At Mobile World Congress this year we're seeing a slew of new Honeycomb tablets and, for better or worse, they all have the same stock Android 3.0 UI and software on them. LG's 8.9-inch Optimus Pad (coming to the U.S. as the T-Mobile G-Slate) differentiates itself through its ability to shoot and output 3D video.
The Optimus Pad sports a 1-GHz dual-core Tegra 2 CPU, a 2-MP front-facing camera, and dual 5-MP back cameras for 3D recording. The amount of internal storage has not been disclosed, but we suspect it will be either 16 or 32GB or your choice for different price points. However, it's interesting that the screen is just a little bit smaller (8.9-inches versus 10-inches) and just a tiny bit lower resolution (1280 x 768 instead of 1280 x 800) than competitors like the Motorola Xoom or Galaxy Tab 10.1.
A price of 999 euros was announced for Germany, making this slate about as expensive as the Motorola Xoom and potentially pricing it out of the hands of most consumers. We'll have to see what the subsidized price is on T-Mobile.
We had a chance to do a brief hands-on with the LG Optimus Pad at Mobile World Congress today. The device was attractive enough, though it didn't have the nice, textured back of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. The UI was stock Honeycomb with only two LG apps present: the 3D camera recording app and 3D player. We also watched some 3D playback that was output from the Optimus Pad to a TV at LG's booth. Maybe it was the cheap, passive shutter glasses we used, but we didn't see a lot of depth.
Check out our hands-on video and gallery below for a closer look at the LG Optimus Pad.
