Optimus G: User experience.

Screen Zoom / Live Zoom

 

 

While we're on the subject of the Gallery, it was also used to demonstrate pinch-to-zoom (cue yet another Apple lawsuit, though they didn't apply it in this particular way) to zoom in from viewing a grid of small icons to a grid of larger icons. And if that's not enough, you can do the same with live video, zooming in and out at will without pausing or skipping a beat (no doubt due to the Snapdragon S4 Pro - most contemporary phones wouldn't be able to pull that off without stopping the video).

Floating Video Player / QSlide

 

Now, we're ready for LG's take on multitasking. While true multitasking continues to elude Android despite the advent of dual-core and quad-core processors and 1-2GB of RAM, Google, Samsung, and now LG have certainly come up with some creative ways to emulate multitasking. One feature of LG's implementation should look familiar to Galaxy S III owners: the floating video player, as seen in the first shot on the left. Before you Galaxy S III fans break out the torches and pitchforks, you should know that neither LG nor Samsung was first out of the gates with a floating video player. Just to name one example, I was playing with Super Video (Play Store link) while I was writing pre-release articles for the Galaxy S III.

 

 

Moving on now, we see a multitasking approach unique to LG, called QSlide. The idea is, when you activate it, a small slider appears on the top left of the screen, which allows you to fade between one app and the other using a transparency effect. In the first shot to the right, you can see the slider on the top left while the narrator is viewing the launcher (from which he is choosing which apps he will use for this demonstration). In the second shot, he's typing a text message while a video plays in the background.

Other blog sites have questioned the practicality of QSlide (as well as the floating video player), but it addresses one of my pet peeves - the ability to continue listening to a YouTube video while in another app, even if I'm not as focused on the video aspect while I'm typing away. The chief advantage QSlide has over floating video players is that you're not sacrificing any screen real estate to the background app while you're in the foreground app. To be sure, it is a bit gimmicky, as are the multitasking efforts Samsung baked into the Galaxy S III, but there are at least some people who will enjoy this feature. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that only apps that take advantage of LG's QSlide APIs will work with this function, so I wouldn't expect to read your Twitter feed while playing Angry Birds just yet.

Quick Memo

 

 

While the idea of an app for taking quick notes is hardly new to Android, LG's implementation on the Optimus G is quite unique, and I think it will be very useful, provided it's executed properly (meaning no major bugs or glaring issues like a certain map app that's in the news these days). The first shot to the left shows the basic Quick Memo interface, where you choose which tool to use (pen, marker, etc.), and the usual menu commands (share, save, etc.). Once you select a tool (in this case the pencil tool, you see the pen type (fine point, thicker point, highlighter, marker) and color options shown in the second shot.

 

 

 

You can see a couple of unique ways that LG implements Quick Memo in the shots on the right, showing ways that you can use this app in everyday life. In the first shot, the narrator is scribbling a note on a picture, perhaps one a friend sent him, which he intends to share with his comment directly on the image. In the second shot, he's jotting a phone number down quickly, evidently while someone is giving it to him on the phone (after all, he doesn't have a traditional pen and paper handy, and there's not enough time to open the contacts app and type the number in). In the third shot you see one of the best uses of LG's take on the memo app: you can view the number you just jotted down right over top of the dialer, so you don't have to go back and forth from the memo to the dialer to make sure you dialed correctly. Again, this feature could be extremely useful as long as it works properly, without excessive lag and without compatibility issues or force closes.

Dual Screen Dual Play

 

 

 

Before you say "every good phone has a way to mirror the display on my TV," you should know that Dual Display on the Optimus G is a little different. Sure, the first two shots on the left show your basic display mirroring for your homescreen and for video playback (obviously, the video hasn't started yet in the second shot). The third shot, though, shows that you can do other things on your phone while the video plays on the TV, like sending a text message.

