The Octane has what I'd term an average length and height for a messaging phone, but it suffers from the enV family's old faults: it's thick. Gone are the brick-shaped corners from the enV2 and enV3. LG has rounded off the edges of the Octane, giving it a friendlier feel in the hand and in the pocket. The tapered edges on the back surface let it sit firmly in you hand. It's made from plastics, with a soft touch battery cover. It feels solid, well made, and approachable.
LG has taken the evolutionary approach to this form factor to the next level. The outer display is larger than those of its predecessors, and the keypad is now what I'd call a "normal" size. The keys are nice and large enough, and have perfect travel and feedback. Sandwiched in between the dialpad and display, LG has adjusted the navigation controls. There is a standard D-pad with a large center button. The Send and Contacts keys are to the left of the D-pad, and the Clear and End keys are to the right. All of these keys have excellent travel and feedback to them.
There are two keys along the left side of the Octane. The topmost is the camera key. With the phone unlocked, it will launch the camera and also serve as the shutter release button. Below that is the dual-purpose volume toggle / camera zoom key. It is a decent size and is easily found and used. Feedback was good.
The right side of the phone has covers for the microUSB port, microSD slot and 2.5mm headset hack. The hatches hiding the microUSB and microSD ports were easy enough to open with the help of a fingernail, but I'm disappointed that the Octane does not have a 3.5mm headset jack. This seems to be a questionable choice for LG (which apparently hasn't listened to our complaints over the years).
The Octane opens up sideways to reveal a larger display and a full, four-row QWERTY keyboard for messaging. The screen is flanked by stereo speakers. The top part of the Octane can be pushed open to about 120 degrees for normal use, and a full 180 degrees for better access to the camera controls. I found when using it all the way open, it was very easy to accidentally cover the lens with the fingers on your right hand. This was a problem on the enV3, enV2, enV...you get the idea.
All of the nav controls are on the right side of the keyboard. The send/end keys are above the internal D-pad and the speakerphone and clear keys are directly beneath it. As with earlier enVs, I found myself hitting the speakerphone key rather than the clear key from time to time.
The QWERTY keyboard itself is another winner from LG. The keys are big enough that you don't run the risk of accidentally punching the wrong key. Each key has a nice little click to let you know that you've pressed it. LG has put some dedicated function keys on the keyboard, as well. There's a Social Beat shortcut key and a text message shortcut key. Both are appreciated.
Aside from the 2.5mm headset jack, LG got most of the hardware features of the Octane right. This form factor would appear to be one of LG's fortes.
Screen
There are two displays in the Octane. The exterior display measures 1.75 inches and is the best of the enV line thanks to the added real estate. It has decent resolution and is bright enough to be seen out in the sun. The interior display carries forward the 2.6-inch size seen on previous models, with 320 x 240 pixels. This display looked great years ago, but pales in comparison to the HD displays on other devices in the market. It would have been nice for LG to step it up to 320 x 480. It still managed to shine brightly, however, and text and icons look good on it, if not occasionally ragged.
Signal
The Octane's two signal indicators -- one for EVDO and another for 1x -- both showed about the same amount of signal strength no matter where I took the Octane. The Octane averaged three bars during my tests, and passed the NJ vault test (the local ShopRite) with flying colors. I didn't miss any calls, and never had a data connection time-out on me. In all, signal performance gets good marks.
Sound
Both the earpiece and stereo speakers produced good quality sound. You could adjust the earpiece volume to a setting loud enough to hear conversations in most environments and it remained free of distortion or breakup. Quality of phone calls was merely average. The speakerphone seems to have lost some oomph compared to previous versions of this phone. The speakerphone worked fine in a quiet room, but wouldn't perform well in busy office. The ringers and alert tones were not loud enough for my liking, even with the volume maxed out. The vibrate alert was good enough, though.
Battery
Battery life has been good so far. The phone arrived with full charge, and despite a day of extremely heavy use, it still had two-thirds of a charge left the next morning. At this pace, the phone will easily make it through two days, if not more, on a single charge.
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