Verizon Wireless Jan. 19 began selling its first new significant Android smartphone of 2012, the pretty LG Spectrum, which costs $199.99 on contract. LG hasn't pumped out many smartphones in the U.S., but this Android 2.3 Gingerbread handset is a beauty, boasting a 4.5-inch True HD IPS (in-plane switching) 16.7M Color TFT touch screen with 1,280-by-720-pixel resolution. This is the same technology LG uses for its HD televisions. Combine this viewing experience with the phone's Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 1.5GHz dual-core chip on Verizon's 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, and it's easy to see how this little machine can be a multimedia powerhouse for video consumers. To wit, the phone comes with HD access to ESPN's ScoreCenter app, which offers scores and highlights. It also provides Netflix access and the SmartMovie HD app for shooting and editing HD video. Check out eWEEK's hands-on tryout of the LG Spectrum in this slide show.
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1) Front View
Here is the Spectrum and its 4.5 inches of touch-screen real estate. Note the three Android control buttons under the LG logo. From left to right, there is a settings button, the home button and a back button. They're not virtual, but they lie under the Gorilla Glass. As a consequence, you often need to tap the buttons multiple times to get a response.
2) Back Panel
The back is interesting, a sort of off-black color piece of plastic with a textured appearance, but no actual texture for easy gripping. In fact, the phone is quite slick to the touch, a puzzling move on LG's part. There's also the 8-megapixel camera, which sports auto-focus, face detection, exposure control and geo-tagging. There is a 1.3-megapixel camera for video chatting in front.
3) Side View
The device weighs just under 5 ounces, and measures 5.33 inches long, 2.71 inches wide and only 0.41 inches thin.
4) Power Up
Once we powered the device on, we saw some of the familiar Gingerbread look, with the weather widget on one of the seven home screens. Yet LG has definitely customized Gingerbread to its liking. Gingerbread is the OS now, but this phone will get the bump to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich later this year.
5) Widgets
Users may, of course, customize the widgets. LG offers several widget options.
6) Multimedia Options
Over on the Spectrum's media home screen, you get options of accessing videos, photos, music and more in an attractive, picturesque package.
7) Social Networking Access
The social media home screen lets users associate their Facebook, Twitter and MySpace (yes, MySpace) accounts with the handset.
8) News, Weather, Market Feeds
Another home screen lets users customize weather, news feeds, stock tickers, calendar and rich notes.
9) Application Categories
One thing LG did that was unique for Android handsets was to partition its preloaded app selections into categories, as you can see here.
10) Easy Access to App Categories
For example, the phone lists apps for media, news and search, tools, communications, and video.
11) ESPN
We checked out ESPN in HD. The application is decent and makes for an interesting inclusion by LG. Perhaps the phone was designed by a sports fan?
12) Netflix Access
The Spectrum includes Netflix, which is becoming a standard on Android handsets with large screens.
13) Sesame Street
We loaded up Sesame Street and got an appreciation for this phone's 16:9 aspect ratio and 329 pixels per inch.
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See All Slideshows
Verizon Wireless Jan. 19 began selling its first new significant Android smartphone of 2012, the pretty LG Spectrum, which costs $199.99 on contract. LG hasn't pumped out many smartphones in the U.S., but this Android 2.3 Gingerbread handset is a beauty, boasting a 4.5-inch True HD IPS (in-plane switching) 16.7M Color TFT touch screen with 1,280-by-720-pixel resolution. This is the same technology LG uses for its HD televisions. Combine this viewing experience with the phone's Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 1.5GHz dual-core chip on Verizon's 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, and it's easy to see how this little machine can be a multimedia powerhouse for video consumers. To wit, the phone comes with HD access to ESPN's ScoreCenter app, which offers scores and highlights. It also provides Netflix access and the SmartMovie HD app for shooting and editing HD video. Check out eWEEK's hands-on tryout of the LG Spectrum in this slide show.