LG G3 Review

The LG G3 is big and packed with features, with an astonishingly good screen the highlight from the premium end’s new flag bearer.

The new LG G3 is quite simply the most feature-rich handset to be launched world. It has a stunning array of features that put it right at the head of the pack in  terms of technical capabilities, and for the most part, we are very impressed indeed.

 Infrared

Infrared is becoming quite a popular addition to  tablets and handsets, and LG couples it with an app that lets you remotely control your range of IR-supporting TVs  and other equipment

Lightly skinned

LG has skinned Android 4.4, but with a reasonably light touch. There are a few added apps and these are useful rather than simply bloat.

Stunning screen

The quad HD resolution screen is  super-sharp, bright  and clear. It is as good for watching movies as it is for reading ebooks, and its 5.5 inches is  packed into a surprisingly slim  chassis. It make the LG G3 the smartphone with the best display in the market. The LG G3 have the hightest resolution display compared to other smartphones rocking a 538ppi screen due to which the screen looks amazing.

Multitasking  help

 The ability to run two apps side-by-side, and to pop up some mini apps on top of what you are doing will be very useful to anyone who likes multitasking.

Design

LG has really worked hard to make LG G3 this beautiful and on it’s design so that it can be easily fitted in out pockets. The 5.5-inch screen is quite big and is just a few millimetres away from the long edges and very close to the short edges too, so that the overall size of the phone is relatively small. Yes, it is still difficult to reach across for one-handed use, but as handsets with large screens go the overall size is impressively svelte. The Android buttons take up screen space rather than being on the chassis, so that there is a loss of screen area for apps, but a gain in terms of keeping the chassis size small. The power and volume buttons are on the back of the chassis. We first saw this arrangement in the LG G2, and here the buttons seem better designed. There is a sight indent on the volume buttons and a slight raise to the power button that sits between them, and this helps you fi nd all three by touch alone. It does take a bit of getting used to, but it is a neat idea that means the sides of the phone can be largely clear. You can set the volume up and down buttons to launch LG’s QuickMemo and Camera apps respectively when the screen is off. The LG G3 is available in black, gold and white shades. It has to be said that for a flagship handset we’d have liked a more premium quality feel to the design. The backplate has a brushed metal look but is made from plastic, and when compared to the superbly built HTC One (M8), the LG G3 seems second class. But then so does every other handset.

Screen

The most amazing thing about the new LG G3 is it’s super HD and amazingly beautiful screen.The size we have already noted. It is sharp, bright and clear, and immediately shines out at you as something quite special. In fact it is a quad HD screen that packs in 2560 x 1440 pixels. That gives it a massive 534 pixels per inch, putting every other handset currently available in the UK in the shade.  Our We often say that pixel count alone is not enough to make us enthuse about a handset’s screen. An we hold to that here.  The screen is certainly a cut above the average, but we aren’t convinced that all those extra pixels make a huge difference to the clarity and quality of what you can see when compared to, say, the 1920 x 1080 pixels of the 5.1-inch Samsung Galaxy S5 and five-inch HTC One (M8). 

                                               As this pixel count becomes more widespread we may see apps that really take advantage, though. We’ll hold judgement for a while. Other plus points for the screen include its very  good viewing angles and brightness levels, both of  which add to its appeal. Yes, it is very good and whether you are watching a movie or reading an ebook, playing a game or writing email, the screen’s high resolution and general quality is definitely a plus point that’s not to be ignored. This is just about as good as it gets.

Performance and battery

The LG G3 is a really powerhouse.  The processor behind the LG G3 is a top-of-the range 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, which is supported by 2GB of RAM in our 16GB version of  the handset. If you can get hold of a 32GB G3 then  there’s 3GB of RAM in support. Despite these  superb specs, but some of its users have reported a slight  lag using the LG G3, but this was not our  experience. In fact, our 16GB review handset  turned in top performances against our benchmarks, delivering an AnTuTu score of 35226, just a shade below the HTC One (M8), and showing off a blistering 23407 in the Quadrant benchmark. The other specifications are as high-end as you would expect with NFC and 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac all in the mix. The USB On The Go facility means we were able to read data, including music and video, from a USB stick. And, of course, this is a 4G phone. 

