I’ll have a full review forthcoming — I never review a phone without at least five days use for testing battery life and other reasons — but for now, here are my first impressions, in no particular order, followed a some images of the phone.

• When I first removed the phone from the box, I thought I was sent the wrong phone. It appears nearly identical to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, although LG’s new handset is roughly a quarter-inch narrower in width. And that small width shaving makes a big difference — for the better — when holding this phone.
• Like the Note 2, the Optimus G Pro is all plastic and has a removable back cover. In all seriousness: If I didn’t see the LG branding on the top of the device, I would have sworn it was Samsung made.
• The 5.5-inch 1080p display is excellent, easily rivaling those on the Galaxy S 4 and HTC One, both of which also have 1920 x 1080 resolution screens. There’s nary a pixel to be seen.
• LG’s software is much improved over earlier efforts. Although this phone doesn’t run stock Android, LG’s skin is very minimal compared to similar phones. The home screens have a nice 3D effect: When swiping through them, everything on the display rotates around the left axis of the screen as if the icons and widgets were rotating around a flagpole.
• Short of LG’s Tag+ NFC software and an IR remote control app, there are no other LG-specific apps. The same can’t be said of AT&T: I count at least nine bits of software from the carrier.
• Similar to the Galaxy S 4, the Optimus G Pro has settings split up by four tabs. It’s not a confusing layout, but clearly the high-end Android phones are gaining more features that could add complexity. There are no hover gestures, but you can pause video by turning the phone over.
• A quad-core 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 with 2 GB of memory powers the phone and for some reason it appears to perform a smidge better than the HTC One and Galaxy S 4 in my limited usage so far. I suspect the lack of a complex skin atop Android may be the reason, however, it’s too early to determine a performance winner.
• I don’t mind a physical home button on Android phones although some do. The one on the Optimus G Pro isn’t my favorite though. I find it too small; it’s wide enough, but very thin. It does, however, have a nice LED ring around it with different colors for notifications and such. I also personally don’t like the placement of the two capacitive buttons: Back is on the left side of the Home button, while Menu is to the right. This may not bother others.
• The phone comes with 32 GB of internal memory at this price; cheaper than the 32 GB Galaxy S 4. And you can expand it, unlike the HTC One, although some won’t have to. However, the total space available is 23.3 GB, which surprises me; I would have expected around 26 GB or so. Carrier bloatware, perhaps?
• Like many new phones, the Optimus G Pro ships with Android 4.1.2. There is a bit of multitasking capability as some apps and widgets have a transparency slider. Use this and the app is see through so you can interact with other apps. Slide it back for the original app to regain focus.
• Although there isn’t a stylus, the phone has a dedicated note-taking app called QuickMemo, which is available from the drop-down notifications shade. I almost wish there was a stylus because I don’t see many folks taking notes here with their fingers.
• I haven’t taken many photos with the 13 megapixel rear camera yet. I did notice that there are only a few camera modes: Normal, HDR, Panorama, VR Panorama, Burst Shot and Beauty Shot. Perhaps that’s a good thing so consumers won’t get overwhelmed by a wider range of image modes.
• It’s too early to determine battery life on a single charge. However, with a 3140 mAh battery, I’d be disappointed (and somewhat surprised) if this phone doesn’t easily last a full day for all but a very select number of power users.

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The details were found this week by the SamMobile site, which has a good track record for Samsung’s upcoming plans. According to the road map, the 11-inch tablet will use Samsung’s Exynos 5410 chip, which has one high performance quad-core processor for heavy duty tasks and a lesser quad-core processor for lighter tasks. This approach should offer power when apps demand it but be light on battery life due to offloading simpler tasks.

No indication of the screen resolution appeared in the leaked data, but Google’s current Nexus 10 tablet offers a 2560 x 1600 resolution display. At the very least, I’d expect Google to use a 1920 x 1200 resolution screen for a Nexus 11, if not the same as what the Nexus 10 currently offers. The only reason I can think of using a lesser resolution is to keep the price down. The tablet will reportedly also offer a pair of cameras and — in a first for a Nexus device since the original Nexus One in 2010 — a micro SD expansion card slot.

Fans of Android hardware will have to wait until May 15 to see if Google releases a new Nexus, but those looking for a new phone have another choice now. AT&T introduced the LG Optimus G Pro as an exclusive this week. I just received a review unit and my initial impressions are very positive.

I can already say this is the nicest phone hardware LG has designed and built. The device also reminds me of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 that I own: Both have similar screen sizes, for example, although the LG Optimus G Pro is slightly narrower and has a full HD screen. LG’s user interface is also quite nice and polished. I’ll have a full review in the near future, but so far, LG has shown me it can build an Android phone that competes with the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One.

