Basically, the screen is stupid, costs more, wastes battery, slows down performance, heats it up so it throttles more, and isn't actually noticeably different compared to 1920×1080 at viewing distance.
Yeah, so predictable. LG is doing the worst kind of spec-sheet oneupmanship.
The G3 has significantly better battery life than the G2. You can complain that the screen is unnecessary all you want, but the phone performs wells and has great battery life, so what's the issue?
the g3 beat the g2 in one test here, what numbers are you referring to?
the issue, as i see it, is that the 1440p display adds cost, decreases performance, battery life and screen brightness, not to mention overall screen quality, compared to using a good 1080p display, all while adding very little in regards to usability and visual advantages.
many people, me included, think that LG should have gone with a "good ol'" 1080p display in this generation and improved upon the great battery life that the g2 offered, instead of using a 1440p screen with borderline useful benefits mainly for bragging rights.
of course not everybody agrees with this stance, but it seems to be the one main complaint about this otherwise mighty fine piece of technology.
and you are right, the g3 (still) performs well and (still) has great battery life, but with a more reasonable 1080p display those points could have improved even more. that's all i (!) am saying.
You may be right about the screen. Looks like some trade-offs were made, but it's still a good phone that stacks up well against it's competitors. It's still a good 5.5 inch phone that is basically the same size as an S5 or One M8. That and I cant remember the last time I had any phone on 100% brightness. I have a G2 now and keep it as 66%. In rare cases I move it up to 70%. 75% is simply too bright to look at.
I just checked the brightness on my G2. It's at 41% and is plenty bright for indoor viewing at that level. I might put it up to 75% while using it outdoors such as at my son's soccer game. Unless the sun is shining directly on the screen, 100% is overkill. In a dark rooms I set the brightness somewhere in the teens.
Well, LG G3 is definitely one of the better phones on the market, all though there are a few like HTC One M8 and Motorola Moto G that can compete with it (see http://www.consumertop.com/best-phone-guide/ for example).
Same thoughts! I can deal with the battery life, but brightness and contrast are major issues. We're seeing at least a few reviews that mention "dim", which isn't a good sign, and I'm starting to wonder about performance after it heats. If they put in the same display as last year, LG would sell tons more, and myself included. Now, I have to wait to see if the S805 vsn comes to the states and if it's any better, wait for the N6, or get a used G2..
I agree. 3 things are keeping me from trading in my HTC One M8 for this. The brightness, contrast, and lack of built in wireless charging. I don't want a flip case for that feature. Can't stand them, and sure in the heck are not paying $60 for a stupid case for that. I'd consider buying a additional back for wireless charging, however I've read on numerous sites that the US models do not have the pins.
"...and sure in the heck are not paying $60 for a stupid case for that." That made me laugh. You're unwilling to throw down $60 on a case while 'considering' dropping/dumping or upgrading from one of today's 'Flagship' phones! Thanks though for the Sunday chuckle but WOW. Color me silly, but that's a helluva 'first world' challenge you've got going there! Anand posted an(other) excellent, well written review. Another flagship handset. Innovative display and yep...as so many others before you have mentioned... All at the expense of a bit of brightness (typically a 'non issue' as we use our phones most often indoors, and outdoors the measurements are still just 'fine' for usage & snapshots), wireless charging? Really, you're basing your purchase decision on an unproven, completely niche and rare...without common specification technology? I own a Note 3 & an iPhone 5s. The former, solely for my business. The latter, my personal phone. I love them both and honestly feel like we've hit that 'plateau' in performance. Almost a year in, I'm wondering if I'll even take advantage of the NEXT deal at AT&T. They're both still fast as hell, no way I'd notice any differences between those and today's offerings (iPhone TBD, obviously) from Android. While Sammy has improved its AMOLED technology in the S5 even more than the S4-->Note 3, I've used both and honestly, even as an almost three decade professional audio and video production company business owner and operator, the differences to me were hardly