerting at first, since it’ll constantly attempt to tilt backwards, headfirst.

The 4-inch display has four touch-based buttons – Menu, Home, Return and Search. While these buttons are backlit, the backlight comes on only when you touch one of them. Kind of defeats the purpose of the backlight!

The right side panel has the 3D button (that switches the phone into 3D mode by basically opening what LG calls a “3D Zone”), and we’ll forgive you for thinking it is the camera key! The HDMI port and the microUSB port are on the other side. Flip the phone over, and there are the dual cameras – for 3D pictures and videos.

Features

The Optimus 3D has a 4.3-inch 3D display (480x800 pixel resolution), and quite frankly, we absolutely loved it. Why? – excellent colour, with only very minor gradation of colours (at times), great brightness levels, fast moving scenes in videos are smoother than most other high-end smartphones (maybe because this display has a quicker refresh rate, don’t really know) and the depth of the 3D content was actually surprising, in a good way. The 3D Zone mentioned earlier contains all 3D content – games, movies and access to the 3D camera.

Before we get back to 3D and its performance, let us look at some of the other features. The ARM Cortex-A9 dual core 1GHz processor and the PowerVR SGX540 graphics power this 3D smartphone. However, we were a bit amazed (and subsequently a bit disappointed) to find that there is only 512MB of RAM to complement this processor. The 8GB of built-in storage can be added to via the microSD card route, up to 32GB. For the photography enthusiasts out there, a smartphone may not always be the best device, but the dual 5MP cameras do have some powerful capabilities – 1080p @ 30fps for 2D videos and 720p @ 30fps for 3D videos. And yes, it takes 3D pictures too! The mini HDMI out port will let you connect to any 3D television as well to enjoy 3D on a bigger display.

The LG 3D UI wrapped around Android is basically an updated version of the one we saw on the Optimus 2X with a slightly tweaked look. The Optimus 3D comes pre-loaded with Android 2.2, and frankly with 2.3 becoming pretty much de facto on phones, this retro step is a bit of a puzzle.

Read more about the LG Optimus 3D, its performance and our verdict, on the next page...