LG Intuition 4G LTE review

We liked

While many people knock the LG Intuition over a size that seems akin to the monolith in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," we didn't mind the size so much. It fits just fine in a pair of jeans (not the back pocket!) or a jacket, and it wasn't as obtrusive as you would think. You'll want to use a headset so you don't have to hold this up to your face for phone calls, but that's more out of fear of being labeled a fool than out of actual usage.

As mentioned above, the GPS / Google Navigation combo, especially over 4G LTE was a killer combo, providing an excellent in-car navigation service that would be perfect while on a road trip. We streamed Pandora music, Netflix, and YouTube constantly in the car, and were happy to know that the Navigation cuts in above anything to let you know when a turn or route change is approaching.

We also liked the fact that it could replace several devices at once. We tend to travel with a laptop, a tablet, an e-reader, and a camera, and the LG Intuition can easily replace all of those, albeit with some loss of function in each department. Obviously a cell phone camera won't be a robust as a dedicated camera, an e-ink based e-reader is easier on the eyes than an LCD screen and so on. But with the Intuition, you can toss it in your pocket for an extended weekend and not worry about your other devices. Particularly if you pair it with a Bluetooth keyboard and headset, and make sure you have plenty of power nearby.

We disliked

There's a lot to dislike about the Intuition, and although many of them are fairly minor gripes, they all add up to a large warning flag: the tinny speaker, the difficult onscreen keyboard, a non-removable battery, no additional storage, and so on. While we couldn't really fault the size, because a phablet is simply going to be bigger than a phone by definition, it was difficult to manage via one-handed operation at times.

We also didn't like the fact that many times the text entry fields on webpages were completely off the screen. We're not sure if that's the fault of the browser or the websites we visited, but it happened on enough to make us suspect that it's actually a phone issue, and not App-based. When you're trying to type something, and the field isn't even on screen, that becomes an exercise in patience and guesswork, often yielding to sheer frustration.

Additionally, we really hated the included "Rubberdium" stylus. Not only does it have a strange name, but there isn't anywhere to secure it on the device, making it feel like a superfluous extra. Sure, it's nice to have, especially when entering text, but it really should clip onto the device or affix to it somehow.

Final Verdict

Size isn't everything, although the LG Intuition certainly wants you to think it is. At first glance, this looks like a sleek minitablet, although the first time you hold it up to your ear to make a call, you'll feel a bit goofy. It would actually be easy enough to get beyond the size issue if LG made it easier to deal with once you were actually using the device. But with wonky aspect ratios, a tinny speaker, and an at-times frustrating interface, it gets very hard to recommend the Intuition.

But it does represent a step in the right direction, and while the Intuition will probably take a beating from the Samsung Note II, we're hoping the LG's next phablet offering gets it right. LG's own press release touts the Intuition as having a 4:3 Display Ratio that is "ideal for reading and writing" when it needs to have a 16:9 display that is perfect for watching and typing. As a result, it feels like the Intuition is just a prototype for what is still yet to come.