distinguishable. They've come a LONG way with AMOLED in comparison to the long time king of displays, the LCD, to the extent in many (possibly more than) measurements, it's taken over as the 'better' technology. Longevity? We're yet to see, but without Samsung innovating their technology, and listening to the detractors...or paying attention to reviews, numbers and measurements each generation, they'd have 'pulled out'. You've got a damn sweet phone NOW. There's not a single phone available today that's going to 'better' your M8 if you bought it knowing its strengths, and more importantly it's limitations. If you're looking for the all around 'best' camera, you made the wrong choice. If you take few photos or primarily shoot in low light situations ...you made the right choice. Hard to bitch about HTC's UI. It's excellent! While I'm one of the very few that actually 'like' T/W, you're probably best taking my GUI opinion with a grain of salt but other than your issue with contrast (valid complaint, IMHO as a 'visual geek'), I know I took a long time to get to the point, so .... Tl/Dr, that's silly. Don't even THINK about replacing your M8 today. Unless you're A) still within the 'return period' and/or B) not happy with the phone for some reason (why did you buy it? It's a bad ass hand set! Don't 'chase' specs, the genesis of technologies or 'absolutes' when it comes to a 'smartphone' --- in the end, you'll be underwhelmed, disappointed and you'll lose money EVERY time you do something so 'silly') Ultimately today's smartphone market is awesome. With over two million apps between iOS and Android, Windows making their own moves (& certainly, while late to the game with the SP3, ousting of Balmer, and it's iOS MS Office suite 1.0 release...Win 365 subscription family package @ $10/month for five tabs and five computers and five users, EACH with a TB of their own storage accessible via OneNote from anywhere, anytime, GRAND SLAM! Go to Best Buy and save $40 for the year, about every other week they've got the bundle on sale...& it's completely 'cross platform' with an Android full release imminent, I'm an OSx user primarily but also own a pair of Windows machines. As well, being a Note 3 user, I'm very excited to see where MS is going...) Yep. LG took a leap at this resolution. But they're one of very few display manufacturers. Most OEMs use Samsung, LG, or Sharp displays. Makes sense to me at least they'd be the ones aiming for the 'ultimate' resolution for human visual acuity. Is THIS the version to buy? If you're an original LG 'g1' owner, maybe switching out of an S3 contract, or not exactly crazy any longer with iOS and considering upgrading a 4s or iPhone 5 that you purchased almost two years ago, ABSOLUTELY! If you're an owner of a 2013 flagship, either iOS or Android, from those measurements (other than PPI/display technology and size preference), it's very obvious 2014 to this point had been 'iterative' with refinements to UIs (Samsung has definitely worked in TouchWiz instead of adding 'more' they've refined existing features, ala S-Pen/features and it's recognition when the pen is out ... Better overall ability to 'control' the OEM's pre-installed software (carrier bloat, different story but ubiquitous regardless of Android choice) -- point being they've succeeded with UI improvements and that's a BIG end user 'upgrade' IMHO. While the UI needs a refresh, a launcher of choice is a simple and cheap addition. The A7 hit Qualcomm like a ton of bricks. While indeed Apple is still a ways away from utilizing its full power due to RAM, the A8 instruction set, new memory management and the 7.1 'update' were HUGE. Obviously still keeping computational pace with significantly 'faster' clock speeds on half the cores with half the memory. As well - the dated IT graphics solution Apple used on the A7 will certainly be updated on the A8. Qualcomm will be ready with 64bit SOCs next year, or late this year. I guess my question would be 'why' HTC, Samsung, and LG aren't using the faster 805/420s today? Sorry to ramble but ultimately, I'm extremely excited to see this type of evolutionary improvement from one of today's largest display manufacturers. I'm glad to see the transition from '3D' to HiDPI from the 2011/12/13 CES shows to the '4K' and HiDPI displays shown off this past January in Vegas, and actually 'affordable' 1.0 releases @ Best Buy half way through '14. IMHO, display resolution rules the roost. With resolution, comes ALL the primary factors that make ANY resolution 'good' vs 'great". Attributes that come FAR before resolution updates, you're correct ...kind of. Brightness while important, especially in a cell phone is pretty important. Though as you can plainly see, it's still 