LG Optimus L7 P700

Overview

LG Optimus L7 P700: a high-end 'touch and type' phone

Overview of LG Optimus L7 P700

The top of LG’s mid-range “L” series of smartphones, the LG Optimus L7 P700 is slim and well designed, but faces some stiff competition from the likes of HTC. The L series phones are based on a simple yet elegant design philosophy. The L7 P700 is built on an Android OS v4.0 (ice cream sandwich) and a dual core 1 GHz processor guaranteed to give you speedy processing and browsing. A 4.3 inch display screen provides a unique viewing experience to users. The touchscreen moves easily with just a tap. You can capture all your memorable moments using the 5 MP camera together with an LED flash. Other features include a 1 GB internal memory and a memory card slot that can be used to increase memory for maximum data storage. Even though the specifications are not very high end, it is designed to make it look like a premium high end phone and is only 8.7 mm thin. The LG Optimus L7 P700 will be available in 2 colors i.e. black and white. It has GPS, Wi-Fi, HSDPA and many more features that are sure to attract your attention.

Design and Build Quality of LG Optimus L7 P700

The design of the phone doesn’t reflect its mid-range position: it looks quite sleek and classy. The shape of the device is quite sharp and angular – users used to the bulky, curvy specimens that populate the top of the market may dislike it for this reason. Available in either white or black, the device is surprisingly slim at just 8.7mm thickness, and it feels light in the hand at just 121g. The chrome band that runs all the way around the phone’s outer edge is a nice touch, as is the shiny white bezel that frames the screen. Buttons are well positioned: the lock/power key on the top, the volume down the left hand side, and a Home button under the screen. It features a bright, bold 4.3-inch screen, shielded by scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass that doesn’t in any way diminish its decent display (480x800). Like other budget LG phones, it lacks sensitivity, so you may find yourself tapping commands twice.

User Interface and Comfort to Use

This phone is novel because, unlike other mid-range Android devices, Optimus L7 runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (or ICS), plus LG’s Optimus UI 2.0 on top. Some ICS features, such as face-recognition unlocking, have been removed. The interface is the familiar Android UI: 5 home screens for you to use, and you move between them by swiping. The lower half of the screen contains a maximum of 5 shortcuts or folders for apps, readily customizable. Scrolling horizontally enables the user to move screens. Performance is, however, a major issue for this phone: its 1GHz processor, paucity of RAM, and use of ICS with the UI mean that the phone is often infuriatingly slow, with many random jolts and pauses. At times, it seems that the phone has crashed. In addition, the touchscreen actions like moving shortcuts to the home screen are unresponsive, and the 3D effects can seriously slow down the system.

Telephony and Phonebook of LG Optimus L7 P700

The Contacts app brings together all your buddy info. There’s a top search bar, a Groups function, and Favorites. Google contacts can be uploaded easily; but the phone does not make social media integration easy, forcing the user to install the Twitter and Facebook apps before it would sync and offering no option to connect this info to that already stored in the phone. Call quality is good: users shouldn’t experience any difficulty in hearing others via the earpiece, and callers report that the microphone sound quality is also strong and clear. It holds signal well and rarely drops calls. Strangely, the Phone app is kept separate from the Contacts app, and switching is inconvenient. Despite a front-facing camera, there’s no option for video calling, which is disappointing.

Messaging and Emails

The LG Optimus L7 includes the standard Email and Gmail apps, depending on whether you’re a Google user or not. The Email app’s manual setup for accounts is frustrating and time-consuming; unacceptable when the process is so streamlined on other Android phones. The Gmail app suffers because of the phone’s poor performance: opening an email takes an astonishing 6.5 seconds. For typing emails and messages, the keyboard is workable but doesn’t allow truly speedy input because of its small size. Social media integration is again absent – definitely an oversight.

Gallery, Photo Viewer and Video Player of LG Optimus L7 P700

With an internal memory of 4GB, most users will capitalize on the additional capacity of a micro-SD card to bring it up to a more generous 32GB for storing videos, pics and audio. As a video player, the phone performs well. While its display lacks the quality and sharpness of OLED counterparts, its large screen size and decent resolution (480x800) mean that it is visually impressive. The phone’s dedicated video app is basic but easy to use, supporting a range of formats, and playback is quite smooth. The gallery app is equally workmanlike, but without social media integration it feels limited.

Music Player and FM Radio (Audio Quality)

The standard Android audio app, with its clear and unfussy layout, comes pre-loaded and includes options to play music of numerous file types, sort into playlists, repeat and shuffle. There is, however, no equalizer. The FM radio comes as part of a well-designed app, and the auto-scan function is relatively powerful.

LG Optimus L7 Still Camera and Image Quality

The phone’s 5MP camera is better than average but suffers from some glitches. The camera app runs quite slowly, but once fired up it produces reasonable snaps with bright colors and sharp edges that are better than you might expect from a 5MP device. Features like face tracking and tap-to-focus are welcome, but the digital zoom causes a rapid deterioration in quality.

Video Camera and Video Quality

Without HD capability, the video captures from the phone are good but not great. At a resolution of 640x480, it’s sufficient for recording Facebook or YouTube clips and the cameras (front and back) generally respond well to motion or changes in lighting. While recording you can zoom in and out, and the effects available for photos are in evidence here as well.

Connectivity Options of LG Optimus L7 P700

As you might expect, the phone comes equipped with 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 and Bluetooth v 3.0. The Wi-Fi connectivity is poor: loading times are very slow. The phone connects to a PC via USB, and the PC Suite is intuitive and easy to use for content transfers. Plus, with NFC (Near Field Communication), the Optimus LG P700 can transfer media to phones equipped with the same software once contact is made. The LG Tag+ capability means that when the phone is touched to the Tag+ sticker (fix it to your car, your desk or your bed), the settings you’ve defined will automatically run.

LG Optimus L7 Web Browser and Applications

The L7 P700’s web browser is another feature that leaves much to be desired. A revamped design provides a pull-up menu with back, forward, tab, bookmark and text options, and the general layout is simple and clean. However, load times are terrible: on average, at least 5 seconds to load a webpage, and content-rich pages may take minutes. As a result, browsing is a joyless experience and many users may give up. Once loaded, the screen displays pages comfortably, although the lack of Flash support means that many elements simply won’t appear. Users wishing to boost the capability of the phone can download further apps from Google Play or LG SmartWorld, as the phone includes only the standard News, Calendar, Weather, and Clock apps.

Google Maps and GPS

Google Maps comes pre-installed, and with the in-built A-GPS it can do a fast location lock (average time 2 seconds). However, the processor again struggles here: rendering can be slow, and zooming causes the screen to blur until it has caught up.

Value for money

The L7 is in many ways disappointing, lacking the functionality of other phones in the same price bracket. Nevertheless, its solid media support makes it a good buy for the price.

Verdict

While the L7 P700 may be the top end of the ‘L’ series, it leaves quite a lot to be desired in comparison to competitor devices like the HTC One V or Orange San Diego. The processor must be singled out for particular criticism, and for this reason you may wish to consider a more powerful alternative.