LG Optimus L9 P765 - Review

While it might seem like LG is losing a little traction on the mobile front, it hasn’t stopped the company from launching new devices. The latest to hit India is the Optimus L9 smartphone and this is the P765 variant. It’s a neat looking device, but that’s never a good reason to make a purchase. So we put the L9 to the test and here are our findings. 

Form Factor

As stated, the P765 looks good, but unfortunately, is not built the same. It’s light weight (125 g) and 9.1 mm in depth, making it easy on the hand and in the pocket, but the build quality could have been so much better. The rear panel feels a little on the cheap-ish side and, unfortunately, transcends throughout the handset. The entire chassis of the device feels a little low-end and will make you seriously wonder about the price tag. The Home button placed just below the display is very Samsung-esque but nowhere near as well designed. It’s embedded a little too much into the body, and being so narrow makes it a little difficult to access. On either side of the button are Android soft touch keys. 

9 mm in depth

On the right hand side of the handset is a small power/sleep mode button that’s placed in a spot that’s easy to access. The volume rocker is on the left, parallel to the power button. The microUSB port is placed at the centre at the bottom of the handset and the handsfree socket at the top on the left. A 5MP camera with an LED flash is on the rear, with a VGA camera up front near the company logo. It was disappointing to see that LG opted to have the SIM (standard size) available via Hot Swap, but the memory card without the same advantage. The L765 comes with 4GB of onboard memory with the capability of expansion up to 32GB via microSD cards. 

Home button could have been better designed

The 4.7-inch IPS touchscreen features a QHD (540 x 960) resolution, which is quite vibrant and quite legible in bright sunlit locations. We were impressed with the design, but not the build. 

Features and Performance

Interface 

LG’s shipping the P765 with ICS (Android 4.0.4) running off of a dual-core 1GHz processor and 1GB RAM. There was a slight delay in some aspects of functionality, but overall, it handled functions very well. The UI was reasonably fluid, but with Jelly Bean, we’re sure there would have been a visible difference. The way things are currently, an ICS device launched in this price bracket sticks out like a sore thumb. 

The Optimus UI has some very handy features

The Optimus UI has a few borrowed tweaks from the edition on the Optimus G handset. These include the QuickMemo function that lets you write details, phone numbers etc. on any screen with your fingers. It can be quite handy if you’re on a call and need to take down a telephone number or such. The memo can be left on screen while you go about your regular features, or it can be saved or shared via any medium available. In the Running Apps menu, you have an option to "Kill All" or access the Task Manager feature. 

The App drawer allows for folder creation by simply dragging and dropping apps on top of each other. You can then name folders as you see fit. The Lock Screen also has a few widgets of its own, including a variety of clock interfaces with a calendar and a set of four frequently-used or quick access apps. You can choose which apps you would like to have on the lock screen.

In terms of Benchmarks, the handset performed adequately but didn’t quite stand out. Linkpak scores put it at 36 MFLOPS on Single Thread and 50 on Multi Thread, which is really nothing to write home about. Here are the NenaMark 2, Quadrant and AnTuTu scores:

 

 

  

Media

The P765 comes sans the Dolby Mobile sound engine, so audio quality isn’t as good as we hoped. While decibel levels are not something that we can complain about, we noticed that the higher frequencies, even with presets like Bass Boost activated, were a little on the sharper side. The bass could have been a little heavier. 

Media functionality overall was quite decent

The handset's video player proved to be quite impressive. It managed to read quite a few file formats, including MKV minus audio, a few AVI files and MP4 amongst a few others. Full HD test files played without a hitch and with no visible lag or framing. The built-in sound recorder worked quite well too. Within a radius of two feet, audio quality proved to be quite sharp. The FM radio took no more than 10 seconds to scan and locate all available stations, and reception was quite decent even while commuting.