LG may have been lagging behind in the India smartphone market, but it now seems that the Korean giant has rolled its sleeves up to gain back its position and lost market share. Having impressed us with its latest smartphones - the Optimus G and Nexus 4 - the company recently brought the successor to the Optimus G, the Optimus G Pro, to get some share in the phablet space. We have already reviewed the the LG Optimus G and the Nexus 4, now on to the 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro.
At first glance, the front of the Optimus G Pro brings to mind Samsung's Galaxy series of smartphones. The rounded edges and the shape of the physial home button make the phone look similar to the smartphones available under Samsung's Galaxy series.
While the Optimus G Pro's front has looks similar to offerings from his rival, its back panel has a design exclusive to the phones designed by LG. Made of plastic, it has a shiny back panel, which features a chequered glittering pattern. The pattern on the back cover is similar to the one on the Nexus 4. But because of its plastic build, the glass weave design on the back does not look as appealing as that in the Nexus 4 and fails to create the desired effect. The build quality of the phone is good, but looks are average. Erogonomically designed, the phone is comfortable to grip. Unlike the Optimus G and the Nexus 4, the Optimus G Pro has a removable back.
One thing that gives the phone a premium look is the brushed metallic band that runs around the edges of the phone and separates the front and back. The metallic band fully covers the top and bottom, but it becomes a thin line at the sides. While the phone easily slips into the pocket of men's jeans, but women may not sit comfortably with the phone in their pocket. That's the feedback we got when we passed the phone around in the office.
Besides the power and volume buttons, the phone also houses a 'QuickButton' located on the left side. This button lets you select an app you wish to get immediate acccess to.
The physical home button is ill-fitting - it's something which you won't even give attention to once you start using the phone and its thinness sometimes makes it a litte difficult to press. I think LG should have done away with the physical home button.
Instead of a notification LED light somehwere on the top left or top right, it has a home button LED to alert you when you have an incoming call or any missed event.
There is a mammoth glass on the front. The Optimus G Pro has a 5.5-inch full HD (1920x1080) IPS display protected with a layer of Gorilla Glass. Despite being a bulky device, this phablet does not feel heavy. The colour reproduction is good and viewing angles are great. Touchscreen is pretty responsive and swiping and scrolling is smooth. Colours look vibrant and text crisp. Also, there wasn't any problem in viewing content under direct sunlight. I have always been a fan of LG's Zerogap Touch technology, which results in increased touch responsiveness. Like the LG Optimus G, the Optimus G Pro also has one of the best touchscreens in terms of smoothness and speed.
The phone comes with a 13 megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, which captures quality pictures in both daylight and low-light conditions. Though quality of images captured with the Optimus G Pro is impressive, they don't come out as sharp as the images captured with the Samsung Galaxy S4.
Its 2.1 megapixel front camera is apt for video calling, but images captured with the front camera are average. The camera app comes with a host of options to customise images. Its Time Catch Shot feature works quite well. It saves the scenes you missed before taking shots. But it is a feature that is becoming common to smartphones across operating systems.
Besides the panorama feature, the Optimus G Pro has a feature called VR panorama that is quite similar to the Photo Sphere on Android 4.2. The VR panorama feature lets you capture 360 degree panoramas, which you can zoom and pan. It lets you snap photos in every direction and then it creates 360 degree views by automatically stitching together individual images. While some of the features in the camera app are of use, others seemed more like gimmicks - like the dual camera feature.
The Optimus G Pro supports 1080p video recording and playback and also captures quality videos. The phone does not run the latest version of Android, it instead runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Being a top-of-the-line product, the phone should have come with Android 4.2.
The user interface (UI) is similar to the one on the Optimus G. The UI is intuitive, but it lacks freshness. LG should work on the look and feel of user interafce as there is a considerable scope of improvement. I like its QSlide function that I have already discussed in the Optimus G review.
The Optimus G Pro offers an internal storage space of 16GB (around 10GB is user accessible). Its memory can be expanded up to 32GB via a microSD card.
The Optimus G Pro packs the Qualcomm Snpdragon 1.7 GHz quad-core 600 Processor. It is the same processor that powers the HTC One. I did not experience any lag and the phone did not fall behind during any task. With 2GB RAM, the phone allowed me to multitask and I could easily perform tasks smoothly on the phone. I easily managed to run a spate of apps at the same time. Also, I did not experience the overheating issue anytime during the review period.
In the Antutu benchmarking test, the LG Optimus G Pro scored 19835 and ranked number 3 - with the Samsung Galaxy S4 on the top and the HTC One on the second position and outranked the Sony Xperia Z and the Google Nexus 4 (See screenshots below).
I did not face any call drops. Audio quality is good and speakers are fairly loud. The 5.5-inch gargantuan device has a decent battery life. The battery can last for a day on normal usage, but the juice drains before the day ends - if used heavily.
At Rs 42,500, I found the phone overpriced. The phone is powerful, but design-wise, it is bland. I am sure that given its price, users will seek for other options available in the same price band. But it does make it to our recommendations list, but buyers are suggested to take a look at its rivals too.
Pros
Excellent full HD display
Great performance
Impressive camera
Cons
Overpriced
Boring design
Dull UI
Ratings: 3.75/5
