LG Optimus Vu Pro Reviews

There's one fantastic thing about the Optimus Vu: it's not shipping stateside. At least, not that we know of (although there have been hints it could make its way to Verizon). As a daily driver, the Vu is simply a non-starter. It's unfriendly for any real productivity and for most average-sized palms, at that. For a device that requires two hands to operate, you'd think that Rubberdium would be always at the ready, but as we've discussed, you probably won't ever have it on your person. And if you do, you'll quickly become frustrated by the stilted experience of having to switch between pen and finger to navigate the OS. In this sense, as a true phablet, it fails. It fails hard.

To be fair, no-one expected the Samsung Galaxy Note to sell very well either, but it sold in millions. The Optimus Vu probably won't be able to match that (not least due to its more limited availability), but we're always happy to see LG experiment. It's what got us one of the earliest touchscreen phones (yes, even before the ubiquitous iPhone), the original LG Prada, and the LG Viewty cameraphone.

Though LG has no current plans to bring the Optimus Vu to the United States, it's always interesting to review phones from other countries. I like the idea of the Vu—a smartphone large enough to use as a digital notepad—but I wanted more. The phone's performance is top-notch (though I can't speak for its call quality), and the Rubberdium stylus worked well enough that I would like to see other styli employ similar technology. Yes, the camera is mediocre, but it's usable for taking pictures for Instagram or Facebook, and the video quality wasn't half bad. Unfortunately it all comes back to the Vu's awkward, difficult-to-hold design. So how does the Vu compare to the Galaxy Note? While I favor the Vu in overall performance, the Note is still the better phone—largely because it doesn't feel like a big phone. The boxy nature of the Vu makes it feel huge—something that you really don't want in a smartphone. I want to see more phablets in the future (I'm a fan of styli), but I hope future large-screen phones won’t require Hulk-sized hands.

The LG Optimus Vu is a brave and interesting experiment with the size of a smartphone. It’s phablet to its core - a smartphone moniker might still somehow fit the Galaxy Note, but you’d find it hard to twist your tongue and call this a phone. The huge size is our main complain about the Vu. It’s just not fit for one-handed use - it’s too wide. Android Gingerbread now looks very dated and adds on to that undercooked feeling of the UI and phone in general. It’s probably no coincidence that LG didn’t release this globally - the phone is not yet ready for it. Korea, though, is a different world with commuters watching tons of TV on their devices and demanding an antenna for that. If we had to sum it up in one phrase, it’d be “Big in Korea.” We’ll leave this phone for them, with no final score as it simply doesn’t fit our reality for the time being.

Though the Optimus Vu fits into the novel "phablet" category, forking over $900 for any Gingerbread phone isn't worth it, no matter what the screen size.

With an extremely wide screen aspect ratio of 4:3, the LG Optimus Vu is definitely a contender for the oddest phone of 2012. Its huge 5in screen may prove to be handy for digital note taking, but it remains to be seen whether the odd shape of the Optimus Vu will be a selling point or a hindrance.