Behind the likes of the Asus Fonepad and Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0, LG’s new Optimus G Pro was one of the biggest handsets on the show floor at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year. The expansive 5.5-inch Android smartphone augments the existing flagship smartphone experience of the LG Optimus G with a larger display and a tweaked iteration of the company’s own Optimus UI.
Along with the new L Series 2 and F Series handsets which we encountered on their stand, the Optimus G Pro aimed to offer up the most premium experience the company could muster and it did appear to deliver. Naturally for some, a handset which is over 15cms tall and nearly 8cms wide might not be an ideal choice, but it can be excused for its mammoth proportions as they’re needed to accommodate a truly stunning 5.5-inch True HD IPS+ LCD panel with 1080p (1080×1920) HD resolution, endowing the G Pro with over 400 pixels per inch.
As you can imagine such an expansive Full HD display would lend itself extremely well to media consumption and LG have played to that strength with a 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor enabling a wonderfully fast user experience as well as support for Full HD video playback and there’s enough room for HD movie storage locally with 32GB of onboard memory as well as the option for expansion by a further 64GB via microSD card.
A look around the rest of the design of G Pro reveals a 2.1-megapixel front facing camera and a physical home button on the front with an adaptable LED surround which changes colour depending on the alert type; a feature we remember from the Google Nexus One and one which we’re glad to see reappearing on LG’s newest devices. The layout elsewhere is as you’d expect with a 13-megapixel camera on the back and a power/lock as well as volume rocker key on each of its sides. The programmable QButton is also apparent which lets users designate an app to quick launch and there’s also an I.R. port on the handset’s top edge which will allow for control of all manner of devices from TVs to air conditioning units; LG even say that the G Pro has up to 95% of all codes to accommodate this broad variety of device compatibility, making it a truly universal remote.
Availability of the LG Optimus G Pro doesn’t look in include the UK, with US and Korean consumers more likely being able to get their hands on one, however the technology at work within the Pro may well trickle down to newer LG handsets which are on track for a UK launch later this year.
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