The LG GT540 Optimus is an android 1.6 phone (it has a 2.1 update available, which has some advantages)
The phone specs can be found here:
This phone is a value for money purchase when all its features are taken into account.
Screen:
Probably my only gripe is that the touchscreen is resistive and not capacitive which means there's no multi-touch support and the touch input is not as responsive as the capacitive screen. There is an upside though, the screen, while being resistive, is still very responsive and does not let you down.
The resolution of the screen is very good at 320x480. You may not pay attention to this important spec at first but irrespective of the screen size, the resolution is what gives the screen its clarity or detail. Compared to Samsung galaxy 3's 240x400 and HTC Wildfire's 240x320, the LG screen is so much more beautiful to look at.
Battery life:
The phone comes with large enough battery rated at 1500 mAh. When used on a 2G network, with wifi and gps turned off, the charge easily lasts 2.5 to 3 days with 3 hours of talktime and 50 SMSs. When using wifi and a decent amount of gaming, it lasts about 1.5 to days with around an hour of voice calls and 30 SMSs.
Home screens:
You can set upto 5 home screens with android 1.6 (and upto 7 with android 2.1). The LG home selector allows you to choose between the android home theme or the customised LG home theme (which I prefer).
Multimedia:
You have the default music and media player app that comes with the android OS. No equaliser. You can browse the songs by songname, artist etc. and you can create your own playlists. The loudspeaker is a big letdown as it is not loud at all! It appears as though the phone's earpiece doubles up as the loudspear, and hence the limit on the volume levels.
The GT540 is one of the few phones in the market that supports divx/xvid playback right out of the box. This is a very important positive for this phone. No more avi-to-mp4 conversion woes! Playback of 700mb avi files are pretty smooth. Audio quality in general is good enough for practical purposes. It has a 3.5 mm jack for audio out.
keyboard:
You have the option between choosing between qwerty keypad, phone keypad and 3 variants of handwriting recognition. This is available if you choose the LG keyboard. If you use the android keyboard you only have the qwerty keyboard. The andoid qwerty keyboard is better than the LG counterpart and also has better word suggestions. If you want to use the phone keypad type keyboard, you can stick with the LG input method.
call quality:
Call quality is very good. Speaker is clear and noise levels are very low. During the call, the screen turns off to save power. This is generally good but I have to press the end call button twice in order to end a call when the screen is off.
pricing:
This phone costs around 11,500 Rs. in Bangalore. At this price, it comes feature laden with GPS, 3G, WiFi etc. Good enough 3MP camera and divx playback.
Camera:
The GT540 sports a modest 3MP camera with no flash. The camera quality is good enough for those upgrading from a 2MP camera phone. The video quality is very bad, might as well not record anything with it. Camera shutter is controlled by a hardware button which is a plus. The built in camera settings are quite interesting, it has some level of control over ISO and exposure. It also has manual focus.
Performance:
The phone performs fairly well with no major lag between user actions. However after the upgrade to android 2.1, the 'call log' page takes a long time to load. I presume it has to be a problem in android OS itself as this is the only screen that lags this much. Games play pretty smooth. There is however, a slightly noticeable lag when the phone is kept running for days together and the amount of free phone memory is under 20mb.
Sometimes the phone speaker would become very loud and the the caller would hear echoes, but this has not happened after the upgrade to 2.1
The phone looks very different from other phones and is easily recognisable in a crowd of other touch screen phones. It also has a very good brushed aluminium like finish, though it is plastic. The hardware quality is very good and the phone feels very solid in your hands.
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