Review: LG Optimus T
Camera
The camera app on the LG Optimus T is a nice improvement over the stock Android camera. It offers plenty of onscreen controls, so you can quickly tweak settings by tapping on menus without losing your view of the action. You get six scene modes, including a sports mode and a night mode. There are also some nice focal controls, so you can quickly adjust for macro shooting, or have the Optimus T track faces and focus on them in your shot. There is even a manual focus mode that lets you slide an onscreen control to adjust the focal depth. It was very slow to react, but that's more manual control than I usually see on a phone. Digging a bit deeper, you can adjust more advanced settings like white balance and even ISO sensitivity.
LG hides even more shot modes in the settings menu, giving you panorama stitching, and a selection of unusual filter effects. One of these, the face effects filter, will track faces and add elements, like a mask that follows the face, of fun house mirror effects that are applied automatically. I was surprised how well these kept an eye on my face, even if I turned sideways.
I wish the LG Optimus T had a dedicated camera button, as the onscreen shutter button is very small. It was almost impossible to pull off a self portrait in a hurry, without lining up my finger before I turned the camera on myself. The camera opened in just under 3 seconds, which isn't too slow. After a brief review, I was able to jump back into shooting in less than a second. From the review screen, you can share photos via email or picture messaging, or send them to your favorite online Web album or social network. You can also transfer image files to a computer over Bluetooth.
Image Gallery
As an Android 2.2 phone, the LG Optimus T gets the newest, 3D version of the image gallery. This shows you your images in stacks grouped by dates or key words, and you can spread these stacks apart with two fingers to watch the images fly by for a slick preview. You can also see images as a basic thumbnail grid, or view them individually. There are plenty of sharing options, the exact same as the sharing options available from the photo image review in the camera app. You can also crop or rotate pics, but that is the extent of image editing on the Optimus T.
CTIA Fall 2010
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LG Optimus T
