At the end of last year I was lucky enough to win a LG G2x from Free Your Android, for doing nothing more than hitting re-tweet, anything harder and I might have got it wrong. So with just over a month gone since the courier rang my bell, I thought I would write a little review of my time with it so far. That and the fact I have not blogged anything since June, and this was the first thing that came to mind.
If anyone is still reading a review for a handset that was released on 15th April 2011, which is essentially a re-hash of a handset that was first released in January 2011, then sorry, but it doesn't get any better than this.
I suppose the only thing that's not 100% normal with this review is that the G2x is the American version, and I am in the UK. I don't know if it 'should' make any difference to network reception, but for me it has. The specs are nothing extraordinary, but it does sport a Tagra 2 so is still current and this gen.
T-Mobile G2x is the American brother of the LG Optimus 2X. Both have Tegra 2 dual-processors, 1.3 and 8MP front and rear facing cameras respectively, with HD 1080p video capture. The display is 4 inches of WVGA resolution with 8GB of internal memory expandable by as much as an additional 32GB thanks to a microSD slot, and all powered by a 1500mAh battery.
(courtesy of phoneArena.com)
The handset came un-locked (thank you Na-than), so obviously the first thing I did was root it & flash CWM recovery then set about trying out some ROM's. The rooting process was a breeze, although it did require Windows, but hey you cant have everything. I knew the dev scene was not the best, but as the phone had been out for 8 months I did expect it to be a little bigger. It has all the main ROM bases, AOSP (the stock ROM differs little from this), CM7, MIUI, and OMFGB, but very few versions of each base. But my main problem with the ROM's on offer is network reception, for calls and texts its fine, but for mobile data they range from no connection to a poor connection that drops off more than its live, that is except for the CM based ROM's. I don't know if its due to the fact that the G2x is a T-Mobile only handset and the radio (one of only two hardware changes from the EU 2x) is designed to work specifically with their network, but I do know that I have not read of anyone else having the same issue I have. So my choice is kinda limited by the fact I can only use CM builds (I know MIUI is based on CM, but its really not my thang) which means I have a choice of a few ROM's, CM7 stable, an old CM7 nightly, a CM7 nightly kang, and a couple of CM7 based ROM's. Out of that lot I have only found one that gives me a stable data connection, the fantastically named 'PhoenixBlood!'. I don't know is its a US thing, but they like a dramatic name in the G2x page of ROM developing, Weapon, EagleBlood, and Bionix are some of the other ROM's doing the circuit - all very macho indeed. The only stroke of luck is that the ROM is actually pretty decent, got ADW EX hangin on top and it runs really smooth (one for skymera). Considering the paltry amount of ROM's, there are a few kernels to choose from, yet no-one has managed or wanted to add additional governors from powersave & performance.
Just over a month down the line, I am actually really enjoying the phone despite it not fitting my handset essentials list that well. The screen is like the N1, long and thin, whereas I prefer a fatter aspect, it uses softkeys where I like physical buttons (yeah, I know buttons are out, and softkeys are in), the power button sits on the top right again like the N1 but I am used to and like it on the front below the screen like the HD2 (thank god for button remapper, a search softkey sits exactly there).
I have just read that ^^ and its incredibly boring, so if you have read it, FFS get a life & go do something less boring instead.
Now for some pics :-
The quadrant score is taken from a max CPU of 1.2G.
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