My First Android Phone - LG P500 Optimus One Review!

So finally I bought an Android phone. There aren't many choices for me due to budget limitation.. yes I am limiting myself =_=. I then settled with LG Optimus One because many people recommended it for Android with best battery lifetime. Is it true? Well, let's find out.

This is the phone we are talking about, LG P500 Optimus One

When first time arrived, the phone was still using the stock ROM (Froyo 2.2.2). What I like from the stock ROM are only these two things:

• Using LG Launcher, you could group the application in the Menu
• LG Keyboard offers two type of keypad : full qwerty and nokia-like keypad.

 The menu layout with LG Launcher

It comes with Android 2.2.2 by default

The default / stock ROM come with many useless application which I already forgot every single of their name. It quite bit lagged when you open the menu and the quadrant score only around 6xx.

The screen is 320x480 pixel in decent 3.2 inch capacitive touch screen LCD and yes the pixels produced is not enough to run HD Games =( The colors are looking normal and the screen also responsive. No issue there. The camera is actually kinda disappointing. It produces decent picture with huge filesize, no flash support and I also experienced shutter lag.

It comes packed with 1500 mAH Lithium battery. Compared to the BlackBerry Storm 9500 standard 1400 mAH, in my usage then the Optimus One is slightly better. But of course it all depends on your usage.

Another fun feature and in this phone is the Wireless Tethering Feature. You could use your Optimus One act as a mi-fi router. But of course it is nothing like mi-fi in reality due to extreme difference in battery life. I use this feature in 3G / HSDPA and in 5 minutes, I realized that my battery has drained around 5%! wow.. but well since it is not the main feature, I don't think we could complain about it anyway.

If you want to try a low end Android phone then this is definitely a choice. My choices for buying Android sorted by the budget are Optimus One, Nexus One, Nexus S, and Optimus 2X.

Conclusion? With the great price comes great device. So for this mid-end price, you get  a decent medium device. :) It's certainly much better than the Apanda A60 (Nexian Journey in Indonesia) or Samsung Galaxy 5. Also better than HTC Magic, Hero and Samsung Spica in my opinion.

Cheers!