Review: LG L90 for T-Mobile
Screen
The L90's display panel measures 4.7 inches, but skips both 1080 and 720p HD in favor of the slightly lower qHD resolution (960 x 540 pixels.) The smaller 4.7” size helps keep the pixels packed closely together, but you can still spot them when you bring the phone close to your face. The LCD panel is bright and colorful, as LG's screens often are, but the L90 was hard to use outdoors thanks to the overabundance of finger schmutz. It would appear LG hasn't heard of oleophobic coatings. Simply put, the L90's screen befits its middling ambitions.
Signal
The L90 performed well on T-Mobile's network, or at least it didn't give me any trouble. It is important to point out that the L90 is limited to T-Mobile's HSPA+ network, and cannot connect to LTE. That said, it always showed a connection to T-Mobile. I was able to make calls from most places around New Jersey, New York, and Seattle that I carried the L90. It took several attempts to connect calls in poor coverage areas. Data was acceptably quick most of the time, at least when casually checking social networks. Web sites didn't load as fast as I wanted them to, nor did app updates download very quickly over HSPA+.
Sound
Call quality was good in general. I thought voices coming through the earpiece sounded bright, and they suffered from interference only rarely. The earpiece produces good volume for normal environments, like your house or a quiet mall. It's not strong enough to overcome busy city streets or boisterous coffee shops, though. I had to seek refuge in such situations to escape the din and hear my callers.
The speakerphone had the exact same tone as the earpiece (good not great) and the same volume concerns. The speakerphone is only practical in muted environments where there isn't a lot of background noise. It helps to place the phone on a hard, flat surface, such as a table. If you hold it in your hand, you risk covering the speaker entirely, and thus muffling conversations. People with whom I spoke through the L90 said I sounded very good. Ringers and alert tones always got my attention, even when set at about 50%. The vibrate alert is solid, but could be better.
Battery
The L90's battery holds 2,460 mAh and claims to offer about 6 hours of talk time. That's about right. I often found myself in trouble at about the 12-hour mark during the day. In other words, if I unplugged the phone around 7AM and used it normally throughout the day, the battery would be flagging (<20%) by about 7PM. Normal use, as far as I define it, includes a healthy amount of social networking, listening to music, surfing the web, playing games, making calls, sending messages, and maybe doing some shopping. Twelve hours of battery life isn't the worst I've seen, but I've come to expect at least 15 hours from modern devices.
The L90 includes a rudimentary battery saver tool. You can use it to automatically control the L90's behavior when the battery reaches a level you determine (10% - 50%.) For example, battery saver mode can turn off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and vibration feedback, as well as adjust screen brightness, shorten the screen's waking time, and control the notification lights.
People who use their phone lightly throughout the day should be OK most of the time, but power users will need to look elsewhere.
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LG Optimus L90