 

 

 

LG's Dual Screen Dual Play is particularly useful for making slide show presentations, allowing you to read slide notes while showing your slides to your audience (first shot on the right). You can also use the phone's virtual laser pointer (everyone say "hi" to Mr. Blurrycam in the second shot and look closely for the position of the narrator's finger on the phone screen and the corresponding red dot on the TV screen). The laser pointer can also act as pen, as seen in the circle drawn around the device shown on the TV screen in the third shot.

I don't know if it has all of the animation or chart features needed for an advanced business presentation, though it appears to be sufficient for your basic no-frills slideshow. Depending on your needs, you might be able to cancel your plans to purchase that thousand-dollar laptop-enabled projector and that laser pointer (those wouldn't work too well on a TV screen anyway, right?). I say this, of course, with my usual word of caution, because this is a first-run implementation for LG, and first versions tend to be buggy and overlook certain key features (isn't that right, Apple?).

The Optimus G Launcher

 

 

 

I'm sure if you get this phone, one of the first things many of you will do (aside from rooting and flashing a custom ROM) is to install your favorite post-Gingerbread launcher, usually Apex or Nova. Even so, the stock launcher has some interesting features you won't find on most competing devices. One feature is the ability to customize your icons, either from a gallery of preloaded icons or icons you can create from photos, which the narrator demonstrated on the Gallery icon (shocking, I know). For some reason, the narrator chose not to show the "create photo icon" feature indicated by the button at the bottom of the icon gallery (shot 2), but rather he simply chose the "G" icon from the preloaded ones (which you can then see on the homescreen in shot 3). I would have liked to see him walk us through the "create photo icon" feature also. It's a major new feature that I haven't seen before on a phone, so it eludes me why the narrator failed to showcase it - perhaps it's not ready for primetime yet.

 

 

Another unique feature of LG's launcher is that you can enlarge any icon you choose to. In the first shot on the right, the gallery icon is chosen. Once you tap the button on the top right (that I encircled in red), you get the result shown in the second shot. I'm not sure how popular or useful this feature will be, but it gives you the option of making the app icons of your choice more prominent than the rest on your homescreen. I can already hear the Apple lawyers saying "look - LG's icons look too much like ours" and LG's lawyers saying "nonsense - ours are bigger than yours!"

 

I also haven't seen any launcher that allows you to hide all the icons with a pinch-out gesture so you can just see the wallpaper, but this feature is also included in LG's launcher. This is definitely an eye-candy feature, but I fail to see how useful it will be in everyday life, unless a user's homescreen is hopelessly cluttered with icons and widgets and he/she just wants to see the wallpaper for a few. If you've seen another launcher that lets you hide all the icons and widgets with a pinch-out gesture, please feel free to mention it in the comments.

 

 

 

 

Finally, LG's launcher allows you to choose from a number of swipe effects for switching between homescreens and to choose a different wallpaper for each homescreen. Of course, these features are found in several other launchers, but I'd be remiss not to show the screenshots for them since the narrator devoted so much time to demonstrating them. If you look closely at the first shot on the right, you can see some of the transition effects you can choose from. Personally, I haven't seen anything like "breeze," "layer" or "domino," but my experience in launchers is rather limited (stock, Launcher Pro, Trebuchet in its earliest stages, Nova and Apex). In the second shot, you can see the narrator making multiple choices from a wallpaper gallery. You can see two of these in the third and fourth shots.

To summarize this rather long analysis of the Optimus G user experience, I find many of its features intriguing, especially QSlide and QuickMemo, but if I had an Optimus G, I'd still probably wait until some dev enables AOSP on the device and flash one of those ROMs. Perhaps some of the features of LG's Optimus skin can be ported over as independent apps, though I'm not holding my breath for QSlide and QuickMemo, as those would require radical changes throughout the entire ROM. Another complication is that most of the popular AOSP ROMs are based on Jelly Bean, while the Optimus G will come with Ice Cream Sandwich on board. On the other hand, the camera app might be more easily ported over to an AOSP-based ROM. Be sure to check out my analysis of LG's camera in Part 3 of this series.