LG is one of the cell phone manufactures that use Android Operating System on many of their products. Just for your information, they are the maker of LG Optimus 2X which is the first Android phone that use dual-core processor. After quite successful by their mid and high end Android phone, now they also produce low end yet affordable Android phone.
Just like Samsung that have Galaxy Series, it seems that LG will maintain “Optimus” name for their Android phone. This time, the name given for their product is LG Optimus Me. Is this phone worth to buy? Let’s read our LG Optimus Me P350 Review.
LG Optimus Me P350
LG Optimus Me Specification
- Network: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, GPRS, EDGE, 3G HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
- Size: 108 x 53 x 12.5 mm
- Weight: 130 g
- Display: 2.8 inch TFT capacitive touch screen, 256.000 colors, 240 x 320 pixels
- Memory: 140 MB internal storage, SD card up to 32 GB
- Connectivity: Micro USB, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g
- Camera: 3.15 MP, 2048 × 1536 pixels, able to record video up to VGA resolution (640 × 480 pixels) at 24 fps
- Operating system: Android OS v2.2 (Froyo)
- FM radio: available
- GPS: available features A-GPS
- Others: digital compass, Android Market, YouTube, 3.5 mm audio jack, organizer, Accelerometer Sensor, etc
LG Optimus Me P350 Review – The Design
LG P350 Optimus Me is a candy bar type Android phone. It has 108 mm length, 53 mm width, and 12.5 mm thickness. At the front side, it use Glossy colored surface, it has 2.8 inch touch screen, below the screen there are four touch button consists of MENU button, HOME button, BACK Button and SEARCH button. Beneath the touch button, there are two physical buttons which is the CALL button and END button that also serves as the power button or to turn off the screen (lock screen).
On the back side, it use matte colored plastic and you can find a 3 MP camera lens without flash. At the top there are 3.5 mm handsfree / audio jack, at the bottom there is only microphone hole, on the right side there are volume buttons and on the left side, there is a Micro USB port that also serves as charging port.
Overall, LG P350 has a good design, it’s rather simple but it still looks cute because of the chosen material and the color combination. It feels solid enough when we hold it. For the design, we leave it to your taste. Anyway, the CALL button and the END button is a good thing to have, especially for those who make a call a lot.
LG Optimus Me Review – The Screen Quality
LG P350 Optimus Me use 2.8 inches capacitive touch screen with a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. Although only use relatively small screen resolution, but the image displayed looks fairly smooth. The colors that appears quite bright and sharp. It also doesn’t have a problem with the viewing angle, the screen still visible when we tilt the phone.
Since this phone using capacitive technology, you shouldn’t be worry with the screen sensitiveness. The screen response is good; user only need to touch slightly to make a selection. LG Optimus Me P350 screen also supports multi touch, so the user can do pinch zoom to view picture in the gallery, zooming web pages, or in any other Android applications.
LG Optimus Me have fair screen quality (considering the cheap price), the only drawback is the screen size is relatively small so it will be a little difficult when typing using a virtual keyboard, especially for those who use full touch screen phone for the first time. But for those who already familiar with the touch screen phone, won’t be too much difficult to use this phone.
Performance and Gaming Capabilities
LG P350 Optimus Me using a 600 MHz processor. We feel that the processor used was sufficient enough to run the Android operating system on this phone. We can open multiple applications simultaneously at the same time. Switching between menus is quite smooth although there are sometimes lag a little bit. For lag problem, we think this is caused by the default user interface. When we tried to install third party launcher application, switching between menus becomes smoother and responsive. Just for information, launcher application can be downloaded for free from Android Market.
This cheap Android phone can play quite a lot of games, either 2D games or 3D games. There are some games that can not be installed on this phone, especially for HD (high definition) games. It is very understandable consider this an entry-level Android phones. Even though you can install HD games on this phone and it can run, but the screen can look crappy, this is because the HD games is optimized for the Android phone that has at least 480×800 pixels screen resolution, while LG Optimus Me only use 240×320 screen resolution.
However, some of Optimus Me user reported that there are some of HD games that still playable and run normally on this phone, although sometimes lag in several scenes.
LG Optimus Me P350 Review – Video and Camera Quality
LG Optimus Me P350 camera can produce images up to 2048 × 1536 pixels (3.15 MP) size. The camera is not equipped with flash, so we may not be able to capture images in completely dark area. The image quality when we take photo indoor is so-so; we can’t say that the result is neither good nor bad. If we take picture outdoor, the picture quality is quite good though not special. Colors are displayed vivid enough and have a balanced contrast.
LG P350 Optimus Me can do video recording with a resolution up to 640 × 480 pixels (VGA). The frame rate is 24 fps (frames per second). The video quality will not be as clear and as smooth if compared to pocket digital cameras. But the video quality is sufficient enough to record unexpected event in case you forget to bring a real video recorder or digital camera.
Pros and Cons of LG Optimus Me P350
Pros:
- Affordable price
- Having physical CALL and END button.
- VGA resolution video recording
- Overall performance is quite good
Cons:
- Rather small screen size
- There is no physical camera button, will be a little difficult for taking self portrait.
Optimus Me LG P350 Review – Conclusion
It seems that cheap Android phone demands are pretty high. Some phone manufacturer recently quite active launch their affordable Android phone. LG Optimus Me is one of good candidate for those who want to try Android OS but don’t want to expense too much money. Cheap price bundling with smart operating system is the main attraction of this phone.
