LG’s Optimus Black burning bright

Thought Samsung’s Galaxy S had a good screen? So did we. But LG has just announced its Optimus Black smartphone, boasting 700 nits of brightness – an improvement of some 40 per cent over Samsung’s Super AMOLED effort.The NOVA screen (another word to add to the growing lexicon of display-based jargon) is designed, says LG, to be “the brightest, clearest and most readable” screen on the planet. And at 4in, we might just chance our arm at reading a book on its Kindle app. The company also reckons it’ll suck down only half the power of conventional screen tech such as LCD or AMOLED.Beyond the Optimus Black’s eye-searing facade lies a trim 9.2mm body that tapers to 6mm, another world record, and a 2MP front-facing cam (also a world first). The new phone runs Android 2.2 (Froyo) with a promise of future upgradability to 2.3 (Gingerbread).The LG Optimus Black will show its sunny face some time in the first half of 2011. All stories from CES