The LG Thrill 4G (AT&T) is the best of any other.

LG Thrill 4G (AT&T)

Are you excited that a 3D phone is coming to AT&T? If you answered yes, sit down and think happy thoughts, because we're now hearing that the Thrill 4G aka the LG Optimus 3D may be delayed once more. According to a screenshot leaked from Radio Shack, the ill-fated device is getting pushed back to a tentative September 4th launch date for unknown reasons. As such, the reseller's putting a halt on pre-orders of the phone until further notice. We've reached out to AT&T for official comment and will let you know if we hear anything back. Regardless, at the rate this phone is going, the Thrill is quickly devolving into a depression.

The LG Thrill 4G offers a glasses-free 3D display and comes preloaded with 3D content, as well as stereoscopic cameras for capturing 3D photo and video. The Android smartphone features a dual-core processor and an HDMI port.

The LG Thrill 4G has been a long time coming. First released to the European market as the LG Optimus 3D and then announced for AT&T at CTIA 2011, the Android smartphone has yet to hit the streets, but its launch seems to be imminent. With official pricing set at an attractive $99.99 with a two-year contract, the Thrill 4G offers a glasses-free 3D display, dual cameras for 3D photo and video capture, and preloaded games and video, and in a number of ways, the 3D experience is better than on ...

 

Pricing for the LG Thrill 4G popped up on Radio Shack's corporate systems a few days ago, at $80 with a two-year contract. AT&T just shared its official Thrill pricing, however, with the glasses-free 3D smartphone commanding a healthy $99 at the company's retails stores when it ships "in the coming weeks." That timeframe meshes nicely with the August 7th launch date that a pair of Radio Shack insiders shared with us last week, though until we receive confirmation otherwise, it's within reason to expect that devices will begin to ship before or even after that date. Either way, it doesn't look like you'll need to hold out much longer for your Thrill, with only a few more days of tranquility to go before the excitement begins.

Even though the LG Thrill 4G was announced in March, we're just now getting confirmation about its price. AT&T has told us that the LG Thrill 4G will be selling for $99.99 after a two-year service agreement. As for availability, well, we still don't know the exact date, but we expect that to be announced shortly. 

As a reminder, the LG Thrill 4G is essentially the U.S. version of the LG Optimus 3D. Indeed, it'll have a glasses-free display similar to the HTC Evo 3D, and will launch with Android 2.2 (We erroneously mentioned it would ship with Android 2.3 earlier).

Other specs include a dual-core 1GHz dual-channel RAM processor, two 5-megapixel stereoscopic 3D cameras on the back that can record 720p video in 3D and 1080p in 2D, a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and more. Also, as its name suggests, it'll support AT&T's HSPA+ "4G" network.

Physical Features and Call Quality

The LG Thrill 4G is a slab-style phone that looks a heck of a lot like every other black slab on the market, until you turn it over and see the two lenses for the 3D camera. At 5.0 by 2.7 by .5 inches (HWD) and 5.9 ounces it doesn't sound very heavy on paper, but for some reason the phone felt very dense to me, especially when compared with the larger yet lighter Sprint Motorola Photon 4G ($199, 4.5 stars). The phone's HDMI and USB ports are right next to each other on the left side, covered by swinging plastic doors. I found the Power button on the top panel a bit mushy. The Thrill also has a 3D button where the camera button should be. Over and over again, I kept clicking the button thinking it would either activate the camera or shoot a picture while in the camera app, and instead it activated the 3D mode.

I'm also not excited about the 4.3-inch, 800-by-480 screen. While it looks great indoors, with rich colors, it washes out too easily outdoors, sometimes showing fingerprints as much as the underlying image. The filter needed to turn the screen into a parallax-barrier 3D panel is at least partially at fault here.

A very good voice phone, reception on AT&T's 3G network was unusually strong in my tests. Sound through the earpiece was loud, and a bit muddy but not too bad. The earpiece didn't distort at high volumes. There was no side tone. The speakerphone was extremely loud and clear, one of the loudest I've heard recently. Transmissions were also excellent, clear and loud. The phone paired easily with my Aliph Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129, 4.5 stars) and triggered the accurate voice dialing. Talk time, at 8 hours 35 minutes, was solid.

There's one thing the Thrill isn't, though: 4G. You're getting HSPA 14.4 here, which is a 3G technology. Internet speeds were fast thanks to the dual-core processor and good signal strength: I got 3.5Mbps down and about 650Kbps up on several speed tests with the Ookla Speedtest.net app. The phone works as a tethered modem or Wi-Fi hotspot with the appropriate plan, and integrates 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. Its GPS locked in quickly in midtown Manhattan in my tests.

3D Performance

AT&T didn't call this phone the "LG Thrill 3D," and that's probably wise. While 3D is a great gimmick for the Thrill 4G, and the phone handles it better in many ways than Sprint's competing HTC EVO 3D ($199, 3 stars), the Thrill's screen just isn't up to the task of a fully 3D life.

LG makes it easier to find and use 3D content than HTC does. Right at the bottom of the home screen, there's an icon marked "3D Space" which launches a carousel of 3D content: the 3D camera mode, the gallery, games, and YouTube.

3D apps appear in their own folder in the App Drawer. The phone comes with three full, 3D games, and they're great games: Asphalt 6, NOVA HD and Let's Golf 2. An AT&T movie store, run by mSpot, rents expensive movies for $4.49-4.99/day, including some 3D titles.

The Thrill is also much better than the EVO 3D at playing 3D files you've gotten from elsewhere. If you have a 3D video, you can tell the phone how to display it; the Thrill had no problem showing movies I ripped off a 3D Blu-Ray disc, even through its HDMI port on a 3DTV.

But the Thrill's screen just isn't ideal. With its lower 800-by-480 resolution as compared with the EVO 3D's 960-by-540, photos and videos looked noticeably grainy, and my eyes had a lot of trouble locking in 3D planes. Also, just like the EVO 3D, the Thrill doesn't have a 3D viewing angle. It has a viewing point, and if you don't hold the phone in exactly the right place, you get double vision.

Android and App Performance

The Thrill 4G runs Android 2.2.2 on a TI OMAP 4430 chipset, the same dual-core, 1GHz processor found in the Motorola Droid 3 ($199, 3 stars) for Verizon Wireless. According to our benchmarks, it's of comparable speed to the Droid 3 and Nvidia Tegra 2-powered phones like the Motorola Atrix 4G ($199, 4 stars) and Motorola Photon, and faster than the HTC EVO 3D, not to mention single-core phones like the Samsung Captivate.