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LG Optimus 7 Review

One of the very few existing Windows Phone 7 in the country (actually, the 3rd as of this month), the LG Optimus 7 brings with it more than just the staple WP7 features. Check out our full review of the Optimus 7 after the jump.

The Optimus 7 has that genetic make-up of LG’s Optimus smartphone line-up (reminds me of the Optimus One). It’s got a solid body and construction — smooth rubbery plastic all around and brushed-metal finish at the back panel (the battery cover at the back is made of metal). The size is just right on the hands and it’s also got a bit of heft to it.

The power button is found at the top, along with the 3.5mm audio jack; volume rocker is on the left side while the micro-USB port is hidden by a flip cover on the right side, together with the dedicated camera button.

At the bottom end of the front panel, a large physical button holds the usual WP7 controls for Home, Search and Back. At the back is the 5MP camera that can record HD videos.

Display quality is good, not that obvious because of the flat vector UI color scheme, but very noticeable when playing videos or movies (looks better than my HTC HD7 which has that somewhat blueish glare). Sound is decent but not that great with enough volume for raw playback.

If you’re familiar with Windows Phone 7, then using the Optimus 7 would be a walk in the park (and I’ve already written about the WP7 UI here).

There’s also the focus on apps available in the Zune Marketplace:

Apps are very essential to the usefulness of any smartphone and thankfully, the Zune Marketplace on the Optimus 7 has plenty of them. It’s not as extensive as the ones found on the iTunes App Store or the Android Market but it’s got some decent numbers. The more common social apps were actually developed by Microsoft itself (Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare) so you will notice the tight design integration of these apps into WP7.

The Windows Live account also has some features to ring, lock or erase the phone remotely. The phone updates itself by sending GPS location on a regular basis. You can login to Live and locate your phone on the Bing map with matching date and time it last recorded its location.

As expected of all WP7 phones, the Optimus 7 packs a bit of power (as required by MS) so the device is very capable — very responsive, smooth navigation with a simple but fancy UI.

The WP7 user interface is essentially a breathe of fresh air, especially if you’re coming from iOS or Android. Objects such as shortcuts, widgets, contacts and apps are represented by tiles stacked from top to bottom. You add items by pinning it to the home screen (Start) or remove it by un-pinning them. The tiles are big and bold with options to change color schemes that screams of eye-candy.

LG also added a few more features on top of the basic ones offered by WP7, like content sharing via DLNA so you can stream your photos and videos to your TV (we don’t have a DLNA capable TV to test it with but we’ve seen it done on demo). There’s also that augmented reality (AR) which I haven’t tested.

Here’s the complete specs of the handset:

LG Optimus 7 (E900) specs:
1 GHz Scorpion processor
Adreno 200 GPU
Qualcomm QSD8650 Snapdragon chipset
3.8-inch display @ 480 x 800 pixels
Gorilla glass display
16GB internal storage
512MB RAM, 512MB ROM
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n w/ DLNA
Bluetooth 2.1
HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
5MP autofocus camera w/ LED flash
720p video recording @ 24fps
GPS w/ aGPS
FM Radio tuner
Windows Phone 7
Li-Ion 1500mAh battery

Photos on the Optimus 7 are good but not that crisp or vibrant. I specifically liked the panorama shot on this one (as it automatically stitches a series of photos to create a single panoramic photo up to 360-degrees). The video recording is good and in HD quality (720p).

The internal storage of 16GB is okay but LG should have a microSD card slot to accomodate storage upgrades. I guess that’s a limitation of all WP7 phones at the moment.

Battery life on the Optimus 7 ranges between 1.5 days to 2.5, depending on use. Of course, it gets easily drained when you’re always connected to the net or playing music or videos.

With a suggested retail price of Php29,990USD 511INR 43,324EUR 487CNY 3,722, the LG Optimus 7 is definitely on the more expensive end (considering competing WP7 handsets like HTC HD7 and HTC 7 Mozart are priced way lower). Unlike the Optimus 2X, I didn’t particularly liked the design of the Optimus 7. LG Philippines might find it a little hard to sell this handset at that price point even if the selection of WP7 handsets in the country are sparse.

Abe Olandres
Abe Olandres
Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.
  1. I prefer Win7 phone but this one is still pricy.

  2. the buttons below the screen looks really cheap. the phone is really overpriced. Please bring the samsung focus !

  3. Lol why buy a wp7 at 29k when you can buy a better phone like optimus 2x, sensation and gs2 at almost the same price.
    Seriously only fools will buy this one. price should be at 20k flat only…all 1st gen wp7 phones should be at the 15-20k price range only. cause they do not offer much..

    • bakit? ano ba lamang ng mga sinabi mo?
      able to play 1080p HD videos? hahah!

      wp7>android

      but you are right, it should cost only 20k since lumang hardware naman to.. opps.. 16k lang pala to sa tipidcp. =)

    • wp7 > android??

      state your facts..

    • experience…

      try it, and you will see what i mean.

      TRY MO, WAG MONG SASABIHING NA TRY MO NA KUNG DI PA NAMAN TALAGA

    • Oh bat galit na galit ka. lol.
      you do realize that not all people share the same opinion.
      your experience may not be the same as the others. i own a mozart and an optimus 3D sir and i can honestly say that im having more fun on my optimus 3D w/c is an android phone. i love how it gives me the freedom and the features i need.
      hindi porket maganda ang experience mo sa wp7 phones ganun na rin experience ng lahat ng tao. yes i am impressed with wp7’s smoothness but it still is not ready for primetime. masyado pang premature ang OS.
      just my two cents…

  4. It is a phone running on Windows Phone 7 so that price is not that surprising.

    What’s odd is the absence of an SD card slot. That 16GB of internal storage could easily be gobbled up by HD videos.

  5. What’s really odd is it’s using old tech, adreno 200? Lol…. Two generations behind, adreno 220 is qualcomm’s latest gpu.

  6. i might get the phone if its 18k or kinda lower

  7. totally not good.until they are able to fix the “wants” for a phone like bluetooth file transfer, or have an expansion slot, this is not worth it to buy

  8. i got this phone for 13k only brand new! =D

    • san mo nabili ng 13K ang opti,us 7 mo??. txt me 0917-9834-305, thanks\
      i owned an optimus one

  9. what are the languages available with this phone??

  10. This phone’s really ugly, I prefer the Nokia Lumia line

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