LG Optimus L7 out today, £299 on pay as you go

The LG Optimus L7 goes on sale in the UK today, with LG hoping Brits will be tempted by the phone's 4.3-inch display and Ice Cream Sandwich-flavoured delights. But does it risk being consumed by the might of the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy S3?

From today, UK shoppers can rock on down to Phones 4u to pick up the L7 in white, priced at £299 on pay as you go, or £329 if you fancy buying it SIM-free.

My excellent colleague Andrew Hoyle went hands-on with the L7 when it debuted at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. His first impressions? The design is slick and attractive, and it's great to have the latest version of Android bubbling away under the bonnet.

The downside? Well, the L7 isn't as powerful as some of the mobile heavyweights out there. It's running on a single-core 1GHz processor -- a far cry from the quad-core 1.4GHz chip that occupies the Galaxy S3's innards.

That said, if you're not too bothered about playing graphically demanding games or performing other memory-intensive tasks, you might not find the modest processor too much of an issue.

Something else to consider is that because the chip lacks grunt, the L7 is more likely to be left behind when the time comes for the next round of Android updates.

The L7 features a 5-megapixel snapper and it's 8.7mm slim, which is a similar depth to the fractionally thinner Galaxy S3.

Stay tuned for the full review and be sure to check out Andrew's hands-on video, which I've helpfully embedded below. Let us know whether you'll be making the purchase in the comments or on our Facebook wall.