LG Targets Niche Users In Its High-End Smartphone Line-Up

LG's Mobile World Congress plan is clear: Announce smartphones that aim upper-echelon enthusiasts, earnest them features that verbalise to even the many unknown consumer use cases. The new phones, strictly denounced in Barcelona Sunday, are directed at impassioned opening snobs, people who pick "phablets" over normal handsets, and the infinitesimally tiny subset of users who urge 3D encouragement in mobile devices.

To wit:

Optimus 4X HD

The Optimus 4X HD leads LG's onslaught, and is the many convincing smartphone of the bunch. Not usually does the phone add Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 chip, but the fragment is running at a screaming 1.5GHz - somewhat faster than the 1.4GHz doing in Asus' Transformer Prime tablet.

The Optimus 4X HD runs Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), and boasts a 4.7-inch, 1280×720 IPS manifestation inside its 8.9mm case. There are 8MP and 1.3MP cameras front and back, and RAM and inner storage timepiece in at 1GB and 16GB, respectively. LG hasn't voiced US conduit encouragement or a let go date, and it's misleading either the 4X HD supports LTE.

Nonetheless, with a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and Ice Cream Sandwich built correct in, the 4X HD sends coherent messaging to Android power users: "I'm a chart-topper. I'm full with power. we will right away stir other nerds when you manifestation me in open at the comic book store."

We, too, are suckers for Ice Cream Sandwich at Gadget Lab, and this is the LG phone we're now coveting the most.

Optimus Vu

OK, this a is a actual unusual duck. Hot on the heals of Samsung's complicated Milky Way Note , LG has voiced its own phone-tablet hybrid device. But where the Samsung boasts a 5.3-inch shade with a 16:10 aspect ratio, the Optimus Vu stairs deliver with a 5-inch shade running at 1024×768 for a 4:3 aspect ratio. This is a conspicuously far-reaching smartphone that shouldn't conseal really good in any man's front pocket.

Nonetheless, the Vu is considerably gaunt at 8.5mm, and is armed with a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, 8MP and 1.3MP cameras, LTE support, and a stylus marketed as a "Rubberdium" pen.

For folks who insist stylus-based information access is still applicable in 2012, it's all an appealing package. Indeed, the Vu promotes loll scribbling and free-hand note-taking at will. But there's still a major drawback: The Vu will launch with Android 2.3. The Milky Way Note is moreover hobbled by Android 2.3, and in the book, both phablets are non-starters unless a surely needs a phone-tablet hybrid.

Optimus 3D MAX

LG's third rarely targeted smartphone is directed at people who haven't nonetheless turn irritated by feeble implemented 3D content. The Optimus 3D MAX includes a 4.3-inch, 800×480 manifestation that lets you see a emergence of a stereoscopic 3D outcome without the need for massive glasses. Dual 5MP camera sensors let you record calm in 3D, justifying (to a few degree) the phone's raison d'etre.

But in reserve from the guarantee of 3D magic, the 3D MAX is a churned bag in conditions of specs. It's got a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB of storage, and NFC support. It will liner with Android 2.3, but LG says Ice Cream Sandwich encouragement is planned.

In total, nothing about this phone screams "gotta have it!" and, in fact, we've never seen a glasses-free 3D handheld that's tender us. LG is gift an heterogeneous blend of features in its Mobile World Congress line-up, but usually the Optimus 4X HD really sings to use.