LG Nitro HD test

AT & T’s lone pair supporting the fourth-generation data standard now seems to be expanding to a trio with the arrival of the latest LG high-end smartphone. The next test came to us courtesy of Engadget.

And the newcomer was named LG Nitro HD. At first glance, many may think you can discover many of the features of its previous predecessor, the Optimus LTE. The nickname of the device is also a clever marketing ploy, as on the one hand it refers to the speed of the phone itself and its primary purpose, the possibility of taking full advantage of 4G networks. LG’s timing for launching the Nitro is somewhat questionable, as it won’t have a heavyweight challenger, which is why it might get less attention than it deserves.

Of course, running through the phone’s specifications, just a few data (4,5-inch, 1280 × 720 resolution AH-IPS display, dual-core 1,5 GHz Qualcomm APQ8060 processor, 1,3-megapixel front panel, 8-megapixel main camera) is enough to rest assured that LG’s new savior will stand its ground in the field.

It’s not an easy task for Nitro, as it has to grow up to the legacy left by the Samsung GS II Skyrocket, or at least outperform the cheaper HTC Vivid. During the test, we will also get an answer to this question of whether the Nitro HD will be able to do it. Let's see him too!

Let's start with the outside! The appearance of the phone lacks any unnecessary attention-grabbing elements, which makes the overall picture a bit uncharacteristic. This was already stated on the very first hand, but on the other hand, the back cover is very good and comfortable to the touch, which gives the device a secure grip.

At 133,9 x 67,8 x 10,4 millimeters, it is barely thicker than the Skyrocket, but at 128 grams it is a bit lighter than it. Despite the solid exterior, the overall picture does not give us a cheap effect either, as the assembly is high quality, the phone is rugged and very much in one. We won’t experience any of the squeaks we typically encounter with plastic-married appliances. LG engineers have strikingly avoided the use of sharp, hard lines, making the device so easy and comfortable to hold. The few that can still be found have been incorporated into the design just to keep the phone from slipping out of our hands during use.

On the back we find the LG brand and above it the 8 megapixel camera with LED flash is planted in the brushed metal part. The speaker is also located in the lower right corner of the back cover. Removing the cover, we find the 16 gigabyte microSD card slot, in addition to which the SIM card slot is also decorated. A smart pull to access both without removing the 1830 mAh battery.

The entire right side of the Nitro HD is completely spotless, so the ports and function keys are all located on the top of the device. The MHL port was hidden behind a small lid to protect it from dirt and dirt. It also supports micro-USB and HDMI cables. There is also a secondary microphone between the power button and the 3,5mm jack input, which is responsible for noise cancellation. The volume keys are located in the middle of the left side of the device, while at the bottom there is only the primary microphone.

At the bottom of the screen is LG’s unique capacitive interface tailored specifically for Android. However, there is a small innovation in this as well, as instead of the previous 4, there are only 3 control buttons due to the combination of the menu and the search button. You can call up the menu with a single tap, while you can press and hold to access the search. As is commonly the case with most AT&T devices, the network logo adorns the center above the display, with the front panel 1,3 megapixel camera resting.

So far, it has given the impression of a completely average device, however, when this 4,5-inch phone comes to life, it will surely turn the dice. LG has chosen a 1280 × 780 AH-IPS panel for the Nitro HD, which with its 329 ppi (pixels per inch) boils even Apple’s Retina Display (326 ppi). The screen simply gives an amazingly great picture. The rendering of icons and letters is beautiful, the colors are vibrant, and there are no problems with color accuracy. True, black is not as dark as, say, a Galaxy S. In bright sunlight, we need to raise the brightness for better visibility, but this is offset by a very wide range of viewing angles. The only glaring error is the sensitivity of the touch screen. He sometimes had difficulty reacting to multiple touches.

The AT&T 3 LTE phone has a lot in common. One of these is their processor - Qualcomm’s dual-core APQ8060 unit - and the other is the associated 1GB of system memory. The Vivid proved to be the slowest - due to the only 1,2 GHz clock speed - so it mostly lagged behind in the tests as well. However, the Nitro HD can be proud of itself, as you can claim the victory over the GS II Skyrocket, even if only slightly. The table below shows the results of the various tests:

Seeing the performance, we should say that we should choose Nitro HD if we want to fully experience our LTE addiction. However, we will soon realize that there is a very serious appetite for this performance, as in our standard battery test (under maximum load) the 4 and a half hours - from an 1830 mAh battery - can be said to be very lean.

Under similar conditions and parameters, the Skyrocket will stand in the mud for 9 and a half hours. After that, the LG competitor performs better in everyday use. We managed to increase the uptime to 7 hours with twitter updated every 15 minutes, an email inbox (with push notifications enabled), 50 percent brightness, and GPS and WiFi turned on. On the other hand, be sure to note that the Nitro HD alternated between LTE and HSPA + (around New York) during the test, so we can explain the excessive power consumption.

