LG Optimus Black P970

Page 1: Introduction & Features

About six months back, I was suffering from a serious case of Android fatigue. There were almost a dozen mid-range Android phones waiting in the wings to be reviewed and there was virtually nothing to separate them from each other. Not that these phones were bad; they just all appeared to take the same middle-of-the-road approach which left them undistinguishable.

The LG Optimus Black P970 is, thankfully, not among those phones. While its price puts it in the mid-range segment, it appears to be a high-end smartphone disguised as a mid-range one. The Optimus Black stands alongside the Samsung Galaxy SLCD as being one of the really exciting phones in the homogenous sludge that the mid-range smartphone segment often resembles.

At the end of the day though, the Optimus Black does have a couple of drawbacks that prevent it from being a superior product. Read on to find out more.

Features

The LG Optimus Black P970 is an Android 2.2.2 (Froyo) smartphone with a custom skinned UI. It is powered by a 1GHz processor and a PowerVR SGX530 GPU and has 512MB of RAM along with 2GB of internal memory expandable up to 32GB through microSD.

At 4-inches, the Optimus Black has the largest display you will find on a phone that costs less than Rs. 20K. Not only is the display large, but it also offers IPS technology which means better viewing angles and color reproduction over standard LCD displays. The screen has a resolution of 480x800 pixels.

Connectivity needs are well taken care of by the Optimus Black with support for Wi-Fi and GPS. The LG also supports 3G with maximum theoretical download speeds of 7.2Mbps and maximum theoretical upload speeds of 5.76Mbps.

Being an Android phone allows the Optimus Black to make use of Google Mobile Services apps and a whole host of apps downloadable from the Android Market. The phone also comes pre-installed with apps that take care of media sharing, social networking, viewing documents etc.