Optimus L7 II

LG Optimus L7 II girl

 

As was the case last year, we already knew what LG was going to bring to Barcelona, and we got exactly what we were expecting -- the 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro and the mid-range Optimus L II series. The cumbersomely-named Optimus L3 II, L5 II and L7 II aren’t particularly exciting to smartphone nerds, but they should be staple LG phones for Europe and parts of Asia, just as the original L series was. (We were actually surprised how many of these things lined the walls of Spanish carrier stores.)

At a dinner on Sunday night LG gave Phil a Korean-model Optimus G Pro to try out, and this became his go-to device for the rest of the week. Despite looking like the Galaxy Note 2’s evil twin, the G Pro is a very impressive device in its own right. A 1080p screen really comes into its own on a phone of this size, and the speed of the Snapdragon 600 SoC was clear to see too. The Optimus G Pro was also the first non-Nexus device to be able to create "Photosphere" 360-degree panoramas, though LG’s “VR Panorama” feature. The UI is a little different, but the resulting images can be uploaded to Google+ just the same as shots created on the Nexus 4. And some of them are genuinely impressive, thanks to the phone’s superior 13-megapixel camera.