When I went to go pick up this exciting new smartphone, the LG Optimus Black, we realised that it takes a regular SIM card, not the micro SIM that goes into the iPhone (of which I now have two). This meant hunting down either a regular sized SIM, or a SIM card caddy (a regular SIM card with a micro SIM-sized hole cut out of it). Not the easiest task, but in the end we were victorious and I headed off with my shiny new companion assembled and ready to play.

After I got it home I had a chance to actually have a look at the presentation and packaging. I know it’s not really the important part but it comes in such a cool box. It’s brushed black with the LG logo on it in silver and it closes magnetically with a flap over the edge. Very smart.

The phone itself surprised me by how light it was - it almost feels like a toy. It’s 6mm thick at its thinnest point and only weighs 109 grams, making it the world's slimmest and lightest Android-powered smartphone.

Having never used an Android-powered anything I was pretty excited to sink my teeth into it and spent the first hour familiarising myself with the setup, checking out the things that came standard with the phone, for example Twitter for LG and Facebook for LG, and getting onto the Android Market which has recently become available in South Africa, offering over 200 000 apps (both free and paid).

It was very easy to figure out from the beginning having many similarities in functionality to the iPhone (my baby), including the side sweep of the home screens to get to the next screen, and holding down the widgets in order to trash, or move them around on the screens. 

So far using the phone has been pretty intuitive. Time to check if the term “light” only applies to the physical aspect and not the capabilities!