LG L90 Dual Review

LG L90 Dual, the latest dual SIM smartphone in the L Series III lineup from LG went on sale in India back in March. We brought you the unboxing and the benchmarks of the smartphone recently, here we have the complete review of the smartphone. The L90 dual has an unique compact design, powered by quad-core Snapdragon 400 SoC and runs on Android 4.4 (KitKat) out of the box. Is it worth the price? Let us find out in the review.

Unboxing

We brought you the unboxing recently, check out the LG L90 Dual unboxing below.

Box Contents

The box contents include,

LG L90 Dual in Black
Earphones with mic
2-pin charger (5V-0.85A)
Micro USB cable
Warranty card and Quick start guide
2540 mAh battery

Hardware and Design

The L90 Dual has a 4.7-inch display at a resolution of 960 by 540 pixels with a pixel density of 234 ppi. Even though the display is not sharp due to low pixel density, it is bright, but the viewing angles are limited. Since the phone lacks an ambient light sensor, you have to adjust the brightness manually depending on the environment, especially while viewing videos. The screen is glossy, hence it becomes a fingerprint magnet.

On the top there is an earpiece on the top edge of the smartphone. On the right there is a 0.3-megapixel (VGA) camera that can record videos at VGA resolution. Next to it is the Proximity sensor. It doesn’t have an ambient light sensor, which is disappointing.

There are capacitive touch buttons for back, home, menu and dedicated SIM switching, below the display. These are not backlit, but offer haptic feedback when pressed. Since the phone is not too wide, it is comfortable to reach the capacitive touch buttons on either corners on one-handed usage.

The phone is 9.7mm thick and weighs about 130 grams, making it a compact smartphone with a 4.7-inch display. It has a small brushed rim running on the sides. The volume rocker is present on the left side.

The power button is present on the right side of the smartphone. Both the volume rockers and the power button are present on the back of the smartphone for easy access while you are holding the smartphone.

The micro USB slot is present on the bottom along with a tiny microphone hole.

The 3.5mm audio jack is present on the top. The IR LED is also present on the top on the chrome rim. You can also see the secondary microphone hole below that.

The phone is compact, even though it has a 4.7-inch screen. It is easy to hold and the back cover has tiny patterns that offers rugged feel for a better grip. There is a 8-megapixel camera with LED flash on the back. There is a LG branding below the camera module and the loudspeaker grill is present below that.

Even though the back cover is made of plastic, the material is good.

Once you open the back cover, you can see the 2540 mAh battery. Even though the phone is black in color on the outside, it is white on the inside.

It has standard mini SIM slots next to the camera module. Wish LG had offered at least one micro SIM slot since most manufacturers have moved to micro SIM. The primary SIM slot is present on the top and the secondary SIM slot is present below that. It also has a microSD card slot that accepts cards up to 32GB.

Camera

Coming to the camera, the 8-megapixel camera is decent, but it could be better. Daylight shots and macro shots were decent, but the low-light images and images with flash were average. Since it takes a shot immediately you press the capture button or the volume key, most images end up blurry if the phone shakes a bit or the object is moving. It has different scene modes such as Normal, Panorama, Beauty shot, Sports and Night, but it lacks HDR. You can adjust the brightness, ISO, White balance and also enable Cheese shutter that lets you shoot images with voice. You can switch to the VGA front-facing camera to capture shots, which is below average. Check out some camera samples (Click the image to view the full resolution image).

Daylight

Macro

Low Light

Flash

It can record videos at 1080p full HD resolution at 30fps. The video quality is decent, but it lacks details. It also has option to pause and resume recording. Video quality is decent and the audio is crisp and clear since it has a secondary microphone. Check out the full HD video sample.

Software

LG L90 Dual Knock Code and Lockscreen Shortcuts

Coming to the software, the L90 Dual runs on Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) with LG Optimus 3.0 UI on top. Even though this runs on KitKat, the UI is similar to the previous LG smartphones with Android Jelly Bean, so you can’t expect the new flat UI present on the LG G3. In addition to KnockON double-tap to wake up option that was available in last year’s LG phones, this has KnockCode that lets you unlock the phone with customized taps, inside a square. The lockscreen also lets you launch a range of apps easily, when you unlock the screen by swiping on top of these app icons. These shortcuts can be customized from the settings.

