LG Optimus L9 review: Living large

Well-covered organizing skills

The Optimus L9 comes with the usual set of organizing apps and there's a preloaded document viewer and editor.

The app in question is Polaris Office and it's one of the most advanced mobile editors we've seen. You can of course view documents - Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and PDF files too.

The Polaris Office app

Edit mode offers almost a full set of options - text style, justification, paragraph formatting, bullets, even creating tables. If you're editing an Excel file, you get a formula wizard, resize rows/columns, border style, merge cells and so on. Even creating a full PowerPoint presentation is possible.

The app also doubles as a file manager and integrates with Box.net.

The Optimus L9 comes with the latest version of the Calendar app. The screen estate is split into two parts - one for the calendar and one for the agenda/daily/weekly view. This way you will always have your monthly view visible. The border line between the two sections is not fixed and you can easily move it. You can hide the monthly view completely, but you can't do the same with the other section.

The calendar

In case you want to enjoy the calendar in full screen without any additional views, just turn the phone landscape.

The calendar app in landscape

Adding a new event is quick and easy, and you can also set an alarm to act as a reminder. You can also view events from three different calendars: your phone, your email and Google groups.

Adding an event

The LG Optimus L9 features an alarm clock application, which allows a lot of alarms to be set, each with its own start and repeat time. The Timer, World Clock and Stopwatch features are also part of this app.

The Alarm • World clock • Stopwatch

The organizer package also includes a useful voice recorder and a nicely touch-optimized calculator.

The Voice recorder and Calculator

The Memo app allows you to take notes and add media to them, such as images, audio, or location.

The Memo app

The so-called QuickMemo function is integrated in the phone's OS, allowing you to capture screen shots of anything (including the lockscreen!) and scribble notes over them like you would on the Galaxy Note - and of course the LG Optimus Vu. A simultaneous press of the up and down buttons of the volume rocker or a precise press on the small key between them will open the Quick Memo, while a simultaneous press on the Lock and the Home key will take a screen shot.

The Quick Memo

There are also weather, news and finance apps.

Weather app • News • Finance