'good' and easily visible outdoors. Contrast = Huge. Color and gamut/calibration as well as grey scale, gamma, display technology used, viewing angles, saturation and 'response time'. If you're gaming, you're looking for fast refresh rates, you'd hate my new Eizo. Soooo many factors that go into a good display and they're each (OEMs) beginning to 'get it'. Pre sale calibration. Options for, albeit limited post purchase calibration (TouchWiz and the display adaption option). Pushing barriers is good. My dream is to have 4k displays and a delivery system for the content in place by 2020. HiDPI displays are ubiquitous on computing displays. (Hard to explain my passion and 're' invigoration for using my computer, my laptop ...daily, since purchasing my first rMBP in 2012. We've now got seven, five for the business, two personal 15" 2013 rockets! PCIe TB storage that is faster than anything I've used in my life, a display that blows my mind EVERY time I turn it 'on' ...its I/O options, TB2 has become a GodSend for us, as have the new docks and the ability to literally turn it into a 'desktop' workstation (- the Xeon procs and enterprise RAM, you'd never know. It's truly THAT fast!)). I could go on and on but I guess I'm blown away by the 'reasons' some folks come up with to not replace their five month old bad ass pocket computer. Nor do I understand the backlash from our 'geek' community against LG for pushing the barriers AND using scientific reasoning to explain human visual acuity, how much density is 'truly' necessary to be indistinguishable from the sharpest photo, the finest print (especially for many traditional Asian writing/text/characters and alphabets)... Or and while I so hate the cliche itself; "Like looking through a window" ...IOW, his explanation was pertaining to the ability to 'see' in a display the 'same' visually your eye would see in a 'real world' scenario. Again, all my opinion. Yours is different, I respect that. But I don't respect spec chasing, bullshit reasons to upgrade every three months to chase specs and bragging rights. That's dumb. It's not what you make, it's what you save. From your comment, I'm assuming your young (ya know what they say about assumption though). If I'm wrong, I'm sorry. If I'm correct, the difference in you saving that extra three to six hundred a year you're dropping on cell phones when you're 30, 40, 50...65 and ready to retire, is HUGE! Say you're 25. Without interest, that's $12-$24,000. With that cash each year and another $150/month stashed away starting at 20 instead of thirty in a fund that nets you an 8% average yearly increase (over 40 years) is 3.9 million @20 vs 2.2 million at 30 years old. At 40, you'll be lucky to hit a million. Figure out today what tomorrows 'Apple' stock will be and throw all that out the window. Buy all ya can and sell in a decade. You and the next six generations of your family won't have to work ;)
I have a Sprint US G3 and the screen is super bright and colors seem very close to my iphone 6. I actually prefer the G3 display. I've heard that LG tweaked the display for the US version of the phone after some of the brightness and calibration criticisms about the Korean model such as was reviewed here. In fact on reviewer said he thought it might be a different panel altogether. Maybe Anandtech can look into this and see if recent US spec G3 models are in fact getting an improved display because mine is simple gorgeous and very bright.
I do not agree, with VR becoming big, I for one are big fan of VR, you need at least a 1440p screen. For proper VR you actually need a 4k screen. That is one of the reasons LG has pushed for the 2k screen. So if you were living under a rock the last 2 years and do not even know about VR, you should not make comments and judgement!
I don't know. Brightness/viewing angles in a photo display is very important to me. I'd take that over the higher pixel count. I think I actually like the G2 better than the G3.
No kidding. If I were comparing the specs of the two as competing phones, the g2 wins more of the tests I care about and is really close in the others. Only think I don't like is the sealed battery, but the cover is easy to remove even if its not technically 'user servicible'
I agree .... you can currently buy the G2 for slightly under $400. The G2 is a significantly better value. However, if money is taken out of the comparison ...... the G3 wins by a tad! Either would be a good choice. IMHO
Remember that android L is showing massive improvements in battery life. If G3 owners can get android L onto their devices without too much delay, admittedly a big if, then the battery life of the G3 can be expected to improve a lot. And it already ain't half bad.
