The weighs just 3.84 ounces. That may be impressive from a design perspective, but the phone felt a bit too light to me--a little too insubstantial (and droppable) in my hand. By comparison, the iPhone 4 takes up less space on the desk yet weighs almost an ounce more (4.83 ounces).

The front of the Optimus Black is completely smooth, with a 2-megapixel front-facing camera at the top. At the bottom, just below the display window, are the menu, home, back, and search buttons, which are touch-based and built into the body of the phone.

The top of the phone hosts the headphone jack, the micro-USB port, and the power button. On the upper back are the 5-megapixel camera and the flash. The right spine is smooth and devoid of buttons or ports.

The Processor

Consistent with the midlevel components in the rest of the phone, the Optimus Black uses a single-core 1GHz 3630 processor from Texas Instruments. The chip is no dual-core powerhouse, but it seems well suited to a moderately priced 3G phone.