To some, 3D is a gimmick but to LG it’s a serious proposition as it rolls out its first 3D-capable smartphone, the LG Optimus 3D.
Debuting at Mobile World Congress this week, we nabbed some hands on time with an early production model of the LG Optimus 3D to see what all the three dimensional fuss is about. It’s worth noting at this point that this is handset was not a final version product.
The first thing we notice on picking the handset up is that it’s a fair bit heavier than the current batch of smartphones, and chunkier too.
With a dearth of physical buttons sullying the front panel, there’s nothing to distract your eye from the lovely 4.3-inch screen; it’s big, crisp and bright when the phone comes to life, even in 2D.
Above the screen is a front-mounted camera, presumably for video calling although this feature wasn’t activated when we saw the handset.
The traditional Android control buttons – home, back, search and menu – are flush to the screen and touch sensitive. It’s quite a change for LG to opt for invisible buttons rather than physical, but indicative of the way the entire market is moving.
Likewise, there’s no camera shutter button; instead, LG has provided a 3D launcher button, which takes you to the 3D hub. From here you can access the camera to record 3D, or play games and videos from the 3D gallery.
Also on this side is the volume toggle, which is a little flush with the side so it was tricky to quickly decrease the volume – although this isn’t a major issue.
On the side of the device, the microUSB charging port and HDMI-out port are hidden away under covers which should keep bits of grub and crumbs from messing them up.
Up top, we’re looking at a power/lock button, which is adequately placed – as is the 3.5mm headphone jack which means it won’t get in the way when we’re watching 3D movies or playing our 3D games.
The back of the LG Optimus 3D is where things start to get interesting – drawing your eye straight away is the dual-camera set up.
There’s a definite face-like element to the set up; two 5-megapixel cameras eyes with a little LED flash nose between them. The dual-camera set up is what allows the handset to record 3D video, and they’re set into a smart metal panel.
While added weight and girth aren’t ideal, we could definitely adapt to them and found the handset fairly comfortable to hold, even for the small-handed.
Once the phone is on, you get the full effect of that WVGA screen; images are bright and text is nice and crisp.
The LG Optimus 3D is running Android 2.2 at launch – as was the handset we played with –LG assures us an upgrade to Gingerbread is possible, but stayed firmly schtum on how imminent the upgrade would be.
Controlling the touchscreen is a breeze; it’s nice and responsive, and with 4.3-inches to play with there’s more than enough room to manoeuvre. It needs a little more firmness than the likes of the iPhone 4, but it’s not massively noticeable.
The screen, although large, isn’t so wide that it’s difficult to control with one hand, although typing is much more comfortable with two.
The handset is running a standard version of Android 2.2, with multiple homescreens and widgets as standard. Consequently the messaging inboxes, contacts and media player are all fairly standard.
The keyboard is also the standard Android affair but it fits nicely on to the screen even in portrait mode, making typing a painless experience.
The lockscreen takes a second or two too long to unlock for our liking, but given that what we saw wasn’t final release software, we’d hope this will be sorted before sale.
With a 1GHz dual-core processor under the hood, the LG Optimus 3D is a fast like a gazelle. There was no lag as we switched between apps and moving between screens and zooming out to helicopter view were all very smooth movements.
The gallery is also standard for Android 2.2 and makes use of the stacking effect on the homescreen. It would have been nice to see these stacks in 3D, given the handset’s raison d’etre, but you can’t have everything.
But enough of this, you want to hear about the 3D, right?
LG has grouped all the LG Optimus 3D’s tri-dimensional content into one handy hub, accessed by the 3D button on the side of the handset. This includes a guide to 3D, to familiarise newcomers with what’s on offer.
There’s also a shortcut to 3D apps and games, which currently houses the three games available. One interesting thing is LG’s deal with YouTube, which sees users able to upload their 3D videos directly to YouTube using the hub.
Unfortunately, the model we played with was not quite finished, so we weren’t able to try filming in 3D, nor uploading it to YouTube.
However, we could watch a video and play a game using the 3D rendering, and the first thing to note is that you do not need glasses to see the 3D effect.
And quite an impressive effect it was at times; there was a real depth to the images, to which the size of the screen also lent itself. We can’t imagine 3D content on a smaller screen would be worth using.
The background may have been spectacular, but the foreground was a little bit trickier. There’s a definite sweet spot directly in front the face and if you mediate from here you end up with quite a bit of fuzz and loss of the 3D effect.
Displaying an undeniably an impressive 3D image when you hold the phone in the right place, it’s really a shame that the LG Optimus 3D makes your eyes feel quite tired quite quickly. There’s no way we’d be able to play an entire game or watch a full movie with aching eyes, which kind of obliterates the point of the 3D display.
The other thing to note is that the handset we saw didn’t have any live-action 3D content on it, so we’re basing all this on animated game play and video content.
Although the dual-cameras weren’t working in tandem, we were able to try out a single 5MP camera. With what should have been the shutter button now dedicated to the 3D hub, we had to set up a homescreen shortcut for quick access to the camera and use the onscreen shutter button to take pictures.
This is fine, but can lead to a bit of fuzziness because you’ll move the handset if you’re not careful.
It’s quite a responsive shutter though, with very little lag between taking and displaying your picture, and the camera settings are easily accessed simply by tapping the screen.
The camera also records 1080p HD video – the quality is hard to judge on just the handset screen, but it certainly looked crisp and the colour quality felt natural.
There is an HDMI port for connecting the handset to a larger screen though; it can also output 3D video to a 3D TV, if you’ve invested in one (although 3D content will be 720p HD).
Unfortunately the sample we used was SIM-less and we weren’t able to try out calling or web-browsing. We can imagine the internet experience on the 4.3-inch screen would be rather good, however – and pinch-to-zoom on the offline page worked well.
For the world’s first 3D phone, the LG Optimus 3D hasn’t done badly; it’s easy to use and makes 3D content as accessible as possible – and there’ll be more content when the phone hits the shelves thanks to deals LG assures us it has in place (more on those as they’re announced).
Quite aside from the 3D content, it’s a powerful and eminently usable smartphone – no doubt this will become clearer in our full review as we’ll be able to use all the functions of the phone.
But we can’t quite imagine making regular use of the headache-inducing graphics, making the additional size and weight of the handset a little disappointing for now.
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