It actually can be replaced pretty easy. Not something that I'd want to do in the middle of the day as part of a routine of carry multiples, but easy enough if you're worried about the battery dying later in life.
What you're saying isn't really compatible with what's said in this article, if it dims the screen even when you set the brightness manually how can you possibly test at 100% brightness?
No.. If LG G3 had the same resolution as the GS5 or M8, with the bigger screen it would not have been as sharp (ppi). What LG managed to do was build a phone with a significantly bigger screen AND a higher ppi. And since the G3 has a thinner bevel, it isn't much bigger than the GS5 and M8.
Battery life? From what I've read, the phone should last all day. That's all one really needs. Charge the phone at night, charge it while you're at your desk, charge it in the car, buy an extra battery, buy a battery pack.
The G3 is a showcase for what LG is capable of, so spec-sheet oneupmanship is to be expected. I would like to see 1080p screens show up on some slightly smaller and more affordable devices. Or LG can just keep making the G2 for a while. The G2 is a great phone and is still a high end phone even this long after the initial release. If the G3 didn't pull some spec-sheet oneupmanship the reviews would just be complaining about a lack of compelling differences from the G2. I guess it's the price LG pays for doing the G2 so well.
One place I can think of where the resolution would be a benefit, is Google Cardboard, or future VR implementations that use the same idea. With VR, the resolution of a small screen makes a significant difference, from what I've read.
I'm pondering a G3 for that reason, as well as the removable battery and SD slot.
IMO the stacked-battery issue is a red herring. Removable batteries haven't hurt Samsung's battery life versus their competition, and a stacked battery didn't break any runtime records for the Moto X. (OTOH, 720p didn't seem to help the Moto X's runtime either, which is odd considering how 1440p hurt the G3 here.)
The stacked battery design does increase volumetric efficiency. The LG G2 and Galaxy S5 are about the same size in the hand, yet the G2 has a noticeably larger battery. The Moto X is another discussion entirely as it was on a much less power efficient process and the AMOLED technology in the Moto X had much higher power draw than the LCDs available at the time.
My old phone once froze so bad i couldn't turn it off by holding the off button. Removing the battery was the only way to get it to work again. I think that's a big enough deal to keep the battery removable.
I was holding it down for a minute. Nothing happened. And now in the newer Android holding down the power button opens pop up. The pop up is useful, but it does not turn the phone off.
My Sony Xperia Z1 Compact (and probably most in the Xperia line) hard resets when you hold volume down and power at the same time for a few seconds. It has yet to fail me and resets every time I've used it.
Without mentioning your mobile phone model, which probably has a similar hard reset mechanism, you're probably just being disingenuous.
Do you complain about not being able to hard reset sealed laptops or tablets too?
I don't use or plan to use tablets. My laptop has a removable battery. The hard reset that you mention is a factory reset. At least it was on the LG L5. My old phone was the LG Swift.
Hold power button and volume down at the same time for several seconds. Internal battery is a non issue. I've had it lock up before. Power and down volume always works.
My Z1 (to be sold) and Z2 have a hard power-off switch near the SIM tray (or you can pull the SIM card out, that reboots the phone too). My Z before both (now my dad's) had a hard-poweroff if you held down the power button for some time (not sure if 4s or 10s), like most current PCs. Phone freezes are a non-excuse for people who want removable batteries.
An Android phone works without SIM, so why does pulling it out reset it? Does the flight mode reset it as well? And you can't tell me that's a non-excuse. If you pay 200€ for a phone and you can't use it after a freeze. I would be very pissed off. A power off switch under the cover that physically cuts power would be the best way to go, but no review ever mentioned that, as far as i know.
Some form of security perhaps? I just noticed it in the manual where it states that removing the SIM-card from a powered phone will cause it to reboot.
If I pay any amount for a phone and it freezes unreacoverably, I would be pissed too, but like I said, there is a key you can press to power off, or you can implement some form of key combo or long-press. Be pissed at the implementation and manufacturer, not the concept.