                                               A handset like this is probably going to have to do a lot more work than your average phone, delivering catch up TV, music, GPS-based navigation and more in an average day’s work. It is driven by a power-hungry processor and a greedy screen. It is an unfortunate trade off that it takes more power to run the LG G3’s superb screen than it would a smaller, lower quality one.  So there is inevitable effect on battery life. And  the brighter you have the screen, the more power it. take care with the manual screen settings. Overall, the 3000mAh battery was an average rather than a stunning performer, and we often needed to give it a power boost in the late afternoon or early evening to survive.

 Software

 The LG G3 runs on Android 4.4 making it bang up to date. You’d expect that from a flagship phone. LG has always been keen on skinning Android and that remains the case here. The net result of all the software additions is that the 16GB of installed memory is reduced to 10.4GB.  While LG adds an awful lot to Android it feels quite light. The skin design is pleasant to look at and nothing feels over the top. There are plenty of detail tweaks to be found through the settings area. You can, for example, as we’ve seen before from LG, fiddle with the Android hotkeys so that they are in your preferred order. And there are facilities to change the position of the dial pad and keyboard to make them hug the left or right of the screen for easier one-handed use. 

                                                Gesture controls are plentiful with recognised staples like answering an incoming call by lifting the phone to your ear and turning the LG G3 face down to silence incoming calls being accompanied by using that same face-down motion to pause video or stop an alarm. There are several multitasking features. You can open a number of apps from a QSlide menu so that they sit in a window on top of what you are doing. The range of apps supported includes a calculator, internet browser, phone dialer and more. You get to the QSlide menu from the notifications area.  You can also split the screen and view two apps at once. Not all apps are compatible, but the range includes plenty that are useful such as maps, YouTube, email and web browser.

             Looking at two apps at once is a bit of a squeeze on the 5.5-inch screen, but it might be useful at times.  And, of course, LG adds a few apps to the  Android standards. It is nice to see an FM radio  here as a basic addition. QuickMemo+ is the note-taking app of choice and you can either type or draw with a finger to make notes. There’s a separate task manager called, erm, Tasks, which lets you set due dates and issue reminders. A fi le manager is useful for keeping track of all your bits and pieces, and an app called Quick Remote lets you use the built-in infrared as a remote control for your TV and other equipment. It is easy to set up multiple ‘rooms’ and multiple devices.

 Camera

The LG G3’s cameras are both very nice. The back-facing 13-megapixel camera has a new laser focus. The Laser focus measures the distance between the object and the lens that allows the LG G3 for much faster focusing. This also can help with taking shots in gloomy locations.There is also a dual LED flash for the low-light situation and it works really well. Optical image stabilisation helps improve the clarity.

                                          LG has taken a ‘less is more’ approach to  working with both cameras, with the screen left  pretty much clear to act as an unobstructed view finder. The Dual mode is one of the few camera options available, allowing you to take a photo with front and back cameras simultaneously. You can resize the smaller of the two images – which by default is that from the front camera – and invert the smaller image to be that from the back camera by tapping the screen.

Verdict

 The LG G3 is a lovely phone. Yes, it is expensive, but it does have a very strong mix of features that come togeter in a tiny package. The screen, obviously, is a highlight, but the well thought out  and small set of software additions, good overlay to Android, impressive cameras  and hassle-free performance are all  endearing too. If only the  chassis quality were better. It would be the best smartphone in the market, personally the Samsung galaxy s5 screen looks a little better than it. Well it’s your choice LG G3 is a superphone that everyone wants to own. It looks really premium in it’s class and it’s quite big and beautiful that will catch the attention of everyone.

 Stay tuned for more.