T-Mobile G2x - The Hardware, Part II

The top of the device contains the lock/power button, the headphone jack, and a covered micro-HDMI port for HDTV output. 

The right and left sides are completely plain, other than the volume up/down buttons on the right side. 

The four capacitive buttons underneath the screen are backlit and work well, with haptic feedback provided in lieu of physical buttons. The button layout itself is menu, home, back, and search (from left to right), similar to Samsung and Motorola. I’m used to the Google/HTC layout, with home and menu switched, so the LG’s I’ve had come through the labs recently have tripped me up a bit at first. The downside of switching between phones on a week to week basis is that you end up having to adjust to various button and keyboard layouts on the fly pretty often. 

The bottom of the device has the mic, speaker, and micro-USB port. As with the Revolution, the port itself is flipped from most other devices (wider side of the connector facing down, away from the screen.) It feels upside down, I’m pretty sure I tried to put the connector in the wrong way every single time I charged the phone. As on the Optimus 2X, the speakerphone is very good. The speaker provides loud, clear audio, far better than the Sensation's oddly poor speaker. 

Speakerphone Volume

It’s a solid feeling piece of kit. It’s not overwhelmingly well built, a la iPhone 4 or HTC Sensation, but it’s getting there. Based on my past experiences with LG devices, including the Revolution, I wasn’t expecting anything great. The battery cover feels a little bit cheap when you take it off (plastic clips and really flexible plastic backings are always like this), and the dust-prone nature of the camera window is pretty annoying, but overall the G2x surprised me with how well built it was. The weightiness gives it a better in-hand feel than any of the Galaxy S devices and most of the other LG devices. I wouldn’t say it’s up to the level of HTC, but it’s getting there and definitely competitive with the rest of the smartphone class. 

T-Mobile G2x - The Hardware, Part I T-Mobile G2x - The Display
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  • amankumar - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link

    want some super cool android HD games to unleash its potential, here's the link:
    http://nitin-xyz.blogspot.com/2011/07/free-and-ful...
  • aegisofrime - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link

    In fact I am, I'm on Lite'ning 5.0 at the moment, although I think what's really making a difference here is the governor used in the kernel. Perhaps your SGS2 is not scaling up to 1.2Ghz during the Sunspider benchmark. I know from some discussion on the XDA forums that the default Samsung governor is very conservative with it's scaling.

    Also, I find it interesting that fellow readers are reporting vastly superior results with Cyanogenmod 7. I'm going to try that and report back. Any ideas on the reason for the improvement? Is CM7 using a superior Java engine?
  • pata2001 - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link

    "Every time you wake the phone from display sleep, whatever the last displayed screen was will briefly flash on the display for maybe a tenth of a second, before changing to the correct image."

    This seems to be a bug of Android's own launcher. I have this issue on my Nexus One also. Using an alternate launcher "fix" the problem.
  • MadGoatVTX - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link

    Whats up with the distributor holdin' the phone up?... I srsly had to register to ask this question ;-)
  • MadGoatVTX - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link

    srry didnt see the "pages" of replies... an interesting use for a car part... but honestly i dig it. I think a lot of us tech enthusiasts are car/bike people...
  • NAunimusofECC - Sunday, August 7, 2011 - link

    lol, did somebody have to use a G2x after their car stopped working?

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