Besides, just about the only time I've had an android phone lock up was when I overclocked or ran very early custom ROMs, something I don't do since I got a Sony phone, their ROM being so lighweight and bloat-free (admittedly after uninstalling/disabling bundled stuff like facebook) in comparison to the usual Touchwiz/Sense4 bloat
At the time i did not know about the factory reset button combo, but removing the battery was so easy i didn't give it a second thought (until now). Factory reset means that you have to install all the apps and change the settings. Your google account has that stored but it still takes time to download everything.
It doesn't do a factory reset, just a hard reboot, similar to what happens when you press the reset button on desktop computers. If it has one...
What I would like on the other hand would be that the back cover would be bolted to the frame, rather than glued... means I could swap the battery when it wears out, like current lightweight laptops/ultrabooks have.
It did a factory reset for me on LG L5. Or maybe i pressed the wrong combo (volume up + power off). Who know anymore. I didn't have to do it since.
The possible battery swap sounds perfect. Kind of like a removable battery, but only the cover holds it in place, so the phone can stay thin. Is that what you meant?
Yup. I don't mind pulling wires or carefully avoiding PCBs (And I bloody well should be, given I'm a Computer Engineering student!), and I understand why the batteries are sealed (less redundant casing), but I would like the replaceability to remain. Thus some screws holding things together looks like a good compromise to me: things can stay thin for marketing, I get my repairability, everyone is happy.
How do you measure up the Sony Xperia Z line? They all have strict "bands" in the phone body for different elements between the screen and the back panel: top is just enough room for a double-sided PCB containing almost all the electronics, the very bottom contains a speaker, microphone, vibrator, camera button and some antennas which leaves the middle as a large battery block, which as of right now is the biggest battery in a non-phablet phone.
Xperia Z: 2330 mAh Xperia Z1: 3000 mAh Xperia Z2: 3200 mAh
G2: 3000 mAh G3: 3000 mAh
So, out of the complete Z line up, only 1 has a larger battery, and each of the phones is physically larger (taller and wider) with smaller screens (diagonal) than either the G2 or G3.
The slight increase in volumetric efficiency doesn't make up for the loss of capacity over time that all LIPO batteries suffer with enough charge cycles. As a heavy user having the option to replace the battery with a new one is a huge benefit. Also nice if buying a used and not knowing the state of the battery.
I agree. Give me a damn removable battery and SD slot. Stacking it might get it to have slightly more capacity but not that much. Like 5% more. I'd rather have it be removable.
Android OEMs short-sighted focus on marketing gimmicks to the detriment of actual performance is infuriating. As you said, LG could've chosen a higher quality 1080p display, that along with the same battery would've also given better battery life and higher performance. But no, instead they chose to chase the "bigger is always better" gimmick.
We have a Full HD display in the palm of our hands - what more could we possibly need? They could've chose a 1080p display with a bigger focus on sunlight visibility, or just leave it the same, and focus on improving the camera even more, or making a more solid device.
What kills it for me is the 5.5" Size. As someone who did the Xperia Z->Z1->Z2 route (the LCD did improve successively every generation, especially wrt colour gamut), phones are getting more and more unwieldy. If it weren't for the fact that the Z2 is physically narrower than the Z1, I'd have skipped it and waited for the Z2 or Z3 compact.
I still prefer battery life. 480x800 is enough for me. It doesn't distort smaller letters, so i can still read a fully zoomed out web page (if it's not too wide). And you can have a smaller phone (a must since i keep it in my front pocket). I also prefer a bit more space between the screen and the edge. Right now i can't use my phone with one hand as it detects the tips of my fingers when i hold my phone. My grip has to be too lose for my liking.
480x800 and even 1280x720/1280x800 suck compared to 1080p. It's not just the ability to render, it's the font smoothing that's required. You need extensive smoothing at lower densities, and while it produces something readable (if fatiguing) for Latin-based, Cryllic and most Middle-Eastern and Indial peninsula characters, far-eastern scripts like Japanese or Mandarin render poorly, especially beneath 300ppi.