New hardware is always nice but sometimes it’s better to re-purpose old devices. That’s exactly what I did with an old Nintendo Wii Fit Balance Board thanks to a free Android app called FitScales.

The software lets you wirelessly connect an Android phone to the Balance Board via Bluetooth. When standing on the board, your weight and BMI are sent to your phone, where the data can be automatically synchronized with either a RunKeeper or FitBit account: no need to buy a new Wi-Fi scale!

This post was updated at 7:00 am, May 6, to reflect that Google’s Nexus One had a micro SD slot.

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All other major manufacturers lost share in a market that includes 133.7 million American smartphone owners. HTC, which Thursday debuted HTC First, a phone that comes pre-installed with Facebook custom launcher Facebook Home, had the biggest decline, with its share of smartphone users dropping 1.7 percent. Apple, meanwhile, was up almost 3.9 percentage points.

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The deal between LG and HP includes the webOS source code, documentation, websites and what’s remaining of the webOS team. Cloud components such as the webOS app store technology as well as all of the patents will remain with HP, but are going to be licensed to LG. There’s no word on the purchase price.

Most of LG’s smart TVs have been powered by the company’s own app platform, which was originally called NetCast and has been ripe for a refresh for some time. The company also has an ongoing partnership with Google to sell Google TV devices, and in fact has been expanding this partnership in recent months.

LG started to sell two high-end Google TV sets in 2012. In 2013, it will come out with a total of seven models. But consider how LG CTO Skott Ahn announced these models at the company’s 2013 press conference:

“We will continue to serve our Android fans with an extended lineup of Google TV.”

In other words: LG’s Google TVs are, at least for now, niche products for enthusiasts, and LG apparently doesn’t think that will change anytime soon. That’s why the company is looking to replace its own smart TV operating system with webOS, instead of relying 100 percent on Google TV.

That’s bad news for Google TV, but it also shows how Google’s living room play has been changing over recent months. Google originally courted a number of big TV manufacturers for Google TV, with the idea of having the system embedded in a wide variety of TV sets. Sony was one of the first to make Google TVs, LG came on board for the second generation, and Samsung seemed to be ready to go Google as well by early 2012.

A year later, things look very different: Samsung’s Google TV never materialized. Sony stopped selling Google TV sets and instead opted for a companion box. And now, LG is buying its own smart TV operating system.

Does that mean Google TV is doomed? Hardly. The platform has seen some significant adoption in recent months: Asus, Netgear, Hisense and TCL all showed off new Google TV devices at CES, and WD is apparently working on its own Google TV box as well. Earlier this month, a total of 20 hardware partners came together in Seoul to collaborate on the future of Google TV.

But it looks like Google TV settling into a role as a companion box solution, as opposed to a default smart TV choice for the big manufacturers.

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The Optimus Pro G goes on sale this week in South Korea, carrying Android “Jelly Bean” 4.1.2. According to a release in Korean, it will then make its way to North America and Japan in the second quarter of this year. An LG spokeswoman in London was unable to confirm European availability plans.

So, what are we looking at? Size-wise, the Optimus Pro G is an ever-so-slightly smaller rival to the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 — same thickness and screen size, but 0.9mm narrower and a good 4.4mm shorter. However, LG has made the jump to full HD: with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, the Pro G has a pixel density of 400ppi, versus the Note 2′s 267ppi. It lack’s the Note 2′s stylus, though.

Inside, the Pro G uses a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chipset; a slight step up from the 1.6GHz processor in the Note 2. Incidentally, this is the first outing for the Snapdragon 600, which is a successor to last year’s Snapdragon S4 series (its twin, the sequel to the S4 Pro, will be called the Snapdragon 800).

More pixels and processing power usually mean more power-drain. On this front, LG is touting the “largest battery capacity in its class” at 3,140mAh, but that’s not really much more than the Note 2′s 3,100mAh. LG also hasn’t quoted the device’s weight yet, so it’s hard to see how that compares with the Note 2′s 183g. The Note 2 has an 8MP camera and the Pro G a 13MP affair, but, given the size of a smartphone camera’s sensor, image quality will be more down to the lens and software than the megapixel count here.

Custom tweaks include “an upgraded QSlide” (LG’s answer to Samsung’s multitasking Pop-up Play feature), QuickMemo and a feature called Virtual Reality Panorama, which looks on paper to be precisely the same as Android’s stock 360-degree Photo Sphere function. The Pro G can also record video through both front- and rear-facing camera simultaneously, and it also features wireless charging.

How does this all compare with Samsung’s largest smartphone / smallest tablet? On paper, certainly, this looks to be an improvement on the Note 2, but then again there will probably be a Note 3 this year, also capitalizing on the latest chipsets and quite probably also upping the pixel count. It certainly doesn’t look like LG has done anything particularly groundbreaking here, so the real test of the Pro G’s success or otherwise will be its as-yet-unannounced pricing.

