LG late Sunday confirmed the Optimus Sol. The Android 2.3 smartphone emphasizes its outdoor credentials with what it calls an Ultra AMOLED display. Somewhat like Samsung’s Super AMOLED, the 3.8-inch screen is twice as reflective of its light and is much more visible outside than usual AMOLED, which tends to wash out in sunlight.
Encouraging the use outdoors is a new power control system that LG estimates gets about 20 to 30 percent more battery life than its earlier smartphones when all other factors are equal. As insurance, the phone has an uncommonly large 1,500mAh battery.
Inside, the phone is on the less expensive side of the mid-range and still uses a single-core, second-generation 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB of RAM, and a rear five-megapixel camera with autofocus, but no flash. LG skins the phone with its usual interface layer and supplies a 2GB microSD card to get started.
Europeans get the Optimus Sol first, in mid-September. Central and South America get it next. The current version doesn’t support North American 3G bands, although LG is known to adapt its phones later for most of the world’s markets.
