LG Optimus L7

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Editor's Note: This review was originally published on CNET.com and may refer to features, accessories and network capabilities that are not available in Australia.

Most of the devices that LG introduced this year at Mobile World Congress have a standout feature. The LG Optimus 3D Max has, you guessed it, 3D imaging. The flagship Optimus 4X HD has its quad-core processor going for it. And theVu can flaunt its 5-inch screen.

The LG Optimus L7, however, sadly wasn't meant to have its own "thing".

Designed as a mid-level Android device, the L7 has no outstanding identifying features. Its run-of-the-mill specs include a 5-megapixel camera and a disappointing 1GHz processor. However, if you consider the fact that it runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and has NFC capabilities, suddenly the term "mid-level" doesn't seem so deflating any more.

Design

The LG Optimus L7's humdrum design is nothing to write home about. With its sharp corners, plastic backing and tapered edges, the device looks similar to all the other minimalist Optimus handsets we've seen recently. It is one of LG's smaller devices, and can snugly fit in a front or back jean pocket. It's easy to pack into a small purse, and handling it with one hand is a cinch.

On its left side is a volume rocker, up top there is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a sleep/power button, and at the bottom is a micro-USB port.

At the back centre is a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash. Below that, to the left, are two small slits for the output speaker. Unlike most phones, the L7 doesn't have an indentation to make it easy to pry off the back of the phone. Instead, you'll have to just insert your fingernails anywhere within the seams of the back plate. Once you remove it, you can access the microSD slot, SIM card and 1,700mAh battery. On the opposite side of the backing are two small gold antennas for the NFC capabilities.

Though generally we don't mind plastic battery covers, since they keep a phone light and durable, the L7 is an exception. There are ways to give plastic a more luxurious feel, either by giving it a matte coating or unique texture. But the L7 just has lined grooves like a 3D baseball card, which makes it feel really cheap and almost like a toy.

The L7 sports a 4.3-inch WVGA Nova display with an 800x480-pixel resolution and 450 units of brightness. Though the lowered specs aren't as impressive as those of other phones, like the LG Optimus 4X HD, the screen is still decent in its own right. App icons were crisp, text was sharp and at maximum brightness, colours were vivid. Although gradient patterns looked somewhat streaky, on the whole, images were rich and highly saturated.

Above the display, in the right corner, is a proximity sensor, and to the left is a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera. Below is a physical Home button, with a Back and Menu front key on either side of it, that light up when in use.

The LG Optimus L7 has a physical Home button below the display.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Features

The LG Optimus L7 runs on a disappointingly slow A5 1GHz single-core processor. Basic tasks like unlocking the screen, opening the camera app and even transitioning back to the four home screen pages, took noticeably longer than usual on other phones. The lag time made the screen feel unresponsive sometimes. After tapping on an app, nothing would happen for a few seconds. At first, we were unsure whether the display had registered the input at all, but, by the time we went to open the app again, it would finally launch.

On the upside, the device runs on the latest version of Google's mobile OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, and comes with all the Google goodies you expect: Gmail, Search, Plus, Latitude, Play Store, Messenger, Maps with Navigation, Places, Talk and YouTube. Other preloaded content includes a finance app, for keeping track of your stocks; a news and weather app; the Polaris Office mobile suite; RemoteCall, an app that lets LG support services remotely access your phone for troubleshooting; SmartShare, a content distribution app; LG SmartWorld, for downloading LG apps and ringtones; an FM radio; and an app that enables you to receive cell broadcast messages.

Basic features present are text messaging, e-mail, Bluetooth, a web browser, a calendar, a clock with alarm settings, a memo pad, a calculator, native music and video players and a voice recorder.

The Near-Field Communication chip, or NFC, enables the handset to wirelessly communicate with other NFC-enabled devices, within a short distance. Using an included feature called Android Beam, you can wirelessly transfer browser pages and contacts between devices, by simply touching the handset's back with another device that has Beam, too.

The NFC chip is located on the underside of the LG Optimus L7's back plate.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

LG included three Tag+ stickers with our review unit, labelled Office, Sleep and Car mode, that let you use the NFC feature to activate certain settings on your phone, which you can customise. For example, every time you go to sleep, you may want to put your phone on vibrate, dim your screen and have your music turn off after 10 minutes of playing. Once you set up and save those settings, using the LG Tag+ app, you can activate them whenever you tap your Sleep Mode Tag sticker.

When we tried this feature, it didn't work as consistently as it did on the LG Optimus 3D Max. Sometimes, we would get an error message. But after a few more trials, the tags worked reliably, and the intuitive LG Tag+ app made this feature easy to set up.

