LG Optimus 2X

Available now
16th December 2010

Billed as the world's first dual-core smartphone, the LG Optimus 2X raises the stakes for high-end Android devices and gives LG's profile a much needed boost in this market.

Sporting a large 4" 800 x 480 pixel display, an 8 megapixel primary camera plus a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera and all the usual goodies that you would expect from a top-of-the-line Android phone, the real interest lies under the hood with the 1GHz Tegra 2 processor.

"Dual core" is a buzzphrase that smartphone customers might not be familiar with, but most modern PCs use this technology to give a speed boost. It means that the processor is "split" to act as if there were actually two processors, both running at 1GHz and theoretically making the device up to twice as fast. All other Android devices are single core, and you can often tell when games and video feedback stutter as some other process kicks in.. dual core will go some way to preventing that.

Another of the Optimus 2X's strengths is the camera. The 8 megapixel stills camera is a step up from the typical 5 megapixels found in Android phones. However, the 1080p video capture is certainly very good and is possibly the best in class for this type of smartphone, and the Optimus 2X also integrates with DLNA and allows HDMI mirroring which allows the 2X to output on a suitable HD TV.

We don't know exactly how big and heavy the 2X is, but the 4" display is certainly a little larger than most and it is probably similar in size to Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X10. Android can be a power hungry OS, and the large 1500 mAh battery should be enough to keep it going for a while. Internal Flash memory is 8GB with an additional microSD slot, which should be enough for plenty of applications and data.

Initially the LG Optimus 2X will ship with Android 2.2 with an upgrade to 2.3 to follow shortly afterwards. The first market to have the Optimus 2X will be Korea from January with other European and Asian markets to follow.

LG haven't been particularly big players in the smartphone market, with only modest success with devices launched in 2010. However, the extremely desirable Optimus 2X is a completely different ball game and is likely to put LG firmly on the map.