Review: LG Optimus G Pro

Remember when mobile phones looked like military-grade tools and required satchel-sized battery cases? It's easy to scoff at them now, but Android handset makers seem hellbent on returning us to those days, or at least the updated equivalent. The giant phones on the market may not also require the massive briefcase, but clearly Samsung, LG and others think bigger is better.

One of the newest of these gargantuan phones comes from LG, which has released the 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro, the company's answer to the very nearly equally gargantuan Samsung Galaxy Note II. In fact, the Optimus G Pro looks so much like the Note II, it's difficult to tell them apart when they're side by side. LG has even copied hardware features like the single home button, which pulses with light whenever you have a new message.

There's much to love about the Optimus G Pro, including a gorgeous hi-res IPS screen, impressive, all-day battery life and some genuinely nice tweaks to stock Android. But in order to love this phone you're going to have to first make peace with the sheer, pocket-hogging size of the thing. It does, for the record, fit in most pants pockets, but leaves little room to spare. You're never going to forget that you're carrying it.

The other significant downside to the size of the G Pro is that it's nearly impossible to use one-handed, unless you have very large hands. It's not too hard to hold one-handed, but stretching your thumb all the way across the screen is awkward at best and will be, for many users, just plain impossible. LG has a couple of features designed to help – like the ability to dock a down-sized version of the dialpad to one side of the screen – but for the most part, this is a two-handed phone.

In exchange for dealing with the size of the G Pro, you do get some impressive specs. Most significantly, there's the gorgeous 5.5-inch 1080p HD IPS LCD screen, which is quite simply the best display I've seen on a mobile device. The G Pro's screen handily blows away the screen on the Note II.

The G Pro's screen is sharp, bright – too bright by default, actually, and dimming it will save considerable juice while still looking just as good – and so big, you can use it more like a tablet (or even a laptop) than a phone. Though it seemed comically large to me in all situations when I first started testing it, the G Pro became my favorite device to have when I was out and about. The screen is big enough to multi-task and get real work done, but the phone is still small enough to fit into a pocket.

To help you take advantage of the massive screen, LG offers some Android customizations, like the company's "QSlide apps". The "apps" are widgets that sit above the currently open app and offer access to a note taking app, calendar, calculator and video player. For example, you can have the GMail app open and view your calendar at the same time, you can take notes while you chat with co-workers, or you can check your email while watching a video.

The downside of the QSlide apps is that they're part of LG's horribly cluttered notifications panel. LG's Android customizations are pretty minimal (my main phone is a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, so I'm most familiar with stock Android), but the company makes a mess of Android's handy notification screen. LG has tried to cram several dozen features into the panel, which ends up making it nearly useless for actual notifications.

The G Pro also has a QSlide button on the upper left side of the phone which allows you to quickly activate the app of your choice. By default, this is the notes and annotations app. I quickly tired of accidentally activating it, so I mapped the button to the camera app, which also enables it to be used as the shutter button.

The LG's 13-megapixel camera takes perfectly acceptable photos, though the results are not significantly better than what you'd get from the 8-megapixel cameras found in most previous generation phones.

The Optimus G Pro runs Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) and, given LG's update track record, you can pretty much expect that to remain unchanged for the duration of the phone's life cycle. I actually tested two different models of the Optimus G Pro: a white international version (which we used for the photos), and a black AT&T version. I spent more time with the AT&T version, and unfortunately, the carrier has cluttered up the phone with half a dozen branded apps that are just clones of other Android apps. Luckily, AT&T's apps are easily deleted.

And even better, the AT&T version can be had for only $100, which is extremely cheap considering most of these big phones (like the Note II, for example) are priced as premium devices, costing $200 or $300.

Performance is blazing fast. The phone flies through app screens and popping opening applications in the blink of an eye. Even HD games are smooth, with no discernible lags or stuttering. The speed comes from Qualcomm's quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, which clocks in at 1.7GHz. There's also 2GB of RAM and 32 GB of built-in storage (expandable via an SD card slot). In addition to the aforementioned 13-megapixel rear camera you also get a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera. As with the Samsung Note II, you can record video on both cameras simultaneously. The international model also came with a handy dock and even handier second battery.

The second battery in the international version initially struck me as an ominous sign, especially given the bright display and powerful processor, but I was pleasantly surprised by the battery life. The Optimus G Pro handily made it through a normal work day for me, which typically includes several hours of talking, Skype-based meetings and, of course, many hours browsing the web.

The international version also included a little antenna which, in Korea, lets you watch live over-the-air TV. The U.S. version has no such capability, though there is the handy QRemote app, which uses IR to control your TV.

My initial reaction when I unboxed the G Pro was to guffaw, and I still felt self-conscious holding it to my ear in public, even after a couple months of testing. But in the end, the over-sized screen is just so damn useful that I'm a convert. For me, the upsides of a big phone outweigh the downsides and, so long as you feel the same, the Optimus G Pro is a great phone that's well worth the totally reasonable $100 price tag.

WIRED Awesome, huge screen. Good battery life. A nice set of widgets that make it possible to multitask with ease. The price is right.

TIRED Camera can't compete with the best. Sub-par AT&T apps. Too big for easy one-handed operation – if you don't want a big phone, this is not the phone for you.