By Brad Molen
It's not uncommon for US carriers to take an international smartphone under their wings, make a few adjustments to hardware and firmware, stamp their fat logos in multiple places and then sell it to the masses. Verizon is no exception: the LG Intuition is its interpretation of the Optimus Vu, a 5-inch phablet we reviewed over the summer. Perhaps calling it an "interpretation" is a bit of an overstatement: aside from a bump in firmware and Big Red's LTE, it isthe Optimus Vu. In fact, going into this review, we had a difficult time believing our experience would be much different than our run-in with the Korean version.
Our first reaction is that this doesn't bode well for the carrier. If Verizon opted for the Intuition in order to fill a gaping hole in its lineup, we have a hard time understanding why it would choose to greenlight this particular device with the Samsung Galaxy Note II coming within the next two months. The device's quiet launch is a solid enough indication that the network isn't planning on throwing a lot marketing dollars behind it, so it feels as though the Intuition's main reason for existing is to bolster Verizon's rapidly expanding LTE portfolio. Is there something intriguing about the Intuition ($200 with a two-year commitment) that wasn't there when we first played with the Vu? Or will we find ourselves in the Twilight Zone, reliving the same moment over and over again? Let's find out.
Hardware
Huey Lewis famously sang that it's hip to be square, but what would he say about a smartphone that takes an oddly similar shape? Thanks to its 5-inch screen and 4:3 aspect ratio, we know the LG Intuition (once codenamed the "Batman," hilariously enough) is more of a fatty rectangle in reality, but we couldn't help but draw this comparison shortly after we first took the phone out of its packaging.
Of course, we already knew precisely what to expect; this is, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same as the original Optimus Vu that debuted in Korea a few months ago. To say it's the odd duck of the mobile industry is likely an understatement; this is like a phablet-sized Pantech Pocket.
Of course, we already knew precisely what to expect; this is, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same as the original Optimus Vu that debuted in Korea a few months ago. To say it's the odd duck of the mobile industry is likely an understatement; this is like a phablet-sized Pantech Pocket.
You may argue that the 5-inch screen puts the Intuition in the same territory as the 5.3-inch OG Galaxy Note (and even the 5.5-inch Note II), but here's the kicker: the Notes achieve their larger screen size by adding vertical real estate and using small bezels, which actually helps them stay significantly narrower than Verizon's latest monstrosity. What does this mean? It means both generations of the Note are much easier to hold in one hand than the Intuition. Awkwardness abounds, even in the largest of hands. The one advantage here is the device's thickness: at 8.5mm deep, it's noticeably thinner than its competition. At 5.93 ounces (168g), it's a tad lighter, too.
The killer dimension -- the one that will make or break the deal for the 99th percentile of prospective buyers -- is the 90.4mm (3.56 inch) width, as we alluded to before. Don't get us wrong: we're used to handling large phones, but that just goes to show how exceptionally wide the Intuition is, that it's too much for our already outlandish standards. All of our regular (and frankly, mundane) activities felt inhibited: picking the phone up to answer calls, putting it in a pocket (wearers of tight jeans will definitely be affected) and any other one-handed routine. The reason the width is so important -- and worth so many words in this review -- is because it has such an overwhelming effect on our overall usability experience. It's going to take you a lot of getting used to.
How is it possible that the Intuition is wider than the Notes, yet offers a smaller screen? Two factors are involved here: aspect ratio and bezel. The designers of the Optimus Vu wanted a 4:3 ratio instead of the traditional 16:9, which results in a trade-off of vertical pixels in favor of horizontal ones. On top of that, the bezel around all sides of the phone is seemingly much larger than it really needs to be. Maybe LG felt it was more important to have extra space for gripping when you're watching a video or looking at pictures. Perhaps the additional room was necessary to fit all of the necessary components. Regardless, we'd argue that the size of the device itself could easily be trimmed down without consequence.
