T-Mobile LG G2X Review

by George Heymann

techeadlines@gmail.com

The T-Mobile LG G2x is my first LG phone of any type, Smart or other wise. It’s the first dual-core phone offering available for T-Mobile’s USA Network. Even though it’s my first LG phone, my previous experience with the company’s other products was favorable, making the decision to purchase the G2X an easy one given the phones other great features.

The G2X features a 1 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor. The snappy performance is one of the first things you notice about the phone; everything seems to happen in an instant. The programs launch quickly and the performance within applications has been excellent.

The build quality is also very good. The device has a nice hand feel; it feels substantial without being heavy.

The LG G2X is a “With Google Experience” phone, which means it comes with stock Android sans any manufacturer overlays. In the case of the G2X, it comes with Android 2.2 Froyo but T-Mobile has already announced a Gingerbread update for the G2X, coming soon.

The “With Google Experience” was a big selling point for me as these phones seem to always receive the latest updates from Google before other handsets with third party overlays.

If you enjoy mobile gaming, you are going to love the G2X. Besides the snappy performance, several developers are releasing enhanced versions of their games for the Tegra platform. The current selection is limited but several titles are currently under development. The two titles I’ve tried that were enhanced for Tegra — Samurai II: Vengeance, and Dungeon Defenders — look fantastic! I played a little of Samurai II and besides looking great, the controls and animation are silky smooth. I felt I had total control of the action even on the small screen.

The G2X includes a 8 MP rear camera with flash which supports 1080P recording as well as a relatively nice 1.3MP front facing camera. The device also features HDMI out with HDMI mirroring and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) support. I presently do not own any DLNA compliant devices so I was unable to test this functionality.

I was a little disappointed when I found out that the LG G2X would be released with Android Froyo but was pleasantly surprised with the implementation. The Froyo build that comes installed with the G2X includes both tethering and a screen capture function built in. To perform a screen capture on the G2X simultaneously simply press the power and home button. In the past I’ve had to root previous phones in order to gain that functionality. I don’t have any interest in running any custom roms at this time so including these features will mean that I can stick with the stock ROM.

Some users have reported sporadic rebooting problems on their G2X. I haven’t experienced any rebooting problem on my phone to date. I did experience several force close errors when I first setup my phone. I had swapped my 32GB SD card from my previous phone and restored my purchased applications and I believe some of my previous settings were responsible for some of the problems that I experienced.

I have since gone into the phone settings>manage applications>clear data, then uninstalled and reinstalled some of the applications. This has cleared up the majority of the problems. I have had some issues with certain game apps that do not display properly with the standard version of their software. Fortunately, those games appear to have Tegra specific versions so perhaps I can upgrade my software and that will clear up my remaining issues.

My final complaint is a personal preference issue. Lots of folks like the look of the G2X, In my opinion they are half right. The front of the device is very nice, the body of the device is a dark cafe brown with a silver metallic strip running up the back. The humpback design in my opinion looks tacky and cheap, although surprising feels good in the hand. The first thing I did to my G2X is add a quality screen protector to the front and get a black case to protect the sides and hide the back (See photo comparison above).

T-Mobile LG G2X Specs:

Network Quad Band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and UMTS (2100/900MHz) + HSPA 7.2/5.7
Display: 4-inch LED-backlit IPS-LCD,capacitive touch screen, 16M, 800×480 pixel
Camera: 8 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash – Second Camera: 1.3 MP
OS: Android 2.2 Froyo, upgradeable to Android 2.3 Gingerbread
CPU 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 AP20H Dual Core processor, ULP GeForce 8 core GPU, Tegra 2 chipset
Memory: 512 RAM, MicroSD up to 32GB storage
Storage 8GB storage
Connectivity3.5mm headset jack, Bluetooth v2.1
MP3/WAV/WMA/eAAC+ & MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV
Battery 1500 mAh
Talk Time: 10 hours, Standby Time: 480 hours
Dimensions 123.9 x 63.2 x 10.9 mm
Weight 140 gram
Other features: Charger, USB cable, HDMI port, Guide book
Release Date: April 20th, 2011
$200 with a 2 year contract after $50 MIR