Optimus L5 II and L7 II: hands-on with LG’s new low-end smartphones

LG announced updates for its L-series of smartphones a few weeks ago, and they’re demoing the new handsets here at MWC. The L stands for “low-end” here — these are aimed at price-conscious European and Asian consumers. The L7 II has a 4.3-inch WVGA display and is powered by a 1GHz dual-core Cortex-A5 processor with 768 MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. Those specs are virtually identical to the original L7, which we found to a be a pretty solid phone that was let down by a terrible processor. It looks very similar to the predecessor as well, with the same pleasantly ridged back and all-plastic construction, although it’s a little slimmer and less angular.

The next level down from the L7 is the L5 II, which has a weaker 800MHz processor and a 4-inch WVGA display. The L5 II eschews the L7’ II’s textured back for a chintzy piece of solid glossy plastic, but it’s still fairly thin and light for a budget phone. Both handsets will launch later this month in Europe and Asia, but are unlikely to ever be released in the US.