LG has been slowly and steadily expanding its Android smartphone lineup and the latest offering in the Indian market is the mid-range Optimus Sol (E730), which we tried it out to see if its worth the asking price.
Design:
The first thing to notice when you pick up Optimus Sol is how slim it is. The phone’s width is just 9.8mm and the fact that it has a compact design, makes it easy to hold in one hand. The front is occupied with a huge 3.8-inch display along with earpiece and a camera on the top and touch-sensitive menu, home and back buttons at the bottom. The lock/power key is placed on the top of phone along with the microUSB port and 3.5mm audio jack, volume buttons on the left and loudspeaker and main 5MP camera unit at the back.
One gripe on the design front is the choice of a glossy back. The glossy plastic makes it highly susceptible to scratches.
Display:
Optimus Sol comes with a 3.8-inch Ultra AMOLED display supporting WVGA (800×480) display. LG says their choice of AMOLED panel is better than the regular AMOLED panels and we tend to agree. The colors look vibrant with deep blacks and great viewing angle, even in direct sunlight.
Performance:
The phone runs on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread OS) and just like every other manufacturer, LG too, has their own user interface overlaid on the stock UI. We wouldn’t say the UI as revolutionary but is definitely smooth and simpler to use. Users can add up to 7 home screens, add widgets and features an improved app drawer with a revamped notification bar that comes with few shortcuts. The browser has also got a revamped tabbed browsing interface.
LG also pre-loads the phone with some of their own apps like RemoteCall assistance, LG Smart World app store, SmartShare to share and stream content via DLNA etc.
The phone boasts a 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM which seems more than adequate for most operations.
LG’s promised release of Android 4.0 later this year will also help the phone to further improve the performance.
Multimedia:
Optimus Sol features a 5MP rear-facing camera that takes decent pictures. However, the camera fared badly in low light situation as there is no flash. Users can shoot images in various shooting modes or adjust various other settings. As for the video, it is able to record videos in up to 720p HD resolution.
Multimedia playback is fairly satisfactory with the default video player capable of playing 720p mp4, DivX files without any conversion. Optimus Sol supports MP3, wav, AAC and WMA formats on the audio front that produces a good quality playback on the loudspeaker and headset.
Battery:
Optimus Sol sports a 1500mAh battery and with a moderate usage of calls, music and video, we managed to get about a day’s usage, which is decent going by today’s smartphone standards.
Conclusion:
LG has some work to do when it comes to high-end offerings but in case of Optimus Sol, it sits nicely in the mid-range segment. Priced at Rs. 17,000, the phone is Rs. 1,000 cheaper than its closest competitor – Sony Xperia neo V and the fact that it is bound to get an Android 4.0, makes the LG device more lucrative.
Rating: 
Pros: Sleek, Good Performance, Price
Cons: No camera flash
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