LG Intuition

“The LG Optimus Vu is a brave and interesting experiment with the size of a smartphone. It’s phablet to its core - a smartphone moniker might still somehow fit the Galaxy Note, but you’d find it hard to twist your tongue and call this a phone.”

“After you get over the LG Optimus Vu's, uh, interesting size and its throwback antenna, you start to realize that something about it feels rather unpolished. Maybe it's the outdated OS, or the odd aspect ratio, or the lagging camera, but the device doesn't seem like it will help usher in a modern era of phablets that the Note opened the doors to. Plus, the fact that the unlocked version is going for nearly a grand makes it even more of a wasteful investment. So while you might say that the United States isn't ready for a large phone like the Vu, it's more correct to say that the Vu isn't really ready for us.”

“It took me about five minutes to get used to the massive width of the Intuition. Once I adjusted, I thought it was a neat, albeit slightly flawed, little device - for about an hour. But the more time I spent with it, the more appalling flaws I found. When I started writing this review a few days ago, I thought the quirky device could make some buyers happy, despite some poorly thought out decisions. By today, though... well, I hope it finds no buyers at all.”

“We'll admit that our gripes with the width of the Intuition is more of a matter of personal preference and the extra girth may suit folks just fine (provided you have gargantuan hands or simply enjoy the 4:3 aspect ratio too much) -- however, we'd be more willing to give it a pass if the device itself isn't a study in mediocrity. Unfortunately, our head-to-head showdown between it and the Galaxy Note II did nothing more than convince us that this isn't the phablet Verizon fans have been waiting for. Call it a glitch in the Matrix if you'd like, but we can't shake the feeling that we've seen this phone before.”