LAS VEGAS -- LG this morning announced the Optimus Black, a new, slim Android smartphone with a super-bright LCD screen. The Korean cell phone maker also showed off the Optimus 2X, the world's first dual-core mobile phone. I got some hands-on time with both devices.
(Check out the slideshow below for hands-on images of both phones.)
The Optimus Black is today's genuinely new phone, as the Optimus 2X was announced a few weeks ago. The Black's "Nova" display uses the same IPS LCD technology as the Apple iPhone 4, albeit at a lower 800x480 resolution on its 4-inch screen. According to LG, the display pumps out 700 nits of brightness. That comapres to 500 nits on the iPhone 4 and 300 nits on the Super AMOLED screen on the Samsung Galaxy S.
When I took a picture of the Optimus Black and a Galaxy S next to each other in a dark room, the brightness of the Optimus Black's screen blew out on my photo; it's noticeably brighter than the other phone. Colors also looked different: the AMOLED's colors looked punchier and more highly saturated.
The Black's 2-megapixel front-facing camera is billed as a world's first, although that's a little less impressive. Front-facing cameras are mostly used nowadays for self shots and video chatting, and 1.3 megapixels has been enough so far.
The Black is also the first phone I've seen to support Wi-Fi Direct. That's a new ad-hoc networking protocol which will allow Wi-Fi-powered devices to find each other easily. LG is heavily interested in DLNA, the media-streaming technology, and Wi-Fi Direct here looks like a way to help phones, TVs and other devices find each other so they can share and stream media.
Other specs are standard for a high-end smartphone. The Black has a 1Ghz TI OMAP 3630 processor, a 5-megapixel camera on the back, 2GB of internal storage, and a 1500 mAh battery.
The phone feels sharp, that's for sure; only 9.2mm thick, it has an angled, somewhat sculptured plastic body with a smooth matte back. Since it doesn't use much metal or any exotic materials, it doesn't feel like a luxury product, but it definitely feels classier than the slick plastic back on the Samsung Vibrant, for instance.
I also got a few minutes with the LG Optimus 2X, the first dual-core, ARM Cortex-A9 phone. It's a big slab smartphone that seems made for high-end gaming, but the software on the prototype I played with felt incomplete. The phone looks and feels a lot like an HTC EVO 4G or HD7, because of its 4.3-inch size and sharp bezel along the bottom.
Although it has an 8-megapixel camera and a moderately interesting, slightly hacked user interface with wallpaper previews and new widgets, the Optimus 2X's real selling points are around what its nVidia processor can do. That means awesome video and gaming: the phone has an HDMI port that can mirror the phone's screen on an HDTV or play 1080p HD videos, and it's supposed to play immersive, high-def games better than any other handheld.
My test device didn't have any special nVidia content on it, though; I think we'll learn more about the Optimus 2X's gaming abilities at the nVidia press conference later today.
Both phones will be launched with Android 2.2, "Froyo," but they will be upgradeable to version 2.3, "Gingerbread." LG didn't announce North American release plans for either phone.