LG X Power
AN ENVIABLE BATTERY ATTACHED TO A SO-SO HANDSET.
LG’S BUDGET (IF you can really call $349 ‘budget’) phone has a blunt mission statement: to get you through the day with a battery that won’t leave you in the lurch. A whopping 4,100mAh unit powers the lightweight X Power, a fairly stock Android phone with only a few LG conveniences and oddities thrown in on top (LG’s cloud backup and ‘SmartWorld’ entertainment store, for example).
Admirably, you do get about two days out of a full battery charge, and you can take the kid gloves off, too. Fire away on the camera, use Google Maps, check email — the X Power will handle it all without leaving you scrambling for a charger. However, that comes with compromises. At this price, it means you only get 16GB of internal storage for apps, photos and music, so installing your own microSD card (the handset supports up to 2TB cards) is basically a must.
While the exterior and OS are both functional and competent, they’re the wrapper around internals that struggle to provide a smooth experience. The X Power’s paltry 2GB of RAM and slow processor mean that, even though they’re only powering a 720p screen, the interface is sluggish, stuttering as it switches between apps. That display’s also a bit lacklustre; colours are a shade too flat, and it feels like the whole thing needs the contrast turned up to bring some life into the whole affair. The rear camera’s fine in good light, though our shots were grainy when taken indoors without natural light, and we’d recommend turning the front-facing snapper’s ‘beauty’ mode down to minimal.
Still, sheer pragmatism is often underrated — or at least under appreciated — and anyone who just wants a workhorse of a phone that will give them the basics should gladly wrap their hands around this.