Is the LG Optimus Vu the weirdest phone of the last year? Quite possibly. Once rumored to be LG’s knee-jerk reaction to the Samsung Galaxy Note, this thing is a monster. It’s being sold as a phone, but with its 5″ display, it’s much more. On the spec side, it has a 1.5GHz dual-core processor (probably the Snapdragon S4), LTE, 2080mAh battery, 8MP rear camera, and is only 8.5mm thick. Oh, it also still runs Gingerbread.

After playing with it, I can sort of see how it would be a nice coffee table device, maybe as a mini tablet. I’m still struggling to decide if I would ever want to carry around a device this big as my daily driver. You’ll see in the video below what I’m talking about. Aside from the size, it hums along nicely, has nifty screen capture tricks up its sleeves, takes decent pictures, and would be a joy to consume media on.

It has not been announced for the U.S. market yet. 

There are absolutely zero surprises coming from LG at next week’s Mobile World Congress now thanks to some lengthy hands-on videos that Italian site Telefonino posted today. LG had already announced each of their major products to unveil – Optimus 4X HD, Optimus Vu, and Optimus 3D Max - but we had yet to really see them in the wild or in any sort of lengthy overview. 

LG has announced the Optimus Vu today ahead of Mobile World Congress. The device – as was rumored – will sport a 5″ IPS display with 4:3 aspect ratio, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 8MP rear camera, 1.3MP front camera, LTE, 2080mAh battery, Gingerbread and is just 8.5mm thick. It’s one odd device, to say the least. If you thought the Galaxy Note and its 5.3″ screen was pushing the limits, a phone with a 4:3 ratio is even crazier. While the device is incredibly thin, I’m not sure that many will jump for a phone that is built like a square. That is certainly a ton of screen real estate – we’ll see how the public reacts when it goes public at MWC later this month.

Via:  LG

I’m going to be brutally honest here, this is not the way to re-invent the smartphone. With its 5″ screen, strange 4:3 aspect ratio, and the fact that it’s made by LG, this phone just looks silly. It’s officially called the Optimus Vu – at least in Korea – and packs a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, NFC chip, 8GB of internal storage, 8MP camera and runs Android 2.3. It may or may not have a stylus and who knows if it will ever make its way to the U.S. Could we see it at the end of this month in MWC? I certainly hope so, because I’m dying to hear the sales pitch.