LG Optimus One Released in the UK
The newest phone in LG’s range of mobile phones featuring the Android Operating system has just been released. It’s the latest smartphone to feature Android, but so far it’s the one most targeted towards those who want the features but don’t have a big budget. It has all the standard features that one would expect to find on a smartphone, although the camera is 3.2 mega pixels – compare this to the 5 megapixel camera the Optimus Chic has. There has been a lot of pressure on LG to ensure that the Optimus One performs well in a market already dominated by HTC, Samsung and the market leader, the Apple iPhone.
A large amount of the reported loss of profit for the company last quarter was attributed to very poor performance by mobile phone releases. It almost seems as if LG has painted itself into a corner with the Cookie mobile phone line, which were successful. They sold well but they were very much budget phones, and it is this tag which may hamper many people from taking the Optimus smartphones seriously. With its latest handset it would appear that LG is playing to that perception albeit with the phone being primarily positioned towards the bottom of a particularly expensive section of the mobile phone market.
One major bugbear that many smartphone users take issue with is extremely short battery life. The internet is littered with complaints from both Apple and HTC users that they need to charge their phone once a day, if not more to be able to use the functionality the phones come with. In comparison the Optimus One comes with a much larger than usual battery. They claim that this battery lasts 7.5 hours of talk time, and more than 550 hours of standby time.
Another point in its favour for many people is its integration with Google. This allows people to search information instantly as well as make use of voice search. The phone comes with Google Goggles which means that you can search by image, as well as voice and typing. This is in addition to Android 2.2’s heavy level of Google integration and should allow users to get even more from Google apps already available on the Android marketplace. The Layer application may be a little redundant though since the mobile phone phone already supports augmented reality.