The device is equipped with LG's newest user interface, the Optimus UI 3.0, which isn't as stylishly simplistic as the vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich skin. The icons are boxy (and aren't customisable the way they are on the 4X HD), the widgets look clunky (especially the unattractive weather widget) and even though we like the Roboto font, the keypad and app drawer still look a little outdated. There are a few welcome changes, however, like the fact that you can access up to four apps of your choosing from the lock screen, by simply swiping over their icons. Personally, we prefer Android's minimalistic interface, but it's refreshing to see LG actively changing and taking chances with its products' UIs.

A couple of other services include Wi-Fi Direct and a battery saver module that lets you customise which features (Bluetooth, auto-syncing, display brightness) to turn off or adjust when your battery gets low. Take note that this phone has no hot-spot capabilities or gesture support.

The 5-megapixel camera offers a variety of options: autofocus, touch focus, a flash, a 15x digital zoom, face tracking, geotagging, a timer, continuous shooting and panoramic shooting. It also has an exposure meter (-2 to +2); five image sizes (ranging from 1,280x768p to 2,560x1,920p); six scene modes (normal, portrait, landscape, sports, sunset and night); four ISO options (100, 200, 400 and auto); five white balances (auto, incandescent, sunny, fluorescent and cloudy); and four colour effects (none, mono, sepia and negative).

The front-facing camera offers the same exposure meter, white-balance options, colour effects, timer and geotagging feature, but only two scene modes (normal and night) and one image size (640x480p). There's also a "mirror image" option that saves a vertically flipped version of your photo, and a "beauty shot" meter that lets you adjust the brightness and blurriness of an image. This comes in handy when you're taking self-portraits and want to soften the photo.

The LG Optimus L7's front-facing camera.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Recording options consist of the same digital zoom, flash, exposure meter, geotagging, colour effects and white balances. In addition, there's audio muting and you can choose from three video sizes (ranging from VGA 480p to QCIF).

The front-facing video option has fewer options. There is still the same exposure meter, white balances, colour effects, geotagging and audio muting features, but there are only three video sizes (ranging from VGA 480p to QCIF).

Performance

We tested the dual-band (900, 1200) LG Optimus L7 in San Francisco, California. There were no problems with signal quality — we didn't get any dropped calls, extraneous buzzing or audio clipping in and out. Sound quality, however, was disappointing. Voices were audible, but muffled, as if my friends were speaking underneath a thin sheet. Though turning up the volume helped a bit, we still had to ask my callers to repeat themselves a couple of times. We were told that our voice, on the other hand, sounded clear and was easy to understand.

The output speakerphone quality was also poor. Calls, as well as music, sounded incredibly harsh and severe, making them unpleasantly sharp to hear. You can also hear the sound bouncing off the back plate of the phone. Turning the volume down helped somewhat, and you can still hear what's being said, but it was unpleasant, regardless.

The 5-megapixel camera's photo quality was adequate. You can use the onscreen shutter button or the physical volume buttons to take pictures. Because of the slow processor, launching the camera app takes a few seconds longer than it should, and feedback lagged slightly behind the motion of the camera. Though colours were bright in both outdoor and indoor lighting, objects weren't as well-defined and in focus as they should have been. Especially in low lighting, edges were blurred. As for the front-facing camera, there was some understandable graininess. The smaller number of megapixels did lead to more blurriness and poorer focus, but you can still make out faces easily.

In this cloudy outdoor shot, the edges of the bricks aren't very distinct.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Although colours are vivid in this indoor photo, foreground focus wasn't so sharp.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

In our standard studio shot, a yellow hue blankets the objects.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

This front-facing camera picture is noticeably grainier.
(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

Video recording was also mediocre. Though recording ran smoothly for the most part, there was an instance where it hiccupped and paused for a second, only to continue rolling again. Audio was picked up well, but picture rendering was choppy. Colours were true to form, and the lens kept moving images in focus for the most part.

Although we haven't finished our battery drain tests, anecdotally, the handset had solid battery life. Nova displays usually don't drain battery as quickly as other screens, and after spending a few hours with the L7 playing games, watching videos and chatting with my friends, we found it had drained by only about two-thirds. We got a good handful of hours in, without much loss of charge. According to ICNIRP radiation standards, the device has a digital SAR rating of 0.76W/kg.

Conclusion

The LG Optimus L7's slow processor is ultimately a real deal killer for us. It's annoyingly slow and doesn't do the sleek device justice. Especially since the smartphone is running the latest Android OS and sports a modern design, having that extra lag time is a drag.

However, if you put that issue aside (or you simply don't need a fast CPU), the L7 definitely pushes the definition of "mid-level" up a few notches. Its NFC capabilities and solid Nova display already put it ahead of most midrange LG handsets, and the Ice Cream Sandwich OS is the pleasant cherry on top.