LG Optimus G (AT&T) review

That big 4.7-inch multi-touch display is one of the best feathers in the Optimus G's cap. It's huge, and running at 1280x720 resolution (318 ppi) makes it great for reading, browsing the web or playing games. While 1280x720 is the G's default resolution, LG claims support for up to 1920x1080 for the right video. We'd say it's one of the best displays on the market, right next the beautiful HTC One X.

That, coupled with AT&T's speedy 4G service, make it a video streamer's delight. It's not just the sharp resolution, but the Optimus G's balance of color tones. Watching True Grit via Netflix, the display did an excellent job of balancing darkness and light sources in nighttime scenes, and capturing the subtle blues of cold, wintery moments.

Still images and HD videos via microSD were even more impressive. It makes surfing the web or perusing pictures on Pinterest or Facebook a real pleasure. Viewing angles on the device were also very strong, a pair of friends would have no problem watching a YouTube video together on the bus.

Rotating the phone in and out of landscape mode is a bit disappointing. It's not as snappy as we'd hoped, considering all the horsepower under the hood. This is especially true on the home screen, where you have a to wait a beat for app icons and widgets to pop back in. The browser, however, does an admirable job of quickly resizing the page between landscape and portrait. Overall, not an unreasonable amount of lag, just more than we'd expect from a quad-core phone with 2GB of RAM.

E-book fans, take note, the Optimus G's large screen size and penchant for displaying sharp text make it great for doing a little reading on the go. Fan's of Amazon's Kindle app will appreciate the extra display real estate. There's enough room so that pages don't end up formatted oddly, and you don't need to flip across several screens just read a single paragraph, as on smaller smartphones.