When we got the LG Nitro HD in our hands, we were surprised to see the AT&T 4G LTE icon appear in the top menu bar. When tested in several locations, the field strength was constantly changing, so the device, as mentioned above, was constantly bouncing between the LTE and HSPA + network. The highest measured download speed was 40,08 Mbps, while the upload ceiling was 14,45 Mbps. The averages ranged from 18 to 33 Mbps for download and between 9 and 13 Mbps for upload. Of course, we cannot guarantee these values ​​for anyone, neither the Nitro HD nor the other 2 devices. Of course, with the spread of the service, the situation will continuously improve. AT & T's currently available HSPA + service provides ample coverage for our day-to-day network traffic. Download bandwidth ranges from 7 to 14 Mbps, and for uplink data, from 1 to 10 Mbps in New York.

We can't have a bad word about the camera. The unit supported by the LED flash can take fantastic pictures for us when the right amount of natural light is available. We get sharp contrast and surprisingly good depth of field. This did not deteriorate even when approaching a particular subject, the camera was able to maintain the image quality worthy of the above indicators. The autofocus needs a bit of refinement, as we had problems with it, so we adjusted the focus point ourselves with the manual tap-to-adjust function, if necessary.

There are some options / shooting modes in the factory camera application. You can also choose the simple landscape or panorama function here, but unfortunately the macro mode is still missing. However, the latent weakness of the camera occurs in night light conditions. This is because with an external light source, the Nitro HD could not focus accurately, so don't expect much more than average for such images. If we want quality photos in these conditions, we will still need our DSLR. While photography can bring unexpected results, luckily we can’t have a word on the video front. The Nitro HD is capable of capturing 1080p video with amazing richness of detail and sharpness. The sound recording was also remarkable considering that he had to cope with serious street noise.

Fortunately, Nitro HD’s software lacks memory-intensive themes unlike other Android phones (like Sense). The navigation between the icons on the main screen is smooth, vibration-free, which is also due to the fact that all unnecessary nifty 3D animations have been omitted here as well. The user is given quite a lot of freedom as we can seriously reach into the look of the phone. You can set a custom font and customize the background of the widgets. A long touch on one of the 7 main screens brings up a translucent grid interface and a menu bar with widget, shortcuts, folders and wallpaper settings. If you don’t want to use all the main screens, of course you can reduce their number.

A little delay is always common when launching different applications, but since we have a fairly strong device in our hands, these tiny bottlenecks are almost imperceptible. Starts up at a pleasant, easy pace. Nitro HD will come with plenty of pre-installed applications, and these can be deleted differently than usual. This way, apps from a service provider like AT&T Code Scanner, FamilyMap, Live TV, and the Amazaon Kindle and MOG Musis can be removed from your phone in seconds if you want to. Let's get to the bad news. LG has decided to apply the recently heavily stirred Carrier IQ to the Nitro HD. However, many will probably not like this, but we still have to wait for this feature to be disabled.

LG didn’t want to change much of the well-proven recipe, so the Nitro HD comes with the good old Gingerbread operating system we already learned last year, so don’t expect any major changes. So far, not much information has come to light about future software updates, in total, we will receive detailed information before the end of the month. In the meantime, we have to be happy with version 2.3.5.

Browsing speed is refreshingly fast when an LTE network is available. Even pages with a more serious flash structure are fully loaded within 10 seconds in normal desktop mode. However, this very attractive data for the first time starts to deteriorate drastically as soon as we switch to HSPA + network. Thus, it took more than 30 seconds to display the entire page. There was no problem with zooming in on the page, we didn’t encounter any annoying clutter.

For those who want to strengthen their Android camp in the fight for smartphones, they don’t even have to go any further than the Galaxy Nexus. The flagship of the Ice Cream Sandwich is by far the best device of its kind available. If we put the LG Nitro HD and the savior of Samsung next to each other, unfortunately, there is no question as to whom our hard-earned income is worth spending. However, if we narrow the battlefield to what AT&T LTE has to offer, we can still make just a few strong arguments in favor of the Nitro HD, namely its amazing speed, browsing speed and beautiful AH-IPS display. Unfortunately, we have to see that in addition to everyday use, we need more than that to offset the 7-hour run time experienced in the battery test. To top it off with a shovel is that for $ 250 we have to sign for 2 years at AT&T, which is the same as the price of the Galaxy S II Skyrocket and in this case, the language of balance is tilting towards Samsung again. Unfortunately, LG’s late fighter has failed to take over the kingdom, but if we manage to eliminate amazing power consumption while maintaining performance, we will be able to welcome a serious challenge in the future.

The test in the original language on the Engadget page, below left readable.