After a few weeks of dithering, I finally bit the bullet and bought the LG Optimus P500. I had set out my criteria in an earlier blog. Its now been about a week since I bought it and my initial impressions are quite positive.
It worked well out of the box and did not require any elaborate setup. Given that this was my first touch screen phone, it took a little getting used to, however I soon got the hang of it. The interface is reasonably intuitive and user friendly. I could also get Wi-Fi working without any problems and managed to connect to my home WPA2 enabled WiFi network easily. Voice quality is quite good, however have not evaluated the speakerphone completely as of now. Camera is quite acceptable (3 MP) and photos taken are quite crisp, have not tested videos much right now.
Now to Android. I have just one word for Android - Fantastic! I don't know how we have lived without it till now ! I have Android 2.2 (Froyo) and the phone comes preloaded with a set of neat apps and of course access to the Android store. A few nice apps were the Indian newspapers app and the weather app. Standard apps like Gtalk (however I can't see myself using Gtalk on my phone), Gmail, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are also preloaded.
I was a little wary of keyboard input using the touch screen, but that barrier was also crossed without pain (the auto switch to landscape mode when you change the phone orientation is neat). Two thumb typing is quite easy and I could reuse my skills from my Nokia E61i.
The sound quality when music or youtube videos are played is pretty good and the volume is also quite reasonable. Some minor glitches till now - the screen orientation does not always change quickly when you hold the phone sideways, I found the response a little sluggish at times. I need to explore Android more to tweak it further.
It ended up costing me about Rs. 12,500 (2 GB card included), and right now I think it is money well spent. Overall it is looking to be a very good buy and I am quite satisfied with it.
As an aside, I also bought a Samsung bluetooth headset and it can connect to two bluetooth devices at the same time which is a feature I had been on the lookout for a long time. I use two phones (one work and one personal) and when driving (especially when I am driving between Pune and Mumbai) it is a problem when I connect my headset to one phone and the other rings. Problem solved! It can have another application when you connect the headset to your laptop and your phone so that you don't miss a call when you are on Skype, etc.
3 comments:
Are you able to see Devangari and other Indian language Character?
No, in my understanding, iPhone (rather iOS) is the only one which supports Devanagri and other Indian character sets. Android natively (and hence the Optimus) does not support these yet.
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