There are two rows on the top of notification screen for Quick settings and QSlide apps. You also have a slider to control the brightness. There are a range of quick settings that lets you launch these apps easily from the lock screen. The QSlide apps are tiny apps that run on the top of the screen. These include a video player, browser, Calendar, Memo and Calculator. You can adjust the opacity of Qslide apps and also expand it to full screen, but you can run only 2 QSlide apps at a time.

LG L90 Dual Gestures and One-handed operation

It has several gestures that includes, double-tap to wake up, silence calls, pause video or snooze alarm by turning the phone upside down. Even though the screen is not that big, it has options for one-handed usage that lets you move the screen lock, dialer and the default LG keyboard to the left or right to easily use these features with a single hand. There is a Smart screen feature that keeps the screen on, when the phone detects your face using the phone’s front-facing camera. This would be useful when you are reading. The Smart video pauses the video when you look away.

Out of 1GB of RAM, you get 883 MB of usable RAM, out of which about 200MB of RAM is usable. Out of 8GB of internal storage only 3.87GB of storage is usable. You can also move compatible apps to the SD card, when you insert one.

Apps

It has the usual utility apps that includes,Alarm, Calculator, Calendar, Guest mode, Voice recorder and Weather. Instead of Polaris office in the earlier LG phones, this has ThinkFree Viewer to view office documents. Other LG apps include, QuickRemote and LG SmartWorld app store.

Since the phone has IR Blaster, there is a QuickRemote app that lets you use the phone as a remote control for home appliances. It lets you control TV, DVD and Blu-ray player. You can set different remotes for each room such as Living room, Bedroom etc. It includes all top brands and it works well.

Calls and Messaging

The dialer is similar to most LG smartphones with several tabs, but the keyboard has a slight change in layout and a different color. Since the phone has dual SIM support with a dedicated key, you can press the button to switch to either SIMs to make a call or send a text message from a particular SIM.

Music Player and FM Radio

The Music Player can play a range of audio formats. You can use the equalizer when you plugin the headset. Loudspeaker output is good and audio from the bundled headset is average. It has FM Radio that has a new UI. Now you can add more favorite stations. The video player supports a range of formats and can play 1080p full HD videos smoothly. The video player has smart pause feature that pauses the video playback when you look away.

Dual SIM and Connectivity

The connectivity features include 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n with WiFi direct, DNLA, Bluetooth v4.0. The phone lets you manage SIM cards separately, but only one SIM supports 3G at a time. The SIM switch key makes switching between either SIM cards easy.

Performance and Benchmarks

It is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 400 (MSM8226) ARM Cortex-A7 processor clocked at 1.19 GHz and has Adreno 305 GPU. The performance is pretty good without any lags. 1GB of RAM is enough to run multiple apps in the background. Check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.

Quadrant Benchmark

It scored 8848 points in the Quadrant benchmark, better than most smartphones, including Moto G that has the same processor.

AnTuTu Benchmark 4

In the AnTuTu benchmark, it scores 17898 points and grabs the second spot once again.

Vellamo 2.0 HTML5

It managed to score 1077 points in the Vellamo 2 HTML5 browser benchmark. Check out the complete set of LG L90 Dual Benchmarks here. Since it has a Adreno 305 GPU, most games are smooth with minor lags in some high-end games. Graphics were also good in most games.

Battery Life

The phone packs a 2540 mAh battery, slightly larger compared to most smartphones with a 4.7-inch screen. The battery life is decent. It offers whole day battery life with heavy use and more than one and half days of battery life with average use. It also has a battery saver that lets you turn off some features when battery reaches below 30%.

Conclusion

At a market price of around Rs. 16,000, the LG L90 Dual is definitely costly, compared to other smartphones in this range. Even though it scores well in battery life and the performance, the display is average compared to smartphones like Moto G and it lacks ambient light sensor. If you are looking for a compact smartphone with a 4.7-inch screen running Android 4.4 in the price range, but can compromise these things, go for it.

Pros