I picked up my Optimus 7 yesterday and here are my first impressions:
Hardware
I quite like the LG hardware. The brushed metal backplate looks good, the dimensions are the right size of screen real estate and hand-hold friendliness (for me). The responsiveness is great and takes only light touches to manipulate. The only thing I don't like is the the side mounted USB port (I mean, why?!) and its little flimsy cover...can't see that lasting very long. I really like the raised hard keys at the bottom in chrome, they look and feel good. One thing I have to get used to is using the power button rather than any other hard key to wake the phone up...too many months on a fruity device, habits are hard to break!
Follow the link for my full Day 1 lowdown...
OS
Having been around here for a few months, we all knew pretty much what to expect from the OS. Features as advertised! Here are a couple of the weird things I can't get my head round just yet:
Me - when I go to "Me" I can see What's New...but not my profile with contact details. I knows I have details on Windows Live and Facebook...but I can't actually see my details. If I go to people I can see my contact profile form my work exchance, but oddly cannot link this with my Windows Live & Facebook information (as you can with any other contact). So, strangely I can't see all my own stuff in one place, and cannot see my Windows Live contact information at all. With other contacts you can swipe to see profile and whats new, but with Me, the profile swipe just isn't there...I don't get that at all.
Facebook integration...it is there and it kinda works. But in settings> email & accounts>Facebook there is a permanent error (83CF0108) which indicates it is not connecting...but I am seeing updates in the people hub, with their pics and posts. Weird.
People - WP7 uses any facebook picture as priority rather than any Windows Live or Exchange picture...which is not much use if your friends use pictures of their dog or kids or whatever. Would be nice to choose, on a per-profile basis which pic you want to use for a contact.
SMS - if I go into messaging I can see a threaded conversation from my contact. If I go to the contact and select to send a text, I get taken to a blank page (not to the thread for that contact) and I can't see the thread until I press send. Would be nice to see the thread however I choose to send to that contact.
Contact Sharing...HOW!? I cannot for the life of me find any way to share a contact, via txt, BT, email or anything. I've swiped, pressed, pinched and prodded every available option but still can't find a way to share a contact...anyone know!?
No on-screen indicator when an alarm is set (except lock screen).
Otherwise I am really, really impressed with the blazing quickness of the OS, the responsiveness and intuitiveness. Smartsense wants to parse zip codes as phone numbers locally (Singapore) and Bing locations don't work so well in this part of the world but I guess that is Bing and not WP7. Not missing C&P yet, but ask me again after a day at work.
Camera doesn't remember settings (scene, flash etc) so you need to go into settings everytime you switch out...not sure if this is WP7 or LG at fault.
Although the apps list is one long list (and I downloaded another 20+ apps to play with) it doesn't feel unwieldy and too long. It scrolls quick and alphabetical ordering makes it easy to find an app fast...if you can remember it's name!
Photo editing apps link directly from each picture, you don't need to open the app first...very nice integration.
Text input is incredibly fast. I am making a lot of mistakes but the word prediction is amazingly good, so usually I can tap the word before I get to the end of typing it. I think its just a matter of learning the geometry of a new keyboard and will improve. Very responsive and works as you would expect.
LG Apps
LG offers a nice Panoramic Shot feature, that allows you to easily take panoramic shots, obviously. When you click the shutter, it creates a red ghost box of the previous pic and you simply pan/tilt the camera in the direction indicated by an arrow until it matches with the previous snap, and the camera automatically takes the next pic in the series. Very easy and cool, but not as easy as the Sony way of doing it on their cameras...although the LG app will allow you to pan left OR right OR up OR down, unlikes Sony. Camera quality is as expected for a 5MP phone.
ScanSearch is a very cool app...fire it up and select a category (like Restaurants, Coffee & Tea, Bars, Accomodations, Transit, Banks, Hospitals and a load more) and then point it in any direction and you get an overlay of your camera showing where things are in the real world. You can set the distance also, as to how far away you want to see places. Lay the phone flat and see all those places in a radar-like view relative to your own location. Point at the sky and get the local weather. Its powered by google so along with the Bing search it really helps to cover all bases.
Play-To - the whole reason I went with LG Optimus rather than the Samsung. Fantastic app! I have a Western Digital Live box for streaming videos from my PC to TV, not a DLNA TV...but it finds the box no problem, and I can flick photos and videos from my phone right to my screen without needing to do any source select on the box. Very cool. Slide shows will never be the same again! Now, if they can incorporate PowerPoint into the presentation media types I would be very happy.
I should add that my phone (bought in Singapore) has two Singtel apps - Singtel Ideas that I can't access because I don't use that carrier. And Singtel Xplorer, a turn-by-turn navigation app...which is installed but when you try to run it, it just says "available soon". Nice one Singtel! One small thing...singtel has a habit of sticking very large branding stickers to their phones, but obviously nobody told them about the protective plastic film covering on the rear...that sticker came off easier than a whore's knickers. Hahahaha.
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OK well those are my observations after day 1. I will report back later.
In the meantime, I am looking for that killer newsreader app, does anyone have a suggestion? Also would like TFLN and FML apps ;)
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