The Optimus Black's 5-megapixel camera is about what I expected: not the highest-quality smartphone camera out there, but not a disappointment either. The feature setup resembles that of many other Android phone cameras I've seen. On the left side of the interface are the zoom, light balance, and flash controls, along with a toggle between the rear-facing and front-facing cameras. On the other side of the screen are the shutter button and the toggle between still camera and video camera.

The still pictures that I shot with the camera looked reasonably clear on the phone, and they looked even better when viewed at full size on my computer screen--not perfect, mind you, but not bad for a smartphone camera. I also found the light balance of the photos to be fairly accurate with no adjustment. When I shot a person standing in front of a bright light source, the person's image darkened somewhat but didn't lose all detail, as happens with many low-quality cameras. The camera did, however, have trouble auto-focusing quickly on fast-moving objects in the frame--in this case, oncoming traffic.

I got roughly similar results when shooting video on the Optimus Black. The results looked adequately detailed and color-accurate when I watched the footage on the phone, and again on the PC. But I didn't like not being able to use the volume rocker for zooms while shooting video, given that I could use it for zooms in still-camera mode. Odd. The G-Key could have been put to good use in still image and video mode, too, but no dice.

The Optimus Black isn't the speediest phone in the world. The radio chipset inside uses HSDPA 7.2 technology for downloads and HSUPA 5.76 technology for uploads, meaning that the highest (theoretical) download and upload speeds that the phone can achieve are 7.2 mbps and 5.76 mbps, respectively. Both the T-Mobile and the AT&T networks (the networks that the GSM Optimus Black can run on in the United States) are capable of much higher speeds than the highest that the Optimus's radio can support. Unfortunately, our test device came without a SIM card, so we couldn't test the radio.