Despite an awkward one-handed experience, we found that it was a completely different story when we handled the phone and the included Rubberdium (no, not Rubbermaid) stylus with a pair of hands instead. Similar to the Galaxy Note, the Intuition feels more natural to use when you're jotting notes, playing games or performing any other two-handed activity. We appreciate the girth of the stylus in relation to the size of a standard pen or pencil (it's also thicker than the S Pen), but there's one point of extreme frustration: despite being a larger phone, there is no slot to stash that Rubberdium pen. You're limited to keeping it in your pocket (a dangerous practice, in our opinion -- we have a hard enough time holding onto our keys) or clipping it onto a shirt, purse or whatever else you use the entire day. Heck, we would've been at least slightly relieved to somehow attach the stylus to the phone via lanyard, but even that doesn't appear to be an option.
Is the Rubberdium pen even worth the effort of doing everything possible to make sure you don't lose the thing? Unless you plan on doing a lot of doodling, LG's stylus will likely spend more time in your desk drawer than being put to good use on the Intuition -- where the S Pen actually extends the functionality of the phone by offering pressure sensitivity, heightened precision and a built-in screenshot capture button (amongst other features) on top of a Wacom digitizer, the Rubberdium pen simply acts as an extension of your finger. It's essentially a nice-looking stylus with a small conductive rubber tip, and that's about it.
Is the Rubberdium pen even worth the effort of doing everything possible to make sure you don't lose the thing? Unless you plan on doing a lot of doodling, LG's stylus will likely spend more time in your desk drawer than being put to good use on the Intuition -- where the S Pen actually extends the functionality of the phone by offering pressure sensitivity, heightened precision and a built-in screenshot capture button (amongst other features) on top of a Wacom digitizer, the Rubberdium pen simply acts as an extension of your finger. It's essentially a nice-looking stylus with a small conductive rubber tip, and that's about it.
In terms of connectivity, Verizon LTE (band 13, 700MHz) is naturally present here, as is CDMA (we're reaching out to Verizon to see if global roaming is officially supported, as the numerous spec sheets seem to conflict); its Korean counterpart boasts 800MHz LTE (used in South Korea), HSPA+ 2100MHz, CDMA and quadband GSM / EDGE. Using the latter model in the US would result in nothing but utter frustration, as you'd have no choice but to use 2G data speeds. The original also features a pullout T-DMB TV antenna -- a popular addition for South Koreans -- but the Intuition doesn't seem to make use of the space created by its absence. Aside from that, the external hardware is precisely the same as you compare the two side-by-side.
Above the display sits the 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, proximity sensor, internal speaker and the Verizon logo. On the opposite end you'll find four capacitive buttons (an oddity for phones that come with Android 4.0 or higher, but not unheard of) and an awkwardly placed LG logo sandwiched right in between the middle two soft keys. This is even more curious, given the fact that an even larger version of the logo occupies the center of the back, and the original Vu remains void of any logos on the front.
The left edge of the Intuition offers a micro-SIM slot with a fingernail-unfriendly cover, which means you have to push in the end of a paper clip to swap the cards out. We're seeing this design trend only increase rather than decrease, so we'd recommend you invest a couple quarters to grab a few extra paper clips (yes, they're still around) in case you're in a bind and you don't know where you placed your lucky Clippy.
The top is the busiest part of the entire phone, since it houses the power / standby button, micro-USB port (with sliding cover, which is a nice touch that reminds us of the Samsung Captivate), screen capture button, noise cancelling mic and a 3.5mm headphone jack. We'll go into more detail about the screen capture button later. The right edge of the Intuition is where you can find the volume up / down buttons -- two separate keys, rather than a rocker.
Above the display sits the 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, proximity sensor, internal speaker and the Verizon logo. On the opposite end you'll find four capacitive buttons (an oddity for phones that come with Android 4.0 or higher, but not unheard of) and an awkwardly placed LG logo sandwiched right in between the middle two soft keys. This is even more curious, given the fact that an even larger version of the logo occupies the center of the back, and the original Vu remains void of any logos on the front.
The left edge of the Intuition offers a micro-SIM slot with a fingernail-unfriendly cover, which means you have to push in the end of a paper clip to swap the cards out. We're seeing this design trend only increase rather than decrease, so we'd recommend you invest a couple quarters to grab a few extra paper clips (yes, they're still around) in case you're in a bind and you don't know where you placed your lucky Clippy.
