LG Optimus One P500 budget Android smartphone

Time was when smartphones were always high-end handsets. But as economies of scale help bring prices down, Android’s open option has made it appealing to a wide variety of manufacturers and it’s adding smartphone goodies to some very modestly priced handsets. LG Optimus One LG's Optimus One: Android 2.2 on the cheap Case …

[fattybacon]

Budget?

Which part of £200 is budget again?

It's more than double the price of the Orange San Francisco you favourably reviewed previously, with the same processor but a smaller and lower resolution screen. I accept it will feel a more solid phone with probably a better camera but the sample shots don't inspire me much.

[Anomalous Cowturd]

Got one yesterday...

The Frisco that is.

Lovely screen, fairly snappy in use, although the volume could go a bit higher. Not tried the supplied headphones, as I have a decent set. I will wait for the battery to "bed in" before passing comment on power consumption. Sim unlocked in a minute for free, and will be rooting it and slapping Froyo on it tonight or tomorrow.

Anybody want to buy a £10 Orange top-up voucher? LOL.

[BorkedAgain]

Agreed.

The San Francisco is an amazing piece of kit; can be unlocked for free and easily rooted (if you're a bit brave and slightly techie) and makes this look like an overpriced also-ran.

Shame though; in the absence of the OSF this would look like an incredible deal. As it is, it'll do for anyone who can't get their hands on the OSF. ;)

[Argolis]

There is one thing though...

Wasnt the OSF the one with the nasty orange customisation, specifically an email app with a monthly fee on it replacing the android standard.

[Anonymous Coward]

LG Optimus One

But does it transform into a truck/robot...

[An ominous cow herd]

The dock IS customisable

"... and a dock at the bottom of the screen offering popular shortcuts: phone, contacts, messaging and browser. Sadly, this isn’t customisable."

Nope, wrong, the dock is customisable, exactly as the screens are. You just need to drag the shortcuts bteween screen and dock.

[copsewood]

Generally like it

I've been using mine for about 3 weeks now and am generally quite happy with it. I did want a phone which could handle tethering without problems and it does this fine for a Linux netbook using either a USB cable or using the built in WiFi hotspot.

The GPS works fine but the positional detection is a bit weird when using Google Sky Maps. It also does Skype fine when on a WiFi connection which greatly cut my phone bill while I was away on holiday.

Some phones are technically better, but I didn't want to spend more than a couple of hundred quid or pay a too high insurance rate on something easily mislaid.

[spegru]

ogg

a surprising consequence of android seemingly taking over the market for smartphones and therefore mp3 players, is that ogg or oga music files are going to become almost universally playable.

Another leg up for linux

[mhwatson]

San Fran

Is an excellent deal, half the price of this, and only took about 15 mins to unlock from Orange and install 2.2 rom and kernel update. Works a treat.

Just choose your rom with care...

[heynownow]

The Optimus Juggernaut starts rolling

This is the phone which saved LG Electronics's hiney in the mobile space, and came soon after the ouster of it's former incumbent CEO. The Optimus lineup will triumph in 2011 if the Optimus 2X and Black are any indicators.

[Andy 127]

doesn't sounds budget to me either

I got a Samsung Galaxy Europa i5500 just before Christmas for £70, and I'm really pleased with it. That's more like what I'd call budget, not something two or three times as much.

[vonn_ryan]

phone alarm

Can you set the alarm to go off with the phone switched off

?

[vonn_ryan]

alarm

Can you set the alarm to go off with the phone switched off

?

[copsewood]

probably not

"Can you set the alarm to go off with the phone switched off ?"

I think not. You can, however, usefully put this phone into airplane mode, which turns off all networking capability. So if I need to set an alarm to tell me when to wind up a presentation without getting a phone call half way through this seems to work OK. Airplane mode with screen off should have very low power consumption, though I havn't tested by how much.