T-Mobile G2x Review: Gingerbread-Infused
by Vivek Gowri on August 3, 2011 2:09 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Tegra 2
- Android 2.3
- LG Optimus 2X
- Android
- G2x
- Mobile
T-Mobile G2x - The Hardware, Part II
The top of the device contains the lock/power button, the headphone jack, and a covered micro-HDMI port for HDTV output.
The right and left sides are completely plain, other than the volume up/down buttons on the right side.
The four capacitive buttons underneath the screen are backlit and work well, with haptic feedback provided in lieu of physical buttons. The button layout itself is menu, home, back, and search (from left to right), similar to Samsung and Motorola. I’m used to the Google/HTC layout, with home and menu switched, so the LG’s I’ve had come through the labs recently have tripped me up a bit at first. The downside of switching between phones on a week to week basis is that you end up having to adjust to various button and keyboard layouts on the fly pretty often.
The bottom of the device has the mic, speaker, and micro-USB port. As with the Revolution, the port itself is flipped from most other devices (wider side of the connector facing down, away from the screen.) It feels upside down, I’m pretty sure I tried to put the connector in the wrong way every single time I charged the phone. As on the Optimus 2X, the speakerphone is very good. The speaker provides loud, clear audio, far better than the Sensation's oddly poor speaker.
It’s a solid feeling piece of kit. It’s not overwhelmingly well built, a la iPhone 4 or HTC Sensation, but it’s getting there. Based on my past experiences with LG devices, including the Revolution, I wasn’t expecting anything great. The battery cover feels a little bit cheap when you take it off (plastic clips and really flexible plastic backings are always like this), and the dust-prone nature of the camera window is pretty annoying, but overall the G2x surprised me with how well built it was. The weightiness gives it a better in-hand feel than any of the Galaxy S devices and most of the other LG devices. I wouldn’t say it’s up to the level of HTC, but it’s getting there and definitely competitive with the rest of the smartphone class.
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aegisofrime - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
My Galaxy S II does Sunspider 0.9 in 3423.8ms, if you guys want another data point.Brian Klug - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
Sunspider 0.9, or Sunspider 0.9.1? Methinks the latter ;)-Brian
fixxxer0 - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
My droid x on CM7 rom does the sunspider 0.9 in 3945ms (vs 7014 for stock) for peoples comparison.not overclocked at all (undervolteded though)
yourwhiteshadow - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
if you're going to mod the phone you get, you might as well get the G2x, but otherwise you're better off with the sensation.hopefully we'll see these benchmarks repeated with a stable CM build.
Brian Klug - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
That's actually our plan - to do a CM story and show some performance numbers. I've actually run all the betas and the final stable CM7 builds on the Optimus 2X which we still have kicking around.Honestly from the sound of it, CM7 is much, much more stable than the binary that LG has pushed out to the G2x. I can't speak too much for the G2x version of CM7, but the Optimus 2X CM7 build is flawless.
-Brian
arbarath - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
I own Optimus 2X and I was very excited when I bought it.I am really disappointed after I bought. Sometimes my single core HTC desire performs better than Dual Core Optimus 2X. I have all above mentioned problems. The phone suddenly becomes very slow. The pre dexopt issue also killing. When you want to add a widget u need to wait for 30 sec to bring up the list of widgets.
I tried Cyanogen Nightlies but not stable yet. I get too much of dropped calls with RC1. I will move to cyanogen. I have no hope on LG's software side. Better they could hire some cyanogen group persons to develop their software.
I am not recommending LG Phones to any of my friends.. after all these..
fabarati - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
You should try out Modacos GR2 alpha. It's fluid and smooth and quick and pretty damn stable. But more importantly, it has all the LG software improvements, like a better texting app, better contacts app, 720p mkv playback, LGs camera app.Also, there's a camera app mod that allows 30fps 1080p recording @ 17 mbps and 30 fps 720p @ 10 mbps, greatly increasing video quality. It's also available for CM7.
But yeah, it's a tinkerers phone.
/optimus 2x owner
roguecong - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
i recorded a clip on the "high" setting and it showed as 1080(8)/23 in windows properties - with a lousy 128kbps audio.fabarati - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
There's a camera app mod that allows 30fps 1080p recording @ 17 mbps and 30 fps 720p @ 10 mbps, greatly increasing video quality.The audio is limited by the microphones. Increasing the bit rate won't improve audio, but lowering it won't necessarily worsen it.
Vinas - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
I liked the last half of this review. Still I feel that the benchmarks are not a good indication of performance since these phones are not running the same stuff. For instance the HTC sensation only had about 100MB free with sense 3.0 running. It also has a much better qhd screen, so the resolution is just higher although it keeps up well. Basically I bought the sensation over the g2x. In the end sense 3.0 is pretty awesome and I'm not wanting to switch back anytime soon.