Yeah with 3mm blown up to 2cm. But that's not how zoom work is it? Like you said, the font smoothing solves it and since there is less pixels the GPU consumes less power as well.
If you've never read Asian characters for any extended period of time, you'll think that font smoothing is enough. Fact is, it's not. With font smoothing, at small sizes, Far-Eastern characters just look like a blurry, gray mess, so people use hand-designed, pixel-perfect bitmap fonts instead.. For an equivalent comparison zoom it out to around 40-50% (because yay 100ppi on most computers :/). The difference in quality matters in person. Not for us, but for other people elsewhere on the planet.
Another problem with the comparison is the size of Asian characters. In the picture they are the same size as latin characters. They write them bigger on paper for a reason. They would be a blob of ink if they were only a few millimeters. They need to use bigger fonts for their characters. Problem solved.
i also prefer battery life, but i think the z1 compact, moto g and moto x are at the sweet spot of resolution for me 720p is nothing over the top anymore and makes for perfectly fine ppi at 4.3-4.7 inches.
1080p is great too at 5 inches and upwards, but that's already where diminishing returns kick in heavily.
but 1440p is just stupid with phones you can burn through in 3 hours, if you really want to.
LG has been making the displays in iPod Touches as well as the newer iPhones. I agree a lower resolution would have been nicer and mainly why I stuck with my G2.
My G2 performs just as well if not better (nodded of course) and all I'm really missing is that display, which I'm not actually missing one bit. Let's see what LF does with the G4 or by then I'll find another OEM (not Samsung)
I'm also disappointed to see nobody else has chosen the F2FS file system besides Motorola - not even Google in Android L, which is a real head-scratcher. Why could that be? Too much on their plate for L? They don't think it's quite ready yet? (it clearly seems to be on Motorola devices).
It's weird they aren't racing to adopt it, when it gives nearly 2x performance in write speeds, for free.
I suspect it's the same reason I'm still on ext4 rather than btrfs: they don't have enough faith in the FS just yet and want to see how it performs (especially wrt reliability) before committing to it, or it did something similar to what happened in my test of btrfs, it died and corrupted data.
I live in Asutralia, and yeah, I just walked into my nearby Telstra store and bought one outright to use with my Virgin Mobile SIM card. Took like 15minutes to go from house, to store and back. US on the other hand I think is still all gray market, and no carriers have picked it up yet :(
With these bad contrasts and low maximum brightness, I would guess that this display is a worse experience than a good 1080p display. even when not factoring the shorter battery life and the lower performance. Although I would like to get my eyes on this display and see how small of a text I can read comfortably, I have a 5" 1080p smartphone and I have no problem reading most desktop sites without zooming in. I wonder how much will a 1440p display at that size will improve.. Not going to buy this phone, but I would like to get my eyes on it.. Also, the camera on this phone seems top notch by these tests. I would like to see how does this camera performs against the sony Z2 and the nokia 1020, or the oppo find 7 (50mp software enhanced).. Not going to lie, I don't know much about cameras. a good auto is very important because you can make bad photos on an expensive DSLR and you can make nice photos with a phone. But all I know is tap to focus.. I expect the auto settings to do the rest. How well does this camera perform on auto in a variety of conditions?
300 DPI is a MINIMUM! Stop treating it as an end-all measurement. It is quite obvious that 600 DPI is better than 300 DPI at 12 inches away. Try it with your desktop printer (this is probably the only device that can vary DPI as this level). When has a minimum ever been good enough? Double it an then it MIGHT be good enough. This is what desktop printers have done. So until displays are 600 DPI, and this includes DESKTOP MONITORS, I for one will not be satisfied enough to call them good enough.
DPI, PPI doesn't mean shit!! You should be worried about PPD. What is the point of having 600DPI if your ocular sensor can't capture enough data for your brain to tell the difference? We, the consumers, have to convince reviewers and manufacturers to use PPD. I am using a 1080p 21'' monitor which makes 102PPI. At about 3feet away (1 meter) i can't see a single pixel. Why would i need more PPI?
