LG GT540 Optimus Cell Phone
LG GT540 Optimus cell phone is the second android cell phone from LG after the LG GW620 cell phone. LG GT540 Optimus uses Android version 1.6 (Donuts) which is quite left behind if compare with other cell phone vendors which used Android version 2.1 (Eclair). The design for this cell phone is the fully touch screen concept. There is no additional physical QWERTY keypad for this cell phone. It makes this cell phone thinner from the previous LG android cell phone.
LG GT540 cell phone is larger than LG GW620 cell phone. There are four color choices for this cell phone which are black, silver, white, and pink. Each color choices have different style for casing. The casing material is high quality plastic which is thick enough. The concave curve presents in top and bottom part. The general design of this cell phone is simple and unisex. There are no many ornaments. This cell phone is only decorated by casing style and the buttons. The cell phone front part is dominated by 3 inches QVGA 256k colors 329×480 pixels TFT Resistive touch screen with two haptic buttons in below of it.
There are also three physical buttons which is dial on, dial off, and main homescreen. To support the performance of this LG GT540 Optimus cell phone, there are additional buttons and port around the body. At the left, there is volume button. At the right, there is camera button, quick search shortcut, and microUSB port (for data connection and charger). At the top, there is 3.5 mm audio jack. The three inches touch screen is not large enough if compare with other Android cell phones. However, this large is already enough to enjoy the Android touch screen experience. I suggest to use stylus when use this touch screen. There are 5 homescreens available for this cell phone.
Each of homescreen is freely to be fulfilled with widget, folder, or shortcut icon. LG GT540 cell phone offers two display options which are Android Home and LG Home. This cell phone is equipped with accelometer and text messaging/SMS widget. Users can find phone number and incoming messaging information in this text messaging/SMS widget. Users also can reply or send the message without go to menu. For the keypad, there are virtual QWERTY, virtual alphanumeric, and handwriting box. To change the virtual keypad type, users only need to setting icon in the virtual keypad.
The SNS widget offers complete social networking access such as Facebook, Twitter, and Bebo. The SNS application offers three widgets which is SN Messaging, SN Status, and SN Updates. The three widgets offers complete information of messaging, users status, and friend status. Users status can be synchronize between the available social networking applications and no need to update one by one. At the top of homescreen, there is notification page which offers cell phone information such as battery, signal, network, and others. If drag down, there are 4 icons switch which is GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, and sound.
In the menu display. There are many default applications and features at Applications category. If add the new one, the application will be grouped in download category. The categorizing can be done base on users needs. The cell phone OS for this LG GT540 Optimus cell phone is the old Android 1.6 (Donuts) but upgradeable into Android 2.1 (Eclair). So, no need to worry about the OS. By using Android OS, this cell phone surely supports Goggle Service which synchronized with Email, calendar, and contact such as Gmail, Gtalk,Google Search, and Google Maps. Users also can use the Android Market to get their needed application.
The task killer application which can be used to stop the running process fast is in default applications. This application also can show the memory usages and remain battery power. Another default application is Cardio Trainer which can be used as health monitoring tool. This application is connected with GPS so can be used to monitor our sport activities – especially for walk and running sport activities. There are still a lot of useful application in this cell phone such as Quickoffice, Movie Finder, Wapedia, Wikitude, RSS Readers, and YouTube. The Android 1.6 supports up to 6 mulstitasking.
For Multimedia, LG GT540 Optimus cell phone is quite complete if compare with other Android cell phone. There is already built-in FM Radio facility so no need to download it from Android market anymore. The facility is equipped with automatic searching and the result can be save directly into the channel list. There is no internal antenna so need to use headset to hear music through FM Radio facility. The audio player also can be used to enjoy music. The song list is consisted of artist, album, and song title. There is also play list as shortcut to play the users’ favorite songs.
When the song is played, the album picture, song title, album title, and singer name will be displayed on the screen. The sound quality is good enough but still not so round. If use the speaker body, the sound volume is not maximal. However, the maximal sound can be enjoyed by using the headset – the sound is clear and round. The camera is 3.4 MP with autofocus technology. There is no flash for the camera. For settings, there is ISO controller, Scene mode, picture quality, face tracking, pixel size, and EV. The photo quality is good enough for both indoor and outdoor also for less light condition.
For the network, LG GT540 Optimus supports GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and HDSPA 900/2100 MHz. For connectivity, this cell phone supports HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, GPRS/EDGE Class 10, WiFi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, microUSB v2.0, HTML Browser, and 3.5 mm Audio Jack. The battery is Li-ion 15000 mAh which offers 5 hours 30 minutes talk time for 2G, 7 hours 20 minutes talk time for 3G, 500 hours standby time for 2G and 3G. Internal memory capacity is 130 MB which can improve up to 32 GB by using external microSD memory.