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At the end of the week, Nvidia showed off the Real Boxing game title on Project Shield, focusing on in-game lighting, graphics and general game play:

Nvidia plans a continuing series of Project Shield videos, which will help to keep interest high. But regardless of how excited the Android and gaming communities could be based on demonstrations, success is likely to come down to the handheld’s price. I’m still hoping to see Project Shield debut at $250 or less, but many in the industry that I’ve spoken to expect a price at or north of $300.

If Project Shield isn’t big enough for you, perhaps the LG Optimus G Pro is: Phone Arena captured an image of the phone and  compiled a list of specifications of this handset with 5.5-inch display.

That’s as large as my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone, but LG is one-upping Samsung: The Optimus G Pro is expected to have a full HD screen with 1920 x 1080 resolution. Additional specs include a quad-core 1.7 GHz processor, 2 GB of memory, 13 megapixel camera 32 GB of internal storage and high-capacity 3,140 mAh battery. I’d expect the phone to run all day (and then some) on a single charge, even with the higher resolution display.

Unlike the Optimus G Pro, I can’t run all day. When I do run, though, I tend to use mobile apps or a smartwatch to track my exercise. This week, RunKeeper for Android got a refresh that improves on what I think was already a great app.

RunKeeper version 3 for Android has a new look and feel because the team used Google’s Android development guidelines for the redesign. The software also adds some new features including in-activity splits, a tab to view your personal goals and stats, improved audio cues in workouts and workout reminders. Many of these functions were already available in RunKeeper for iOS so it’s good to see the Android version catch up in this functionality race.

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So what’s the word on the Galaxy Tab 3? Samsung has already created 7- and 7.7-inch tablets, and it appears the new slate will be in available in a similar size. It could be even be an 8-inch tablet; the same screen size as the expected Galaxy Note 8.0. A key difference, however, is that the Galaxy Tab 3 won’t have an active digitizer nor supporting digital S-Pen like the Note model. That should keep costs down for the new Tab 3; perhaps even in the sub-$200 range to compete against Google’s Nexus 7.

Alleged benchmarks for the Galaxy Tab 3 indicate a 1280 x 800 display running Android 4.2.1 and a CPU capable of up to 1.5 GHz. I’m willing to bet that Samsung keeps the price down by not using one of its new Exynos 5 processors, but a dual-core version of the prior Exynos generation. It’s more likely that Samsung uses the newer chip in the Galaxy Note 8.0.

HTC will also be at Mobile World Congress but it may debut its newest flagship phone even sooner. I’ll be attending an HTC press event in New York City later this month, where the company could out the HTC M7. There’s little doubt the phone exists now that a video and pictures of HTC’s CEO, Peter Chou, shouting out “M7!” and using the phone’s camera at an year-end company celebration.

Little information is known about the M7 other than it should have a new version of HTC’s Sense user interface based on some Android Police photos. That’s to be expected, given the company’s yearly iteration of its smartphone software. I suspect this to be a large-screened 1080p device — perhaps 5-inches diagonally — with one of the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon Pro chips running a version of Android 4.2. I wouldn’t be surprised for HTC to put it its highest resolution camera sensor to date in the M7 as well. We’ll see as soon as Feb. 19, which is when the HTC press event is planned.

Enough about phones and tablets that are coming soon: How about a phone that’s coming after being sold out for so long? Amid quick sell-outs, the Google Nexus 4 appeared back in stock on line and many folks are reporting shipments in under 48 hours, per Geek.com. My recent check of availability says both the 8 and 16  GB versions of the unlocked phone are now shipping in 1 to 2 weeks if you order now. That’s much better than the “coming soon” message we’ve seen for weeks on end; perhaps LG is kicking up the production pace as noted two weeks ago?

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There’s much to like in the Optimus G, which shares many components with its once removed cousin, the Nexus 4. There are some key differences and improvements though: The Optimus G supports LTE networks, has a higher resolution camera sensor, and perhaps most importantly, is readily available. The Nexus 4, made by LG, is mainly in a “sold out” state, although LG is reportedly boosting production for Google’s flagship phone.

The new Optimus G Pro is starting out in Japan for now; specifically for NTT DoCoMo. As earlier leaks indicated, the handset uses a 5-inch, 1080p touchscreen, 2 GB of memory, 32 GB of internal storage, Android 4.1 and 13 megapixel camera.

This beast of a device runs on a 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon Pro S4 quad-core and is fed by a 3,000 mAh battery, which should last a full day, even though the display is pushing over two million pixels. Customers in Japan can expect the phone in April; the rest of us will have to wait and see if LG expands availability beyond those borders.

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