LG Optimus One P500 Smartphone Reviews and Deals

LG Optimus One P500 review

Good

Simple and efficient, modest yet elegant

Bad

A little slow, not the best screen

Overview

Not everyone in the world is looking for the latest, greatest smartphone in the world, but at the same time many of us are tempted by all that extra functionality. Luckily, as each year’s technology is replaced by the next, so the ‘old’ becomes cheaper and cheaper. this means it hasn’t been long for us to wait before affordable smartphones have come along, offering most of the goodies at a fraction of the price.

One of the better examples of this is LG’s Optimus One P500. Running on the popular Android 2.2 operating system, it boasts a 3.2-inch touchscreen, 600MHz processor and all the apps you can shake a stick at. All this is bundled in a nice soft touch plastic casing (with elegant silver detail) that feels great in the hand, while being both a nice size (113.5x59x13.3 mm) and weight (129g).

The edge of the outer casing hosts an on/off button and 3.5mm headphone jack on top, volume controls in the right side and a USB cable slot on the bottom (for both charging and syncing with a PC) - that’s that. Below the touchscreen are four buttons: ‘home’ and ‘back’ in the middle, with ‘menu’ and ‘search’ to either side. Simple.

Work

This simplicity extends throughout the LG P500, making it ideal for a basic work phone. It ticks all the boxes, with a calculator, calendar, mail and maps just a click from the home screen. There’s also ThinkFree Office installed as standard, letting you view, create and edit Office documents as well as view pdfs.

Email is also well catered for, with easy integration of multiple email accounts including Outlook. There is of course also great support for web-based email too, in particular Gmail - no surprise there! On the downside, you won’t be wanting to type too many long documents or messages. While the onscreen keyboard is better than many, the touchscreen isn’t the best and the relatively small size of the screen isn’t exactly conducive for long sessions at the virtual keyboard.

That said, as an all rounder it does well. This is backed by good call quality and a pretty strong battery life, thanks to the Li-Ion 1500mAh battery not exactly getting the heaviest of workouts.

Play

Beyond email and office, you’ll find all the social networking tools you need to get gossiping. Facebook and Twitter apps come as standard, while access to the Android market will get you anything else you need.

The LG Optimus One’s camera isn’t up to much at three-megapixels and with no flash. However, it does have autofocus and can shoot video at 640x480, which is more than enough for taking snaps for Facebook or making some silly vids for YouTube - an app for which is also on board as standard.

There’s an FM radio too, plus a perfectly adequate MP3 player that syncs easily with a PC for file transfer. However, there’s only 512MB of memory, so you’ll be wanting to grab yourself a half decent microSD card if you want to pack in a lot of tunes.

For getting online, you have the standard Android web browser installed. It’s pretty basic, but does the job. And with such a small screen, it’s unlikely you’ll be wanting to go too big on the internet browsing side of things.

And that is about that - LG clearly new the handset’s limitations and didn’t overload the Optimus One P500 with a bunch of baggage it couldn’t handle. that said, there’s nothing stopping you filling it up with all kinds of games and other oddities if you so desire.

Connectivity

If you do so desire, you wont have a problem getting your Optimus One hooked up to the interweb. It’s a 3G HSPA handset that can also connect via Wi-Fi, so it will chug along as fast as the rest of them (up to 7.2Mb). There’s also Bluetooth support.

Once again, we find ourselves being impressed with the overall simplicity of the handset. While the screen isn’t the sharpest, it doesn’t have to try and do anything flashy - the icons are simply laid out, your options easy to identify, and all the connectivity options are standard. If you have any kind of experience with a mobile you should be up ad running in no time through simple trial and error, while novices should soon be up to speed.

Finally, there’s GPS. You’ve got Google Maps on board, as well as Navigator, and you can geotag your photos as well. will it replace your sat nav? Probably not. But will it help you get around a city centre you’re not accustomed to and find that bar? Absolutely.

Verdict

If it looks like we’re painting a rosy picture of the LG Optimus One P500, that’s because we are. No, it isn’t the greatest smartphone on the market, but then it never set out to be. What it does achieve is being a fully functioned smartphone with all the right bits left in and the unnecessary bits left out (are you listening Microsoft, Nokia etc?).

The tricky part is there are a good few of these budget smartphone on the market now and it’s tough to stand out. As of May 2011 you can this one free on contract at £15 per month, but that puts it up against the HTC Desire - which is really no contest, as the Desire is a cracker. So while we are happy to recommend the Optimus One as a nice budget or beginners smartphone, there may well be better options out there for you - just make sure you do your homework.

LG Optimus One P500 specification and features

Model

LG Optimus One P500

Manufacturer

LG

Operating system

Android v2.2

Colours

Black

Mobile internet

WiFi

Yes

3G

Yes

HSDPA

Yes

Size

Size

113mm x 59mm x 13mm

Screen size

3.2"

Screen Resolution

320x480

Weight

129g

Features

Talktime

8 hrs

Standby

700 hrs

Touchscreen

Yes

QWERTY keyboard

No

Camera

3 megapixel

Video

Yes

GPS

Yes

Bluetooth

Yes

Music Phone

No

FM Radio

Yes

Quad Band

Yes

Share your opinions about the LG Optimus One P500

Add your review now