Yesterday we managed to get our hands on the new LG Loop (GT540) from Rogers so we spent a little time fooling around with it! Read on so we can keep you in the “loop†with our full review…
Hardware
The Loop is deceivingly light. When we first held it we thought we had forgotten to put the battery in or something because it was so light! To us, this can be both good and bad, it’s not weighed down meaning holding it for a long time doesn’t give any problems but at the same time we can’t help but think it feels a little cheaper when it’s that light.
The overall size of the phone is perfect and fits nicely in the hand, all the buttons are well placed and easily reachable but we have to wonder time and time again why LG still chooses to use Resistive touch screens rather than the nicer capacitive screens, but more about that later.
The phone itself has 3 physical buttons on the front for power on and off/screen on and off, home and a call button. Above these 3 buttons are 2 touch sensitive ones, 1 for menu’s and the other for a back button. These would normally be nice except for the fact that LG has made them resistive as well meaning the “touch†button you should be able to easily glide to is now a “button†that you’re TRYING to press without one actually being there. We found this rather confusing and sometimes annoying as getting the right sensitivity with it was dodgy at best but we’re sure after enough time it would become second nature.
The screen itself it clear and crisp and does indeed respond well to touches when you remember to press harder on it. Sliding was smooth and easy but we found the edges a bit difficult to activate as can be seen in the video (embedded below) trying to open the notification window. It definitely has a sweet spot that you have to hit and we found ourselves having to use our nails to grab it rather than our fingers.
Overall the hardware design of the phone is very nice and there’s something soothing about the look of faux brushed metal plastic that we like and it gives the phone an overall nice appeal, we just wish it had a QWERTY keyboard as well.
Software
The LG Loop is running Android 1.6 but LG has taken the time to heavily modify the OS adding their own specialized social networking widgets (like messages, social status updates, bookmarks) that give it a nice customization. The other few minor tweaks they’ve made just give it a more polished feel for example they’ve added the 2.0/2.1 lockscreen with the slide to the left or right.
One tweak that we absolutely loved that they did was with the notification bar (once you can get it down!!) they’ve added the basic power controls at the top for super easy access! Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS and sound profiles all at the top in a nice row easy to get to anywhere.
Besides these subtle differences it’s a normal Android 1.6 experience with the same market and old keyboard with nothing really changed. The keys respond nicely to the touch screen and scrolling and the OS in general seemed really smooth which is a nice touch.
Camera
The LG Loop is no photographers phone coming with an understated 3.15MP camera on board. But for what it’s worth it gets the job done. Don’t expect amazing pictures but for quick point and shoot it does a great job.
LG has also taken the time to skin the camera app making it more interactive and giving it lots of settings to play around with which we really like (see the video for interactive viewing of the camera mode).
Besides that it’s business as usual.
Conclusion
All in all the LG Loop is a nice choice for a mid-range Android device. It’s not for power users who want the latest and greatest but offers a nice introductory Android experience for people getting into the Smartphone world or looking for a first touch screen device. We can’t help but wonder how much nicer it would be with a capacitive screen onboard with something like Swype installed to make texting and browsing a lot easier, but for what it’s worth we enjoyed our time with the Loop.
Check out the video below for some hands on time with it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iI8fQLxh5c&fs=1&hl=en_US]
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I don’t think that this phone is great. I tried it but I think that HTC or even Samsung made it much better.
Htc makes a lot of great phones and while this one may not be what you like I’m sure some people do! Did you know Samsung actually owns lg!