LG Optimus Pro C660 Review

Here is the FoneArena review of the LG Optimus Pro. It is a touch screen Android phone with a QWERTY keyboard. It became official in July in Italy and was available in India last month. It is powered by 800 MHz processor and runs on Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread).

Hardware

The phone has 2.3 inch (240 x 320 pixels) TFT capacitive touch screen display and a full QWERTY keyboard. The phone has nice curve shape and a good build quality. It is 12.9 mm thick and weighs 129g.

There is a physical menu button, home button, back button and a search button below the display. The numbers are on the left on the QWERTY keyboard with an alt option to switch between alphabets and numbers / symbols. There are shortcut buttons on the last row of the keyboard for the upper case characters, browser, calendar and email. The delete key and the enter key are on the far right. The keyboard is not very comfortable to type if you have large fingers, but you can manage to get the words right if you have smaller fingers like me.

The volume rocker is on the left side.

The Micro USB port is on the right side.

The power / lock button and the 3.5mm audio jack is on the top.

There is a 3MP fixed focus camera is on the back along with the speaker grill next to it.

When you open the back cover you can see the 1500 mAh Li-ion battery. When you remove the battery there is a SIM card slot. The MicroSD card slot is on the right side bottom that supports MicroSD cards up to 32GB (2GB included).

Camera

The LG Optimus Pro has a 3MP fixed focus camera with VGA video recording at a maximum of 640 x 480 pixel resolution. The camera options include option to change image size, ISO settings (Auto, 400, 200 and 100), White Balance (Auto, Incandescent, Sunny, Florescent and Cloudy), Timer, Image quality, Shutter sounds and Geo tagging. There are also on-screen camera options such as digital zoom (up to 4x), Contrast and scene modes (Mono, Negative, Solarize, Sepia and Aqua).

Here are some camera samples (Click to enlarge)

Software

UI

It has the usual LG UI that is similar to the other Optimus handsets with the Weather app on the homescreen and bottom bar with dialer, contacts, text messages and Applications. There are option to set up to 7 home screens. You can also add LG app widgets and other app widgets on any screens.

The drop down bar has shortcuts for silent/ vibrate, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and Data. The Music player can also be controlled from the notification bar. The lock screen is similar to the previous LG Optimus handsets, you need to pull the screen shade up to unlock.

The Menu has several style options such as Horizontal, Vertical grid and list view. You can also rename category or add new category and add apps in that.

Media Player and FM Radio

The Music player plays MP3, AAC, Amr and some of the usual audio formats pretty good. There is no equalizer. The sound quality is pretty good in the headphones and the loudspeaker. The Video Player supports .avi, and .mp4 but doesn’t support .mkv and high resolution 720p videos.

The FM Radio has auto scan option. You can edit the station name manually. There is loudspeaker / headphone playback button on the top and the radio on / off button on the Radio UI.

Contacts and Messaging

The Dialer is similar to other Android dialers and you can use the on-screen input and keyboard to dial a number. The call log display recent incoming, outgoing and missed calls. You could Sync from your Google contacts and also import contacts from SIM and export it to SIM or MicroSD card.

The phone has default e-mail support other than the Gmail app.

Apps

The phone comes pre-installed apps for Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Google Search Google Maps, Gtalk, Voice Search, Places and Navigation. Some of the utility apps include Calculator, Calendar, Clock, Polaris document viewer and Voice Recorder. The recent applications can be viewed from the home screen when you press and hold the home button and the application manager lets your view running and installed app and shows the RAM usage.

You can also download apps from the Android Market and the LG SmartWorld app store.The Downloaded apps are listed below separately and the new apps are marked as N.

Connectivity

The phone has 3G support with HSDPA up to 3.6Mbps, Wi-Fi b/g/n with hotspot feature, Bluetooth 3.0 and a Micro USB port.

Verdict

The 800 MHz processor does fine while playing games or watching video. The 256MB RAM is disappointing and it tells you to close some applications when the memory is low, which is annoying. The low resolution display makes the visibility hard in some apps and home screen widgets. The battery lasts for a day for heavy users and lasts for more than a day with average usage.

Pros

• Good build quality
• Android 2.3.4 (Gingerbread)
• Touch and Type
• Low cost

Cons

• Low resolution display
• Just 256MB RAM
• No Flash support