Performance and battery life
The 1GHz dual-core TI OMAP 4430 of L9 is
pretty outdated; it’s the same processor used on Droid RAZR and Droid Bionic,
and of course it’s not as fast as the dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor found
on the newer phones. However, the screen transition is pretty fast, and the
phone doesn’t take too long to switch between the opening apps. Webpage zoom
in/out feels mainly smooth, though we realize it’s slightly slower with the
image rendering. However, the camera app is a little slow to launch. Cool boot
takes more than 22 seconds, which is pretty fast to us.
The benchmark scores are what we expect –
L9 compares well against TI OMAP phones, but seems to be weak when comparing to
the same technical-spec phones using the latest processor of Qualcomm. Its Quadrant
score is higher than Galaxy Nexus, but L9 doesn’t run as well as it in other
tests. In general, performance seems to be useful for the cheap-priced
situation of L9.
LG
Optimus L9
·
Quadrant: 3,214
·
Vellamo: 1,147
·
AnTuTu: 5,691
·
SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms): 2,245
·
GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps): 15
·
CF-Bench: 5,203
LG Optimus L9
Samsung
Galaxy Nexus (HSPA+)
·
Quadrant: 2,032
·
Vellamo: 1,159
·
AnTuTu: 6,087
·
SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms): 1,985
·
GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps): 28
·
CF-Bench: 6,191
Samsung Galaxy Nexus (HSPA+)
Pantech
Flex
·
Quadrant: 5,132
·
Vellamo: 1,804
·
AnTuTu: 6,959
·
SunSpider 0.9.1 (ms): 2,117
·
GLBenchmark Egypt Offscreen (fps) : 13
·
CF-Bench: 9,412
Pantech Flex
(SunSpider: the lower the score, the
better it is)
The inner 2,150mAh battery of L9 delivers a
pretty short life. In the standard battery test, L9 only last a little more
than 5 hours, which is poor reading compared to most phones we’ve tested
recently (8 will be easier to accept). However, with the light use (for
example, shooting, using Maps and browsing web, with set up push
notifications), L9 still remains 50% capacity after 8 hours.
The
inner 2,150mAh battery of L9 delivers a pretty short life
At least in San Francisco, where we perform
our test, we have some pretty stable signal. Call quality is good – callers can
hear us speak clearly, loudly and vice versa. However, sometimes we face the
hissing sound, and the voice quality is more digitized than we want. It’s
interesting to see that L9 supports the WiFi calling capability of T-Mobile. When
we turn this feature on, calling quality is slightly improved – maybe a little
– but not enough for the callers to realize. However, it’s a good option you
should have if you want to save the monthly calling minutes. The built-in
speaker sounds a little small, but we can increase the volume pretty high. HSPA+
network of T-Mobile in San Francisco have a huge change from place to place. On
the south and east of the city, we have about 1.5Mbps download and 1.1Mbps
upload. At the mall and other center areas of the city, we have average
downloading speed of 14Mbps while the uploading speed swings around 4Mbps.
Software
Despite preferring Jelly Bean, we don’t
actually care about Ice Cream Sandwich on a cheap-priced phone like this, as
most of other LG phones, L9 has a skin overlay which is called UI 3.0, pretty
light toward Android. For example, the lock screen allows you to swipe in any
direction to unlock the screen. It also combines fast access to 4 customizable
apps – we especially like the camera shortcut – and other clock design. We
admit for considering that UI 3.0 is a little flat, and boring, but it’s not
very unpleasant.
The influence of T-Mobile on L9 immediately
become clear right when you start up the phone – you will see the scarlet
wallpaper and the utilities when swiping over 7 home screens. You have the main
pillar of ICS such as the notorious Google searching utility along with the
ability to create folders. Dock keeps 5 icons by default which is easily
customized. You can change or add things by adjusting the screen-swipe effect,
scrolling wallpaper, animations and themes.
A welcome addition is Quick Settings menu
in the notification drawer. With one simple flip, you can adjust the sound, Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, GPS and have handy access to QuickMemo app of LG. You can also add
brightness switch allowing you to switch between low, medium and full, which is
totally useful considering the lack of auto-brightness which was mentioned
before.
You
can change or add things by adjusting the screen-swipe effect, scrolling
wallpaper, animations and themes.
We have to admit that we’re not big fans of
the default keyboard designed by LG. it seems to be the modified version of Swype,
where you form the words by sliding your finger all over the keys. It works
pretty well when you use it that way, but when you’re just entering the text in
the old way, it maybe fussy and inaccurate. There’s no option to switch to the
incident ICS keyboard, which is a huge disappointment in our eyes.
The driver that launches the app is pretty
identical to the old ICS, which you can navigate by swiping along one side of
the screen. You have 3 different tabs on the top: Apps, Downloads and Widgets. The
parts exist independently, so you won’t be pushed to the next tab once you’ve
come to the end; you just have to scroll back to the beginning. We would like
to notice you that the Downloads are represents the installed apps, bit the
downloaded files – they can be accessed through Downloads app. You can choose
to fit a 5x6 icon grid and you can arrange them as your tastes. (To do this,
just press the menu while in the launching driver and choose “Show small
icons”). However, anyone who wants to classify the apps alphabetically won’t be
lucky – you will have to do that manually.
The
driver that launches the app is pretty identical to the old ICS, which you can
navigate by swiping along one side of the screen.
Maybe the biggest complaints of us on L9 are
the number of the floating software that T-Mobile decides to let in. You have 411
& More, Caller Tunes, Game Base, More for Me (discounting/dealing app), T-Mobile
My Account, T-Mobile Name ID, T-Mobile TV and Visual Voicemail. Like most of
preinstalled apps, they can be uninstalled and make up precious saving room. As
other preinstalled apps including the Amazon app store, Application Manager,
FileShare, WildTangent Games, Polaris Office (which can be uninstalled),
SmartShare for Wi-Fi Direct connection and Slacker Radio. LG consists of the
separate QuickMemo here, which allows you to draw note everything that is on
the screen. Default browser includes an interesting 1 toolbar under the
navigation buttons which are as normal as Back and Forward along with the Zoom
key. If you want, you can hold your finger on the Zoom key and tilt the phone
forward to zoom 1 page. We think that’s the way for you to be able to navigate
a big webpage with one hand, but it’s a limited use case.
Maybe
the biggest complaints of us on L9 are the number of the floating software that
T-Mobile decides to let in
