With more power comes thicker phones, right? Not exactly. LG has announced that the Optimus 4X HD, their first quad core smartphone, will be hitting Europe in June. At just 8.9 mm thick, it’s right on par with several other phones on the market. Quad core phones and tablets are gaining more and more steam and as more apps are designed to utilize the multiple cores, we’ll be seeing some very cool stuff.
Here’s the specs:
- 4.7″ (720p) True HD IPS display
- 8MP rear camera and 1.3MP front shooter
- 1GB RAM
- 16GB onboard storage
- 2150 mAh battery
- Razor thin 8.9mm thickness
- SHSPA+ 21Mbps connectivity
For comparison, the Droid Razr Maxx is virtually the same thickness. The quad core chip onboard is NVIDIA’s latest Tegra 3 and the battery which is removable, is said to take advantage of LG’s advanced SiO+ technology which provides “higher energy density for more power and longer run times without adding bulk”.
On the software side, the Optimus 4X features LG’s latest “User Experience” together with a couple of bundled apps, namely Quick Memo and Media Plex. Quick Memo is a note taking app that appears as an overlay on the app you are currently running. Media Plex is basically an image and video playback app that has some useful features, such as:
- Fingertip Seek – which shows previews of video frames;
- Live Zooming – which allows the user to zoom a currently playing video;
- Video Speed Control – to control the playback speed; and
- Thumbnail List Play – which shows thumbnails of other videos while the current video is playing.
The device will be arriving in Germany, Sweden, Great Britain, Italy and Poland in June. The rest of the world will be getting the phone “in the coming months”.
As we’ve seen with the upcoming Galaxy S III, quad core doesn’t mean bad battery life. It’s worth noting that LG hasn’t necessarily had breakout success such as the likes of Samsung, but will be interesting to see how well they do with their new and more powerful offering.