14 DAY TRIAL // Officially announced five months ago, along with the popular Optimus One, the LG Optimus Chic is now available on the European market. It looks like Germans will be the first to get their hands on the handset, as Amazon.de is offering the Optimus Chic for EUR 282,89 (about $375). Even though the smartphone's spec-sheet is almost similar with its Optimus One predecessor, the Optimus Chic is less likely to create so much hype because of the higher price.
LG Optimus Chic is powered by a 600 MHz processor and runs on Android 2.2 Froyo platform, which is upgradeable to v2.3 Gingerbread.
The Android-based smartphone comes with a 3.2-inch TFT capacitive touchscreen with 262k colors, 320 x 480 pixels, multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, proximity sensor for auto turn-off and ambient-light sensor.
Unlike the Optimus One which sports a 3.2-megapixel camera, the Optimus Chic embeds an enhanced 5-megapixel camera with autofocus, geo-tagging and video recording capabilities (VGA@30fps).
When it comes to connectivity, LG Optimus Chic is a multi-purpose tool, as it features: HSDPA 7.2 Mbps, HSUPA 2 Mbp, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g connectivity, DLNA, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP support, microUSB 2.0, Push Email, as well as GPS with A-GPS support.
The device only packs 150 MB of internal memory, which can be expanded up through the microSD card slot up to 32GB. The sales package also contains a 2GB memory card.
Other key features of the smartphone include: Digital compass, Google Search, Maps, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Bebo integration, Stereo FM radio and 3.5 mm audio jack.
The Optimus Chic features a Li-Po 1250 mAh rated by the manufacturer for up to 450 hours standby time or up to 5 hours (up to 5 hours and 30 minutes for 3G) talk time.
The affordable Android smartphone is expected to be available in South Korea as well, starting next week.