The top is the busiest part of the entire phone, since it houses the power / standby button, micro-USB port (with sliding cover, which is a nice touch that reminds us of the Samsung Captivate), screen capture button, noise cancelling mic and a 3.5mm headphone jack. We'll go into more detail about the screen capture button later. The right edge of the Intuition is where you can find the volume up / down buttons -- two separate keys, rather than a rocker.
Finally, we'll tackle the back, which sports a textured plastic build and has a slightly different pattern than the original Vu. The non-removable cover (which means the battery isn't user-accessible) appears to be raised above the rest of the chassis and stays flat until it reaches the left and right edges, where it then slopes down to meet the frame. The camera and LED flash are on the top left, while the mono speaker resides on the bottom left. The obligatory logos (LG's and Verizon's LTE symbol), as well as FCC information, are found on the back to take up much more space than they should.
We'll hand it to LG: it made a pretty solid slab of hardware: this thing is well-built and feels quite sturdy. For a device this large, durability is of the essence -- throughout our time with the Intuition, we found ourselves trying pretty hard not to drop it. From what we can tell, LG is putting in a lot of effort to fine-tune its design, as we found the latest generation of products (Optimus Vu, Optimus 4X, the L-series andOptimus G) to be a refreshing departure from some of the company's earlier efforts.
You'll also be able to enjoy NFC (LG Tag+ support is included), Bluetooth 3.0 + HS, DLNA, MHL and 2.4GHz WiFi 802.11 b/g/n (no 5GHz support here, unfortunately). There's no external storage, but at least you'll have 32GB internal memory to work with (though only about 26GB is user-accessible).
You'll also be able to enjoy NFC (LG Tag+ support is included), Bluetooth 3.0 + HS, DLNA, MHL and 2.4GHz WiFi 802.11 b/g/n (no 5GHz support here, unfortunately). There's no external storage, but at least you'll have 32GB internal memory to work with (though only about 26GB is user-accessible).
Display
This particular display is one we don't see all too often in a smartphone: the Intuition, like the Optimus Vu, takes advantage of a 5-inch XGA (1,024 x 768) HD-IPS display. This resolution results in the 4:3 aspect ratio mentioned earlier and translates into a pixel density of 256ppi, a number that display aficionados may find disappointing. Indeed, it's taking a loss of 30ppi or so compared to the Notes, but it's pretty hard to tell: we couldn't see any jagged edges, and without squinting the display appeared to be as vibrant and colorful as we'd like it to be without going the Super AMOLED route of oversaturation. On high brightness we could easily view the screen in daylight, and viewing angles were acceptable, though not as good as we've witnessed from other high-end phones like the HTC One X.
The 4:3 ratio is great in some ways, terrible in others. On the bright side, it offers more reading space, which is nice when reading an e-book, browsing a lengthy web article or writing / drawing memos with your stylus. On the other hand, apps designed for 16:9 viewing look odd when they're stretched out (we'll cover this in more detail shortly), and movies are significantly letterboxed. The last part is rather unfortunate: one of the benefits of a larger screen should be the ability to watch high-res videos and actually see a decent amount of detail, but you're not going to get that with the Intuition -- this puts it at a serious disadvantage over the Galaxy Note. The movies still look great on the IPS display, but it's basically the same experience you'd get on a smaller phone.
Software
Look, it may not run Jelly Bean, but the silver lining is that it's not Gingerbread, either. In other words, the Intuition runs on Android 4.0.4 (the cool kids call it Ice Cream Sandwich) -- a breath of fresh air considering LG's decision to place 2010 firmware on the original Optimus Vu. We haven't heard whether the Intuition will eventually see an upgrade to Jelly Bean, but if it does, it's probably not going to be in the immediate future -- after all, LG hasn't been the quickest to upgrade its Gingerbread phones to ICS, so we have a difficult time believing it would substantially improve its refresh speed.
