LG Optimus 3D

You probably have heard of Nintendo 3DS and it's glasses-free 3D technology, or maybe even own one. But how many actually heard of glasses-free 3D smartphones?

A couple of years ago both HTC and LG released their 3D smartphones at around the same time, namely EVO 3D and Optimus 3D respectively. Probably the product exposure didn't go very well, or people just aren't really interested in a 3D smartphone, sales weren't good, and thus till date these two phones are still the only glasses-free 3D smartphones that have ever existed in the market. (Well, at least in Singapore market)

The 3D effect generated by these devices uses a display technology known as parallax barrier. When the viewer's head is in a certain position, a different image is seen with each eye, giving a convincing illusion of 3D. 

I bought the Optimus 3D a few months after it was released. The specifications compared to other phones at that time was decent. Price was competitive. The only problem with it is the Android version. It was using version 2.2 (Froyo), despite at that time many phones were already using Gingerbread and some even come with Honeycomb. What's worse is LG didn't release any upgrade beyond 2.2, until a few months ago, they released Ice Cream Sandwich for certain regions only, while most phones today are already using Jelly Bean.

As a Singapore user, I am unfortunately stucked with 2.3.5 (Gingerbread), which was the highest version that I managed to upgrade using the Official LG tool. There are other ways to upgrade the phone to Ice Cream Sandwich, but for some reason I can't seem to successfully do so. 

I won't blog about the normal features of a Gingerbread Android OS, since you are most likely not interested to know about this phone. So what so special about a 3D smartphone? That's right, its 3D camera! 

You can choose to take videos and pictures in 2D or 3D by pressing on the respective buttons on the right. 
In 3D mode, the video/photo has to be taken in landscape mode. This is due to the limitation of the parallel barrier display technology. It has to be viewed on landscape mode, or it will not produce the 3D effect.

In 2D mode, the maximum resolution for a photo is 5 Megapixels. In 3D mode, the maximum resolution will be compromised down to 3 Megapixels. There are settings in the Camera mode which allows you to adjust the 3D focus mode, white balance etc.

You can view your media in the phone gallery. Again, it can be switched to 2D and 3D mode regardless of the dimension of the actual content. Let's say there is video that is taken in 2D mode, or your transferred a 2D photo taken by another phone to the Optimus 3D. While viewing the media, you can convert it into 3D immediately by pressing the 3D button on the lower right of the screen. However the 3D quality may not be as impressive, since the original media wasn't in 3D, the phone has to actually render the image to create a fake 3D effect. 

Games can be converted to 3D too. There is an app call 3D Game converter. Popular games such as Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja actually produce decent 3D effects. Again, the 3D effect can only be viewed on landscape mode. If the game can only be played on portrait mode, then it most likely won't work.

All in all, it is a pretty decent phone. Despite the Android version to be overly outdated, it is still able to support a lot of apps. Till date, I still use the phone as my spare Malaysia phone to tether Malaysia 3G to my other devices. Currently, my wife is temporarily using the phone to play her Ingress as her Asus Padfone 2 been has been sent for repair.