LG Optimus G2x Hands-On

We grabbed some personal time here at the CTIA 2011 show with the LG Optimus G2x - a rebranded version of the LG Optimus 2X, our extensive review of which you can check here.

The Optimus 3D was the first ever modern dual-core to become commercially available, and thus it will always have a special place in our geeky hearts. LG Optimus G2x, however, is the first dual-core phone on T-Mobile, so it deserves your attention despite the AT&T buyout, which will not materialize any time soon.

In the meantime, you'll be blessed to use one of the most powerful handsets out there, dressed up as a solid slab, which lies very comfortably in the hand thanks to the tapered edges of the back cover, and evokes nice feelings because of the soft-touch plastic in the rear. The 4" IPS-LCD screen with 480x800 pixels seemed bright and vivid, plus we noticed very good viewing angles.

The 8MP shooter on the back did great indoor shots in the Optimus 2X, so we have no reason to believe otherwise here. The greatest thing about this camera, though, is that the chipset allows you to take Full HD 1080p videos with 24fps, which the other dual-core phones in the US need a software update for (nudge, wink, ATRIX 4G).

All thanks to the phone sporting an NVIDIA Tegra 2 1GHz dual-core chipset. Some benchmark trials we did with the Optimus 2X can be found here, so you can gauge the notable improvements in page load times, and browser performance with JavaScript and Adobe Flash that are in store for you.

Believe it or not, T-Mobile and LG have decided to strip bare the interface, dispose of any UI overlays, and leave the Android 2.2 Froyo experience as stock as Google intended. There aren't many phones that offer this, so if you are an UI purist, and happen to be on T-Mobile, you can choose among the Nexus S, the T-Mobile G2, and the LG Optimus G2x now. We don't know if LG will return to its Optimus line overlay when the G2x gets updated to Android 2.3 Gingerbread, though, we'll have to wait and see.

T-Mo has placed some of its own apps in the main menu, notably T-Mobile TV, which should work decent on account of the 21Mbps HSPA+ 4G radio in the Optimus G2x. The phone also comes with Zinio Reader, which for now is only found on select Android devices from Dell and the Samsung Galaxy Tab line, but is about to hit the Market soon. It offers interactive access to hundreds of thousands of digital publications.

The LG Optimus G2x can stream those Full HD movies you loaded on it, or captured with the 8MP camera, via the HDMI-out port. Our demo of those capabilities you can find here. It also offers DLNA for wireless streaming. If the 8GB of internal memory are not enough, you can always expand via the microSD card slot.

All in all, the LG Optimus G2x left a thoroughly positive impression with us, thanks to its spartan, high-tech looks that couple nicely with the dual-core horsepower under the hood, and the stock bare Android experience in the interface. The only thing left to wonder now is what price T-Mobile will let it out of the gate for, come April 20th.