Of course, the Intuition isn't running stock ICS -- far from it, in fact, as it sports LG's cartoonish UI 3.0, with a significant amount of work done for the phone to ensure its 4:3 display doesn't leave the core apps looking wonky. These apps make good use of the additional pixels, but third-party apps are a little different story because they appear stretched out just so they can reach out to all four corners of the panel (as a comparison, think of how phone apps look on a tablet when they aren't properly optimized for the larger screens). Some programs look just fine this way, but there were quite a few that we couldn't stand looking at without changing the aspect ratio back to the way they were developed to run. If you want to see these apps as they look in their natural 16:9 habitat, you can do so by holding the home button for a few seconds and selecting the option on the resulting pop-up menu.
The Rubberdium-friendly apps also help the Intuition stand out from the rest of the crowd (aside from the Note, naturally). First on the list is Notebook, which lives up to its name by offering the full 5-inch display as a playground for your pen. It works well as your run-of-the-mill notepad, but our experience was a little jaded after having enjoyed the superior capabilities of the Galaxy Note Premium Suite, which offers handwriting recognition, answers mathematical equations and even straightens out crooked shapes and patterns. Notebook, unfortunately, does nothing of the sort.
Of course, the Intuition isn't running stock ICS -- far from it, in fact, as it sports LG's cartoonish UI 3.0, with a significant amount of work done for the phone to ensure its 4:3 display doesn't leave the core apps looking wonky. These apps make good use of the additional pixels, but third-party apps are a little different story because they appear stretched out just so they can reach out to all four corners of the panel (as a comparison, think of how phone apps look on a tablet when they aren't properly optimized for the larger screens). Some programs look just fine this way, but there were quite a few that we couldn't stand looking at without changing the aspect ratio back to the way they were developed to run. If you want to see these apps as they look in their natural 16:9 habitat, you can do so by holding the home button for a few seconds and selecting the option on the resulting pop-up menu.
The Rubberdium-friendly apps also help the Intuition stand out from the rest of the crowd (aside from the Note, naturally). First on the list is Notebook, which lives up to its name by offering the full 5-inch display as a playground for your pen. It works well as your run-of-the-mill notepad, but our experience was a little jaded after having enjoyed the superior capabilities of the Galaxy Note Premium Suite, which offers handwriting recognition, answers mathematical equations and even straightens out crooked shapes and patterns. Notebook, unfortunately, does nothing of the sort.
QuickMemo, on the other hand, has some solid potential. This is basically the Intuition's version of screenshot capture: press the circular button on the top edge of the phone (on the left side) and a screenshot pops up, waiting for you and your pen to start editing to your heart's desire. This is arguably the nicest Rubberdium-related feature on the phone.
Curiously, we also discovered that LG makes it possible to actually change the icon of any app on the home panel. When you hold down an app for a second and then let go, a tiny pen symbol pops up on the top of the icon. Push it again and you'll be whisked into a magical world of icons, where you'll find a standard set of options varying from stock app icons to every single letter of the alphabet (in case you want to label your apps in order of importance, we suppose?). You can also create one of your very own by choosing a picture in your gallery or taking a new shot with your camera.
As we saw on the Optimus Vu, the Intuition also offers full support for LG Tag+, and even includes a couple in the box to try out. This is the company's take on NFC tags used for automation: you can program these tags to trigger a variety of tasks on your phone just by briefly tapping the two together. One of the tags given to you when purchasing your device is pre-programmed to send it into car mode, while the other turns it into office mode. These can be overwritten to fit your whimsy, and additional tags can be purchased if you want to decorate your whole house with them. (Protip: any NFC tags should work on the Intuition, so don't fret if your search for LG's variety is fruitless. Also, don't decorate your whole house with NFC tags.)
No software section would be complete without our two cents on bloatware. In the past few months, it seems as though the practice of pre-installing several unnecessary apps on carrier-branded devices had tapered off somewhat, but it's back in a bad way. Verizon's now adding a full suite of Amazon apps to all of its new Android phones (which includes Kindle, Audible, Amazon MP3 and IMDb); additionally you'll see Color, NFL Mobile, Viewdini, Verizon Apps, Guided Tour, Voicemail, My Verizon, VZ Navigator, Mobile Hotspot, Zappos and VCAST Tones. A couple games are also thrown in, such as Shark Dash and Real Racing 2. Only about half of these programs can be disabled or uninstalled -- as a possible way of making peace with users, however, you can put apps into folders directly in the app menu (a la TouchWiz 4).
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