A lot of oohs and aahs greeted the Samsung Galaxy Note when it was launched. While the admiration was mostly directed at everything it could do with the stylus and the new S-Memo app, using it as a handset was met by a lot of muffled giggles. After all, it does take some getting used to – talking into a smartphone that’s wider than your palm! Despite the quirky dimensions, the Samsung Galaxy Note was a hit, prompting the recent launch of its successor.

If this wasn’t proof enough for the apparent success and popularity for the one-of-a-kind form factor, the LG Optimus Vu definitely is. Like the cliché goes, imitation is probably the best form of flattery. Now, now, we are not tying to incite any patent wars. But, if there’s anything that the first look at the size of the LG Vu reminds one of, it’s the Samsung Galaxy Note, especially with the stylus thrown in.

Display

The LG Optimus Vu has a rather odd aspect ratio. The smarpthone comes with a 5-inch display laid out across an unusually squarish body. It looks slightly more stocky than most smarpthones you’d come across in the market, owing to the default 4:3 aspect ratio of the screen. While this is not a common ratio to be found on handhelds, it results in imparting the LG Optimus Vu with one of its best features – readability.

Flipboard and Pulse remain some of the very first apps that I download on every review unit. The experience on going through stories and articles on both the apps was amazing on the LG Optimus Vu. The default aspect ratio makes sure the display is put to optimum use while you are reading text.

Watching videos on the Vu, however, lacks the optimal widescreen ratio designed for viewing videos. This is not a huge nag however as an IPS-screen and decent viewing angles make up for it.

Audio

The audio on the handset is powered by Dolby Mobile and the volume levels – both in-call as well as while playing media – is more than satisfactory. The only problem with the rather wide expanse of the phone is that you have to make sure you are holding it right whenever you have a conversation.

The earpiece is situated bang in the middle and if you don’t place it right on top of your ear, the voice on the other side gets muffled. The headphones that come in the box along with the LG Optimus Vu are also pretty good and the in-ear buds are comfortable enough to keep plugged in for long hours.

Camera

The camera on the LG Vu is an 8-megapixel one. While it’s not the absolute best in the market, it does a pretty good job of capturing pics that you may ultimately want to Instagram and post on Facebook. Like most of smartphone cameras this one too struggles a bit if there isn’t sufficient ambient light. It also doesn’t capture movement too well. However, snaps taken during the day, in fairly bright sunlight come out really well.

There’s an interesting mode in the camera app where it will automatically snap your picture when you say “Cheese”! Of course, you have to fake an American accent to get that right!

Time catch shot captures the “missing moment before pressing the shutter”. As mysterious as this may sounds, this mode might actually be one of the most useful ones that I’ve come across in a smarpthone camera. Basically, it tracks the frames preceding the final one where you tap the virtual shutter.

While this isn’t so great for portraits or any still-life snaps, you can use it really well to capture caught-in-the-moment pics say for example a dog doing a jump trick or a bright-hued kingfisher on your balcony before it flies away.

Stylus

Leveraging the superpowers of the stylus that the LG Optimus Vu comes with, is the QuickMemo app. You have four Pen Types and a bunch of colours to choose from. The smartphone even has a shortcut which you can use to quickly note down stuff even without having to unlock the homescreen.

As with the S-Memo on the Samsung Galaxy Note, the QuickMemo also lets you attach a pretty picture, a home video or a voice clip, among other media, to a note that you save on the phone or might want to share with someone. You can also select Google Maps with the QuickMemo app still open and share an intended destination with your friends. This is one of the USPs of the LG Optimus Vu, but as with the Samsung Galaxy Note, it’ll only be most useful to those who constantly need to jot down or sketch stuff on the go. You also have to keep in mind that the stylus doesn’t have its own slide-in slot in the handset’s frame. So if you tend to fit the absent-minded professor cliché, you’ll have parted ways with the stylus sooner than you expected.

Battery & Performance

The handset doesn’t support external storage, so you can’t upgrade its storage memory with SD cards. But hopefully, you won’t need any considering the handset is equipped with 32GB of internal storage.

The LG Optimus Vu is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, thus making multi-tasking a breeze. At any given point of time during the ten days, we had the Web browser, Flipboard, Gmail, Facebook, WhatsApp and a couple of more apps open, however, the handset did not freeze even once during our tests. On the Quadrant Standard benchmarking test, the LG Optimus Vu scored 3,421 managing to hang in just two steps below the HTC One X.

The big LG smartphone comes with a 2,080 mAh battery but the massive screen means more power drainage than you would encounter on a smaller smartphone. Depending on how much you read or browse the web on the LG Optimus Vu, the smartphone will give you anything between 8-11 hours of usage (non-continuous).

We say

If you aren’t one who is willing to try the quirky form factor or someone who doesn’t see much use for a stylus-based smartphone, then the LG Optimus Vu probably will not make it to your wishlist. For those who see a potential my-next-smartphone in the 5-incher from LG, it suffices to say that apart from its note-taking abilities the LG Optimus Vu does make for a quick, efficient smartphone, as good as anything else in the market that you can lay your, hopefully sizeable, hands on.

Rs 34,500

Love – Good display, bright screen, fast processor

Hate – Unusual form factor, average camera results

mahananda.bohidar@thehindu.co.in

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