LG came to the MWC with a new tagline: "LTE, it's always LG". LTE is one of the main attractions of LG's new mobiles and they proudly call themselves the first and foremost choice for LTE phones and promise that the revolution continues.

They didn't forget to remind us either they were the first to put out a dual-core phone, but quad-core is king now. We got our hands on the Optimus 4X HD and will be benchmarking it shortly.

The phones LG have on display range from the small Optimus L3, through the 4.3" and 4.7" screens of the L7 and 4X HD, all the way to the 5" screen of the LG Optimus Vu phoneblet.

LG Optimus 4X HD hands-on

The LG Optimus 4X HD is the company's first quad-core device and it's the result of LG's continued collaboration with NVIDIA. The 4X HD uses the new Tegra 3 chipset with the so-called 4-PLUS-1 technology.

The Optimus 4X HD flaunts a gorgeous looking 4.7" True HD IPS screen (also known as HD-IPS). The high resolution means that the screen pulls off 300+ ppi pixel density (312ppi to be precise), despite its large size.

Speaking of size, the 4X HD felt smaller than the 2X. We didn't have a 2X at hand, but we got a definite feel of a more compact phone. We're not big fans of the back though.

LG Optimus 4X HD hands-on photos

The LG Optimus 4X HD features 4 powerful Cortex-A9 cores running at up to 1.5GHz but also a low-power fifth core. This core runs at about 500MHz and is used only for background tasks. So when the phone isn't under strain, it will drain the battery as slowly as a phone with a single 500MHz core.

We ran a quick benchmark and the 4X HD outpaces most of the old dual-core phones. The Tegra chipset also packs a 12-core NVIDIA GPU, which benchmarks well even with a high-resolution 720p display.

LG Optimus 4X HD benchmark

There's a developer option that shows which cores are active. After even a short time with the Optimus 4X HD, it became pretty clear that the low-power core is active for decent stretches of time and it's very hard to push the 4X into firing all four Cortex-A9 cores.

We created a quick video to give you an idea of how quick the Optimux 4X HD actually is in real life.

LG Optimus 3D Max hands-on

The LG Optimus 3D Max is an incremental improvement over the original, but it still brings quite a bit to the table. It's thinner and lighter for one, with a more powerful chipset (slightly higher CPU clock and double the RAM). LG replaced the HDMI port with a MHL port, which we're not too happy about (MHL needs an adapter).

LG's HD Converter enables stereoscopic 3D experience in standard apps like Google Earth and Maps (so you can see those 3D buildings in actual 3D). There's a 3D Hot Key so you can instantly switch between 2D and 3D modes.

LG Optimus 3D Max hands-on photos

By using its two 5MP cameras, the LG Optimus 3D Max can do some cool stuff, like DSLR shot and the Smart Ruler augmented reality app. The DSLR shot mode uses the cameras to estimate how far each pixel is from the camera and blur out the background to simulate some depth of field (check out the two shots below to see the difference). This is usually only possible with cameras with large sensors (like DSLRs), but LG have found a clever way to do it on a phone.

Smart Ruler measures the distance between any two points in the photo. You can even do this at any point after snapping the photo.

Optimus 3D camera and DSLR shot feature • Smart Ruler augmented reality app

LG Optimus Vu hands-on

The LG Optimus Vu is the company's first foray into the phoneblet genre. The 4:3 aspect ratio of the screen is an odd choice in a phone this size. The 5" screen has 1024x768 resolution. The Vu is comparable in size to the Samsung Galaxy Note, but noticeably wider and less comfortable to hold.

The Optimus Vu is powered by a dual-core processor running at 1.5GHz, so it's behind the 4X HD performance-wise.

LG Optimus Vu hands-on photos

You do get a whopping 32GB of built-in memory and a card slot so there's plenty of room for multimedia, which LG claim is one of the Vu's main selling points. It has Dolby mobile technology to back up those claims, but we're not so sure - when playing 16:9 videos, you either lose a big part of the screen due to black bars or you lose part of the video due to cropping.

LG Optimus L7 hands-on

The LG Optimus L7 managed to impress us with its sharp screen and the "floating mass" technology that pushes the display matrix close to the surface of the screen looked great.

The phone is pleasantly thin at 8.8mm, but the plastic of the back was pretty cheap and that ruined the good impression (the same goes for the 4X HD and the Vu too).

LG Optimus L7 hands-on photos

LG Optimus L5 hands-on

The LG Optimus L5 has similar underlying hardware to the Optimus L3. While the 800MHz processor is enough for an entry-level device like the L3, we noticed that the L5 lagged occasionally.