Got the LG Optimus One P500

Bought the LG Optimus One P500 last Saturday. Got it from the LG Store at SM North EDSA Annex. It was the same day LG launched it here in the Philippines.

The same day where they had a one-hour sale. Was actually supposed to get it at half the price, but when I got the the place, when I saw the lines, I didn't bother to look for a place in that line anymore, cause I knew then that it's impossible for me to get in the sale with that long line.

I decided to get the phone at regular price, I asked one of the LG staff if I could buy the unit earlier than 2pm at regular price, and sure enough, eh guided me inside the store and I was able to get one.

The design of the phone won't win any awards, it's got that capacitive touch screen which, after a while I noticed that it has some sort of screen protector already. And, to which I might blame some sort of sluggishness on the response of the touchscreen (though the slow 600Mhz processor can also be blamed). An earpiece on the top face, and "three" or four physical buttons at the bottom face. 

The reason I say this, is because, two of the icons (home and back) is in one button that rocks two ways. The layout of the buttons is not your usual Android button layout. There's a chrome highlight that wraps the whole phone. A regular 3.5mm headphone jack at the top (I tested it already using the radio app, on my Pioneer in-ear earbuds and sound quality for the radio is ok, I haven't installed any music in it yet). Two rocker buttons on the right side of the phone (haven't used it yet) for adjusting volume.

And no buttons at all at the left side. At the bottom, a microUSB port for charging and syncing. The back is very simple, if not bland. It's all matt grayish black, with a 3MP camera with Autofocus (tried it outdoor and indoor with good natural light and the pictures came out pretty impressive), no flash included.

The LG UI, just like the physical design won't win any awards either, still the HTC Sense UI hands down for eye-candy. Don't know if it has the equivalent of the FriendStream of HTC and Sony Ericsson, a widget that collates all the messages, updates from SMS, email, Twitter and Facebook into one place. Though, as will all Android phones, there's that universal notification bar on top of the screen that you can pull down to check. By the way, this phone is already running Android 2.2 Froyo out of the box (though I'm not sure if this is future-proof, cause I heard Android 2.3 Gingerbread will need at least 1Ghz processor speed).

I already applied for an unlimited data plan, cause yeah, it sure hogs a lot of bandwidth transmissions. I'm still not a fan of virtual keyboards, that's why I have such a hard time typing on this one, I end up using the typical candybar phone layout. I haven't figured out how to changed keyboard layout, by default, applications are using the LG keyboard, I want to use the Android keyboard and see if it'll help.

The battery is 1500mAh, with all radios on, it lasts for around half a day, but looks like the HSDPA and cell radio is the culprit. I'm enjoying the unit as a GPS Navigation System, installed apps like Waze, Navigator, GPS Essentials and My Tracks. Used it everytime I'm on the road. Impressive machine and software to boot. Then there's Twitter, the homescreen layout is, I guess built for touchscreen, because of the large icons used. Of course Facebook. Then all the Google integrations with Gmail, Google Calendar, Latitude. Google Goggles (eventually, tried it to scan a QR code of Engadget and it led me to downloading the Engadget app). I noticed though that the email app is not integrated with Gmail, I had to set it up separately. I guess I'm just used to the messaging integration of the BlackBerry.

Oh and the unit gets hot, especially when there's an app running and you forgot to close it. The phone interface is nice and pretty, don't know if it's an LG UI or plain Android but I liked it. The speaker phone is also great. I think I won't be needing any handsfree device with it while driving.

I tried once the mobile hotspot function that's in Froyo, well, the iPod Touch got a wireless signal from it but can't seem to go to the internet, I'm just not sure if it's the telco, will wait til I get news on my unlimited data plan before I totally test it.

Overall I like the phone, not a disappointment. May not be as pretty as any HTC handheld, but I guess, it's serving it's purpose and by that, I give it two thumbs up.