LG Optimus L3: A Budget Smartphone of Its Own Class

Simple, sleek and generally impressive. Those are the first few words I can use to describe a member of LG’s L series phone family. Announced earlier in the year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this stylish Android-powered smartphone is set to debut in Kenya and other African markets this May.

Sleek and Stylish: The LG Optimus L3

In Kenya, the market is awash with various entry level devices in the smartphone category. Well, this one stands out where many don’t. Apart from Samsung’s Galaxy Pocket which packs an internal memory of 3 gigs, this is the only smartphone in the local market that takes care of an average user’s need for more apps and high-power games. It comes with an impressive internal memory of 1 gigabytes and a fast processor clocked at 800 MHz The single-core Qualcomm MSM7225A system-on-a-chip processor will ensure that the lag that is famous with various low-end Droids is a thing of the past.

An Instagram photo sharing maniac? There’s 3.15 megapixels (2048 x 1536) for you. I know that the hype elsewhere is on those 8MP things but do you need all that for quickly snapping your crazy moments in your daily hustles? I’ve used 3.x cameras for some time now on various devices and the images are equally good. So your needs are taken care of; not unless you are a professional photographer. Video? Slow down, there is 24 fps VGA (640 X 480) lag-free recording and 30 fps QVGA. The recording is not HD-ready but just enough to record memorable times and upload to YouTube without disappointing your channel followers and subscribers.

You cannot talk about smartphones these days without talking about the Achilles’ heel of them all: the battery. On the LG Optimus L3 E400, the battery performance is incredible. At 1500mAh, the Li-Ion battery does just fine.

Also included is a memory card slot for all those photos you will be snapping more often and the many songs you can’t do without. The external memory is expandable up to 32 gigabytes. With 3G HSDPA connectivity, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot and DLNA, your WLAN needs are well considered. Not to be left out of contact with your mobile browser, there’s 2G support too, just in-case you travel to your rural home and still want to be up to date with current happenings.

I don’t know when the Android version you are spotting on your device became a fad but this phone ensures that you are up there with the rest. It comes with the most popular version of Android as of now, Android Gingerbread. It has Android 2.3.6.

The screen is standard, at 240 x 320 pixels and 3.2 multitouch inches, it stands out amongst screen sizes for other devices in the same  bracket as the LG Optimus L3.

After the wide acclaim of the LG Optimus 3D, the Optimus tag is now associated with quality and nothing else. This is precisely what LG brings to the table with the LG Optimus L3. The phone, with stylish square edges was designed with the average user in mind and offers all the features available for high-end devices at a pocket friendly price.

Here’s an overview:

Size: 102.6 x 61.6 x 11.9 mm

Weight: 110g

Screen: 240 x 320 pixels (3.2 inches); 125 ppi pixel density

CPU: 800 MHz

OS: Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread

Battery: 1500mAh.

Price point? I’ll update soon.