LG Optimus L7 Arrives, Should You Buy or Wait for Samsung Galaxy S3?

LG officially unveiled the LG Optimus L7 at the Mobile World Congress (MWC). The phone will join other models in the range - the Optimus L5 and the Optimus L3. The company has since announced the Optimus L7 will be arriving in stores soon. The smartphone will be first released in Europe in early May and be gradually rolled out in Asia followed by releases in other markets.

"For consumers desiring high-end style sophistication in a smartphone, LG Optimus L7 offers beauty and performance in one smart package. The L7 is a significant addition to our L-series portfolio and we are confident that it will prove highly attractive to users. We except it to be one of our most popular smartphones," said Dr Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG electronics Mobile Communications Company.

Meanwhile Samsung has introduced its next Galaxy smartphone - the Samsung Galaxy S3 - which will be available in the UK at the end of this month. Equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) and a voice-activated personal assistant known as S Voice, the Galaxy S3 will go on sale with 296 carriers in 145 countries.

Check out how the two stack up

Display: Samsung's third generation Galaxy features a 4.8in HD Super AMOLED display, with a resolution of 720x1280 pixels. The Galaxy S3, according to Samsung, provides an ergonomic and comfortable user experience, through what the manufacturer calls a human-centric design process. The LG Optimus L7 features a 4.3in IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 480 x 800pixels. The display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass.

Dimensions: The Galaxy S3 measures 136.6x70.6x8.6mm and weighs 133g. LG Optimus L7 measures 125.5x67x8.7mm and weighs 122g.

Operating System: The Galaxy S3 will run on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). The LG Optimus L7 runs on Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

Processor: Much before the launch of Galaxy S3, Samsung announced the new smartphone would be powered by a 1.4 GHz Exynos 4 quad-core processor with twice the processing capabilities of the 45nm process-based Exynos 4 dual-core processor. A test conducted by Slash Gear suggested that the quad-core Exynos process was powerful and capable enough of taking on its market rivals. The S3 has 1GB of RAM.

The LG Optimus L7 is powered by aQualcomm MSM7227A Snapdragon chip with 1GHz Cortex-A5. The smartphone packs 512MB of RAM.

Camera: The Galaxy S3 will sport a primary camera of eight megapixels with auto-focus and LED flash. The camera has a technology called Zero-Lag Shutter Speed that allows users to capture moving objects. The smartphone also features a 1.9 megapixel front-facing camera which can record HD videos at 30 frames per second. The Galaxy S3 also has a feature called Burst Shot, which allows users to capture 20 continuous frames.

The LG Optimus L7 sports a five megapixel camera with auto-focus, LED flash, Geo-tagging and touch focus technology. The primary camera has a resolution of 1944x2592 pixels and can capture video at 1080p at 30 frames per second. The handset is also equipped with a front-facing VGA quality camera.

Connectivity: The Galaxy S3 offers Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi HT40 and Bluetooth version 4.0, as well as Near Field Communication (NFC). The LG Optimus L7 offers Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot , DLNA and Bluetooth version 3.0 with A2DP. It also supports data speed up to HSDPA, 21Mbps and HSUPA, 5.76Mbps.

Internal Storage Capacity: The Galaxy S3 offers three internal memory storage options of 16/32/64GB (the latter is not yet available). The LG Optimus L7 offers storage space of 4GB and memory can be expanded to 32GB using a microSD card.

Power and Battery: The Galaxy S3 is powered by a 2,100mAh battery but LG Optimus L7 is powered by a standard Li-ion battery with capacity of 1700mAh.