Slim and Bright (LG Optimus Black P970 late review)

LG claims that the Optimus Black (OB) has the brightest display among all smartphones, thanks to its NOVA display, during the time of its release last May 2011. That's a good selling point for people who like to use their phone outdoors. 

The design of the Optimus Black is really sleek and sexy. All plastic body does not mean that it looks cheap, it actually has better design compared to Samsung Galaxy Ace and Galaxy SL. The slim Optimus Black will fit perfectly in your pocket.

On the spec sheet, OB looks good but not an eye-catcher these days as smartphones gone quad-core already. It packs 1 GHz Cortex-A8, TI OMAP 3630 chipset (same chipset with Samsung Galaxy SL) and a PowerVR SGX530 GPU for games. It also has 512MB of RAM good enough for multi-tasking. OB also has 2 GB storage (1 GB user-available) and a microSD card slot expandable up to 32GB.

5-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash is capable of 720p video recording. It is good but not really impressive, I've seen better 5MP snappers like Galaxy Ace, SL and Nexus S. Video Recording is also not its strong point, but I'd pick 720p over VGA or 480p any day. The 2-megapixel front camera is nice though, especially if you always like taking pictures of yourself and you're always on Skype.

The 4-inch 480 x 800 pixels NOVA display is fantastic, I'd say it's really bright and performs really well under the sun. Going indoors, the NOVA display still delivers, colors are crisp but not too vibrant. It still outperforms a bunch of Android handsets available today.

Froyo sounds a bit outdated last year, how much more today? Never worry because OB now runs on Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread with the same LG UI. We can expect some performance boost (web browsing, smoother UI) from Gingerbread as the OB does not put on a show on Froyo. Battery life (1500mAh) may also be better considering it runs on 2.3.4, but Android phones usually don't get long battery life.

Sounds like a good phone? So-so. LG has been really lousy when it comes to software updates. They promised Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to this device, but its users are not so optimistic. It may arrive late this year or probably next year, who knows?

Having a future 4.0 update, the LG Optimus Black still sounds like a good bargain though.

The good:

-4-inch NOVA Display

-Sleek, sexy, slim design

-Runs on 2.3.4 Gingerbread

-Future Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 update

The bad:

-LG's reputation on software updates

-Camera could've been better
-LG's customized UI hampers performance



Philippine price as of this post: 13,000-14,000PHP




Alternatives: Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S, HTC One V, Google Nexus S