Score: 7/10 (Average)
Pros Snappy processor, good still image quality, long-lasting removable battery, Android Jelly Bean, Easy Mode for first time smartphone users, currently selling for free with two-year contract. | Cons Boring design, low-res display with poor viewing angles, lackluster call quality, required purchases of additional accessories to use wireless charging. |
Two years ago, if there was a smartphone that was selling for free with a two-year contract, is was usually a complete piece of junk. They usually had sluggish processors, dreadful screen resolutions, horrendous cameras, and more. Today in 2013, free smartphones are still a thing, but have progressed to a quality level that is quite exceptional for the price you pay up front for them. A smartphone that falls into this category, is the LG Lucid 2. The Lucid 2 may not have the absolutely latest and high-end specs, but it is still a great choice for people looking to get there first smartphone, and save a few bucks in the process as well. Is the Lucid 2 the budget smartphone to get? Find out in our review!
Design/Build Quality
The LG Lucid 2 measures in at 4.82" x 2.51" x 0.39" and weighs in at 4.55 oz. Although the Lucid 2 is not the thinnest or lightest handset out there on the market, it is still very compact and is extremely easy to take with you wherever you may be headed.
On the front of the Lucid 2 you will find your four navigational buttons (Back, Home, Recent Apps, and Menu), on the left is your thin, but usable, volume rocker, on the right you will find the power/lock button, up top is your 3.5 mm headphone jack and microphone pinhole, and on the bottom is your second microphone pinhole as well as your microUSB syncing/charging port.
While it's design is very usable, the Lucid 2 is not a very attractive device. Aside from touches of silver on the upper left and right hand sides of it's body, the Lucid 2 is your standard black smartphone with a plastic body. The Lucid 2 feels very cheap, and is a constant reminder of it's free price tag.
Hardware
The LG Lucid 2 has a 4.3-inch qHD display with a pixel resolution of 960 x 540. While the screen's resolution is acceptable, you will easily see the drop in resolution if you've used smartphones with 720p HD or 1080p HD screens before. Although colors are extremely vibrant and text is easy to read, I was able to see some pixilation on the screen when I had the brightness turned all the way up. I also noticed that in my time with the device, the Lucid 2 proved to have some rather poor viewing angles, and was quite hard to see the screen clearly when using the handset outdoors.
In terms of processing speeds, the LG Lucid 2 is packing in a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm SnapDragon S4 CPU, along with 1GB of RAM. While the Lucid 2 isn't packing in top of the line processing speeds, it was still able to prove that it can very well hold it's own weight. 3D intensive games, such as Beach Buggy Blitz, ran surprisingly smooth will little-to-no drops in the frame-rate. The Lucid 2 can also browse the Web, multi-task, and more without a hitch. For it's price of free, the processor on the Lucid 2 went above and beyond the call to duty.
For all of your picture taking needs, the Lucid 2 features a 5MP rear-facing camera, as well as a 1.3MP shooter on the front. In our testing of the device, both cameras proved to capture some pretty decent pictures. While you aren't going to be getting the incredible image quality that we've been seeing on handsets with 13MP cameras, the Lucid 2 can still take a really good picture. The Lucid 2's camera is also packed with all of LG's great camera settings, such as the option to take a picture with your voice, HDR image capture, Geotagging, the option to change the shutter sound, and more. LG has also been great about including a ton of welcome features to the camera app with their phones, and the Lucid 2 is obviously no exception.
The Lucid 2 is an exclusive to Verizon Wireless, which means that you are getting access to Verizon's incredible 4G LTE network. In our testing with 3 to 4 bars of LTE coverage, we were able to get around 11mbps download and 13mbps upload (with a peak upload speed of almost 20mbps!). While the data speeds were stellar, the same cannot be said about the call quality. Although we were never without excellent service coverage, the Lucid 2 just doesn't function that great as a phone. People we talked to said that we sounded good on their end, but everyone we talked to sounded kind of muffled. While we could always understand what the folks we were talking to were saying, the quality of their voices was always very poor.
To get you through your days of use, the Lucid 2 is cramming in a giant 2,460 mAh removable battery into it's compact body. In our time with the handset, I was actually quite pleased with the battery performance. I was easily able to get through two days of use with the device, and got around 12 hours of total usage time with moderate texting, calling, application usage, Web browsing, and video/music streaming. Since the Lucid 2's battery is removable, you can also get an additional battery for the handset to pop in when your current one dies out. Removable batteries aren't something we usually see on smartphones nowadays, so it is a very welcome addition to the Lucid 2. The Lucid 2 also manages to pack in a microSD card slot, which can expand your memory up to 64GB.
The Lucid 2 also packs in the ability to take advantage of wireless charging. While I am certainly a fan of the wireless charging craze, it's a bit hard to get excited about it with the Lucid 2. To take advantage of wireless charging on the Lucid 2, you have to purchase a wireless charging pad, as well as a separate back for the device. With LG's charging pad selling for $49.99, and the additional back for the handset going for $29.99, you will end up paying over $80 just to enable wireless charging on your device. While some people may still be willing to take spend the additional cash for this feature, in the end, the convenience of wireless charging really isn't worth the $80 price tag.
Software
The LG Lucid 2 is running Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean out of the box, which gives you great Google goodies such as Google Now, "Project Butter", expandable notifications, and more. Although you aren't getting all of the features that are found in Android 4.2.2, it's still nice to have Jelly Bean running out of the box, when some phones are still being released with Android 4.0.4 ICS. On top of Jelly Bean, the Lucid 2 is also layered with LG's own Optimus 3.0 UI. The Optimus 3.0 brings along many welcome additions to the Android platform, such as customizable icons, customizable transition effects, the option to use your handset's home screen in a landscape mode, QuickMemo, and more.
One of the features that I found really cool on the Lucid 2 was the option to use the handset in two modes. You can use the Lucid 2 is Easy Mode, designed to make the UI simpler for first time smartphone users, and Standard Mode which is the standard experience you will find on LG's Android smartphones. While Easy Mode doesn't make any drastic changes to the UI, it places large widgets on your home screens that show you all of your most important applications, and shows arrows on the side of the screen when you have swiped all the way to the right or left to remind you that there are not any more screens in that direction. These little tweaks make the phone easier to use, while still giving you the option to customize your home screens as you see fit.
Final Verdict
If you, or someone you know, is looking to get their very first smartphone, the Lucid 2 is not a bad option at all. The Lucid 2 offers snappy processing speeds, takes relatively decent pictures, has an incredibly long lasting battery, runs Android Jelly Bean out of the box, has an Easy Mode for first time smartphone users, and for the price of free, it's nearly impossible to beat. While you will have to deal with the boring design, lower screen resolution, and lackluster call quality, these things probably don't matter all that much to you, since this is a phone that is selling for free, and is being marketed towards first time smartphone owners. If you fall into that category of smartphone virgins, and think that you're ready to take the plunge, I don't have a doubt in my mind that you will be extremely happy with the LG Lucid 2.
DISCLAIMER: Joseph Maring used the LG Lucid 2 for 7 days before beginning to write his review of the device. LG sent us the Lucid 2 to review, but in no way affected our final score of the handset.
Author: Joseph Maring
DISCLAIMER: Joseph Maring used the LG Lucid 2 for 7 days before beginning to write his review of the device. LG sent us the Lucid 2 to review, but in no way affected our final score of the handset.
Author: Joseph Maring
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