We should have been a little consoled if
the pen is attached to the phone via lanyard, but even that does not seem to be
optional. Is the Rubberdium pen worth attempting to do everything possible to
ensure you do not lose it? Unless you intend to draw more, LG's stylus will be
able to spend most of the time in the desk drawer instead making good use of it
on the Intuition - while the S Pen really expands the phone's capabilities by
providing pressure sensitivity, increased accuracy and a preset screenshot
capture button (along with other features) on a Wacom digitizer, the Rubberdium
stylus only acts as an extension of the finger. Basically, it is a nice-looking
stylus with a small rubber tip, and that's all.
We
should have been a little consoled if the pen is attached to the phone via
lanyard, but even that does not seem to be optional.
In aspects of connectivity, Verizon LTE
(bands 13, 700MHz) is present here, as well as CDMA (we are coming to Verizon
to see whether the international roaming is not officially supported, because a
variety of technical specification sheets seems contradictory); its Korean
counterpart has 800MHz LTE (used in Korea), HSPA+ 2,100MHz, CDMA and quad-band
GSM/EDGE. Using the latter model in the United States would not bring anything,
except the fact that it gave extreme frustration, since you would have no
choice except the fact that you would have to use 2G data speeds.
The original model also has a pullout T-DMB
TV antenna – a popular addition to the Korean people - but the Intuition does
not seem to take advantage of space created by the absence of it. Besides, the
external hardware is similar when you compare the two side by side. On the
display, there is a 1.3MP front-facing camera, a proximity sensor, an internal
speaker and the Verizon logo. On the opposite side you'll find four capacitive
buttons (a strange thing for the phones that run the Android 4.0 or higher, but
not unheard of) and an LG logo located between two soft keys. This is worth
being curious, given the fact that a larger version of the logo occupies the
center of the rear, and the original Vu phone still does not have any logos on
the front.
The left side of the Intuition provides a
micro-SIM slot with a fingernail-unfriendly lid; this means you have to push in
the paper clip to pry the card out. We are seeing this design trend only
increase rather than decrease, so we would recommend that you should invest a
few dollars to buy a few extra paper clips in case you have trouble. The top is
the busiest part of the entire phone, because it has the power/ standby button,
micro-USB port (with the sliding cover, which is a point that reminds us of the
Samsung Captivate), a screen capture button, noise reduction mic and a 3.5mm
headphone jack. We will talk in more detail about the screenshot button later.
The right side of the Intuition is where you can find the buttons to increase/decrease
the volume – two separate keys instead of a rocker.
Finally, we will talk about the rear, which
has a rough, plastic design and a slightly different pattern than the original
Vu. The shell cannot be removed (which means the battery is not accessed by the
users) seems to be raised above the rest of the chassis and still lies flat
until it reaches the left and right edges, where it slopes down to attach to
the chassis. The camera and LED flash are located on the left side, while the
mono speaker lies on the bottom left. The obligatory logos (the LTE symbol of
LG and Verizon), as well as FCC information, are found at the rear to occupy
more space than they should.
The
obligatory logos (the LTE symbol of LG and Verizon), as well as FCC
information, are found at the rear to occupy more space than they should.
We would like to praise LG: it created a
stable piece of hardware: this thing is well designed and feels rather sturdy.
For such a large device, durability is essential – throughout our time of using
the Intuition, we found ourselves having to try not to drop it. From what we
can say, LG is attempting to refine its design, since we realized that the
latest generation of the products (Optimus Vu, Optimus 4X, the L-series and
Optimus G) was the deviation from some of the company’s initial efforts. You'll
also be likely to enjoy NFC (LG Tag + support is included), Bluetooth 3.0 + HS,
DLNA, MHL and 2.4GHz Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (5GHz is not supported here). There is
no external storage, but at least you will have 32GB of internal memory to work
with (although users can only access about 26GB).
Screen
The
Intuition, like Optimus Vu, makes use of a 5-inch XGA (1,024 x 768) HD-IPS
screen.
This special screen is the one we do not
see often in smartphones: the Intuition, like Optimus Vu, makes use of a 5-inch
XGA (1,024x768) HD-IPS screen. This resolution leads to the 4:3 aspect ratio
and shows a 256ppi pixel density, a number that screen enthusiasts can feel
disappointed. Indeed, it is taking a loss of 30ppi compared to the Notes, but
it's hard to know: we were unable to see any jagged edges, and if you looked at
the screen straight, it looked vibrant and colorful as we want it to be without
following the route of excessive saturated Super AMOLED. At high luminosity, we
were able to easily see the screen in sunlight, and the viewing angles were
acceptable, although they were not as good as we've witnessed from the other
high-end phones like the HTC One X.
The 4:3 ratio is wonderful in a number of
ways but terrible in the other aspects. On the positive side, it provides more
reading space, which is very good to read an e-book, browsing a lengthy article
on the web or writing/ drawing memos with the stylus. On the other hand, the
applications are designed to be viewed at 16:9 ratio, which seem to be strange
when they are stretched out (we'll talk about this in more detail in a moment),
and movies are remarkably letterboxed. The last part quite unfortunate: one of
the benefits of a larger screen would be the ability to watch high-resolution
videos and really see much detail, but you will not have that with the
Intuition - this makes it very unfavorable compared to the Galaxy Note. The
movies still look wonderful on the IPS screen, but basically it is the same
experience that you will probably get on a smaller phone.
