LG Optimus 2X & NVIDIA Tegra 2 Review: The First Dual-Core Smartphone
by Brian Klug & Anand Lal Shimpi on February 7, 2011 3:53 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Tegra 2
- LG
- Optimus 2X
- Mobile
- NVIDIA
Display
I’ve already talked a bit about the 2X’s display in the intro—it’s a WVGA (800x480) IPS panel topped with a capacitive digitizer. Touch detection is nice and snappy, and supports up to 10 contact points simultaneously which was confirmed with some testing using the LG touch screen test application. The same surface is also home to the capacitive buttons just below the display edge. They’re responsive and work perfectly fine. In the video review, I struggle on camera with taps a few times, which is purely a function of using the phone at a weird angle some distance away—the buttons are actually very responsive.
Though the 2X display is indeed IPS, it doesn’t score too highly in our display tests. I found contrast to be more than adequate, even if it isn’t AMOLED. At maximum brightness there’s just a bit too much brightness in the blacks which hurts that contrast score. I prefer LCD over AMOLED personally because of how grainy and off-white PenTile looks on most devices, so it’s nice to see an LCD. The automatic brightness dynamic range on the 2X could stand to be way bigger, it doesn’t go as dark as the darkest setting in pitch blackness, or as bright as maximum. That’s more of a complaint about how Android in general handles auto brightness by default than something LG is guilty of doing wrong. It's a shame we don't have the same kind of color calibration checks on smartphones as we do displays, because subjectively the display looked just about perfect. Auto brightness also sometimes seems to change brightness abruptly, without a gradual transition.
We talked in the physical impressions area about how the display surface is curved. It’s a gentle curve out at the edge which slopes down to meet flush the plastic lip running around the edge. If you put the phone face down, it seems that these areas are slightly raised, and thus the area that scratches is out at the start of that curve. What’s more interesting though is that several times I’ve noticed that with the sun or bright light at the side, light will enter through the raised curve and totally internally reflect all the way across the surface of the display. The result is that you see a ton of repeated vertical lines across the phone from light reflecting off the front and back surfaces of the glass. It’s a weird effect to describe, but I’ve seen it happen twice now during brief stints outside.
Viewing angles are decent, though there’s a bit more color distortion when viewed from extreme horizontal angles. The slight curve doesn’t really affect viewing angles in that direction—it’s nowhere as extreme as the Dell Venue Pro. Likewise, viewing angles in the vertical direction are great.
Outdoors there’s a bit of glare, including an odd secondary reflection from the second (back) surface of the glass. The result is that when you get glare outdoors, there are two images. One much more visible reflection from the first surface, another fainter image from the second surface. I haven’t really noticed it as much on any other device as I do with the 2X. It isn’t honestly a problem outdoors, just something worth noting. It’s too bad that LG couldn’t toss their super bright “Nova” display on the 2X, but as it stands right now LG has a pretty decent IPS on the phone.
The final interesting thing is an odd option under the display settings page. At the bottom is the option to change the Android display font. There are 7 fonts options, including the default Dorid Sans font, two other sans-serif fonts (one of which appears monospace), three nightmarish script fonts, and a serif font.
It's definitely not something I'd change yet (mostly because the alternatives to Droid Sans are visual atrocities), but this is the first time I've seen font changing on Android outside of the rooted/modding crowd.
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matt b - Tuesday, February 8, 2011 - link
Just curious because I've heard rumors that HP will use the Qualcomm chipset and I've also heard rumors that they will stick with Ti for their new tablets/phones. I just wondered if you know for sure since I know that you met with folks at CES. I hope that we all find out tomorrow at the HP event.Great review.
TareX - Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - link
I'd like to see Tegra 2 on the Xoom compared to Tegra 2 on the Optimus 2X.Why? Well, simply put, the only Android version that seems to be optimized for dual-core is Honeycomb.
Dark Legion - Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - link
Why is there no Incredible on 2.2? I could understand if you had both 2.1 and 2.2, like the Evo, but as it is now does not show the full/current performance.Morke - Thursday, February 10, 2011 - link
"It’s a strange dichotomy that LG sets up with this launcher scheme that divides “downloaded” apps from “system applications,” one that’s made on no other Android device I’ve ever seen but the Optimus One. The end result is that most of the stuff I want (you know, since I just installed it) is at the very last page or very bottom of the list, resulting in guaranteed scrolling every single time. If you’re a power user, just replace the launcher with something else entirely."You are not right there.
First you can create additonal categories (aside from system applications and downloads) and move applications between them.
Secondly you can rearrange the ordering of the applications inside a category (allowing you to have those on top which you access most frequently). You can also delete applications right away in this edit mode.
There is a youtube video demonstrating this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvvtl6pSNp8
See time index starting with 4:21.
Maybe you should correct your review on this?
Morke - Thursday, February 10, 2011 - link
The correct youtube URL demonstrating application launcher management is actuallyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDo-1-jwLko&fea...
brj_texas - Thursday, February 10, 2011 - link
Anand,A question on the statement in the benchmarking section, "the SunSpider benchmark isn't explicitly multithreaded, although some of the tests within the benchmark will take advantage of more than one core. "
My understanding was that all of the tests within sunspider are single-threaded, but a dual-core processor can run the javascript engine (and the sunspider tests) in a separate thread from the main browser thread when you call sunspider from a browser window.
Can you clarify which tests support multi-threading in sunspider if that is in fact what you meant?
On the topic of multi-threading, we've used moonbat, a multi-core variant of sunspider, to explicitly test multi-core performance with javascript code. I wonder if you have any other benchmarks under investigation that measure multi-core performance?
Thanks
-Brian
worldbfree4me - Saturday, February 12, 2011 - link
Thanks for another thorough and in-depth analysis. But I have a question to ask,Should we upgrade (break our 2 year contract agreement for this phone) or ride out our contract?
We trust and value your our opinion. Tom’s hardware does a GPU hierarchy chart every few months, can you do a phone hierarchy in the future?
lashton - Sunday, February 13, 2011 - link
They have a really good idea and lead the market but it falls short because its not quite righttnepres - Tuesday, April 5, 2011 - link
I now own a optimus 2x. The first was dead on arrival, but this one is perfect. The LG software is innovative and pleasing to the eye. In various places they made real improvements to the UI that are just brilliant,ie. the ability to sort and categorize apps. At times the UI is not as fast as you would expect, especially when adding apps/widgets to one of the 7 pages. It seems LG generates a list of widgets for you, so you can see what apps support this mode, and that takes about a second. As I recall, on HTC devices you are just presented with a list of apps and u have to try and see if you can widget it.The LG keybord has a brilliant feature, you tab the side of the phone to move the cursor. Sadly in other respects the keyboard is lacking, ie. when you long-pres you do not get the alternates you might wish, such as numbers.
The batterytime is superb, using the UI consumes much less power than on my desire.
Copy/paste in the browser does not activate via long-pres, you have to hit menu button, but on the plus side its easier to use than what HTC made.
During 2 days of very intensive use i have had 1 app (partially) crash and that was the marketplace. No other issues so far, its my verdict that the unstability issues are overrated.
No problems with wifi using stock ISP (TDC) supplied router. (sagemcom)
To engadget: How on earth (!!?!!?) can you state there is no use for dualcore. When browsing one loads flash the other the rest. Its so fast you cant believe it. Try loading www.ufc.com on a non dualcore phone and you get my drift.
I do not hesitate to give the optimus 2x my warm recommendations.
VERDICT: 9/10 (missing 4g)
Sannat - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link
gsmarena sound benchmark for optimus 2x isnt great...could it be a s/w issue...??