LG's Optimus Black was launched with much less fanfare than the company's flagship LG Optimus 2X or fancy LG Optimus 3D , but it's an Android 2.2 handset with a single-core 1GHz processor that's lighter than the Samsung Galaxy S2 . It's not quite as thin, but we preferred its design to the aforementioned LG phones.
The phone looks similar to the iPhone 4 , with edge-to-edge glass on the front and rounded edges. There's a large space above the screen for LG's logo and a front-facing camera, while below the screen are four touch-sensitive buttons for the standard Android shortcuts - Menu, Home, Back and Search. The power button and screen unlock is at the top of the phone, and there's a small sliding cover for the micro-USB port. It's worth noting that removing the back cover gives you direct access to the microSD card slot, unlike some phones which require the removal of the battery.
A major selling point is the bright 4in screen, which has a high 480x800 resolution. It's actually an IPS panel, which means it has better contrast and wider viewing angles than standard LCD TN panels. Its maximum brightness of 700cd/m2 is enough to make it readable in direct sunlight, although in everyday use we found the automatic brightness setting was sufficient - giving vibrant colours and good contrast under most types of lighting. It may not have as high a resolution as some of the latest Quarter HD (540 x 960) screens, but there's plenty of room for nearly all apps and it's ideal for web browsing in landscape mode.
Powering the Optimus Black is a single-core ARM Cortex-A8 processor running at 1GHz. This may not be as fast as the latest dual-core mobile processors, but in everyday operation we didn't notice any lag in the phone's operation. A Quadrant score of 1310 means it's about as fast as an HTC Desire S, while a score of 6302 in the SunSpider JavaScript test is about the same as the HTC Sensation, so web pages should load quickly and work smoothly.