I can't see individual pixels on my 24" 1920x1200 screen (~97ppi), but I can EASILY tell the difference between 1920x1080 on a 5.0" phone compared to 1280x720 on a 4.7" phone at 30cm view distance.
Hell, when the iPhone 4 came out with 326ppi, I could see the grid at around 15cm view distance, probably more - some of us have better eyes than others.
Not seeing the pixel grid doesn't mean it's past ocular limits.
The eyes is very good at spotting aliasing. It doesn't jump out at you, but you get the inherent feeling that it's just not right, and with someone like me, that breaks down to peering closer, and closer, and closer, then suddenly microscope D:
We must stop this silliness that "not seeing pixels" is the only goal of a display when there are several other metrics at play. You'd still be able to tell the difference between aliased and non-aliased fonts at 12 inches because our brain does a lot of "massaging" of the raw data our eyes capture before we interpret it in our visual cortex. Or more simply put, "the eye is not the be-all end-all of human vision".
I didn't say not to alias fonts. That has nothing to do with resolution, PPI or PPD. The point is that when you can't tell the difference anymore, you can't tell the difference anymore. Aliasing and proper color reproduction and so on are different problems.
Just because you can't see them doesn't mean other people can't. I could see the tiny spaces *between* pixels on my desktop monitor, and hairlines were still really thick. On my 1080p 10.5" screen right now, I can still make out two parallel lines from two feet away, and can see the jaggedness of an aliased 1px line drawn diagonally. At least the white background of this page doesn't look like a big mosquito net at this density.
In short, we can see a *lot* of detail, and I know it's not enough for me as certainly as you know it's enough for you.
We really shouldn't need any kind of antialiasing. Until our screens are of high enough resolution, though, they make good stopgaps.
"The laser appears red to my eyes, but a camera with a poor IR filter sees the laser as purple, which suggests a spread of spectrum rather than a single wavelength."
Lasers are single wavelength sources, so what are they actually using? Does the phone come with the mandatory laser safety class certificate/sticker that lists the power and wavelength?
The concluding statements gave me a laugh; I agree that everything about this phone is perfect except what distinguishes it from the LG G2. If they just made an incremental update of that model they'd be exactly where they need to be. Which kinda raises the question of why they don't just do that. The way smartphone OEMs rigidly classify and offer their models without them ever changing has never been something I well understood.
Can't say I've ever seen a Lumia (or WP device) review on Anandtech, save the 521. As unique as the 1020 was, all we saw was a "hands on" at a press event. A little more coverage would be nice.
Any phone that resolution, even like a 7 inch tablet serves no purpose except to trick people into buying the phone and eat battery life. Leave me at 720p and give me my battery life back.
LG Optimus G has a 4.7", 720p screen, and a 2100 mAh battery, weighing only 145g. LG G2 has a 5.2", 1080p screen, a 3000 mAh battery, weighing slightly less (143g), and is only just barely larger than the OG.
OG: 131.9 x 68.9 x 8.5 mm G2: 138.5 x 70.9 x 8.9 mm
Yet, battery life on the G2 is phenomenal compared to the OG (or, really, any other phone out there). People routinely get 6+ hours of screen-on time, even with the default LG version of Android. And plenty of people can push that to 10+. Personally, I've only ever topped 7 hours, but it's an almost daily occurence now (Mahdi ROM, based on Android 4.4.4, with ART enabled).
There's more to a solid performing, long lasting phone than just the screen. :)
However, I (personally) don't see a reason to go above ~5 inches and 1080p on a phone. For a tablet (7"+), sure. The 2012 Nexus 7 has a horrible screen resolution for the size, although the SoC really limits the choices in resolution. :)
The LG G2 is just about perfect. If only it had a slide-out keyboard ... :(
Thank you for an awesome review. Technically better than most reviews whilst ensuring the layman remains in touch. Only thing I found a little strange was the lack of excitement over the display. Particularly most reviews have pointed to a slightly undersaturated display, in contrast to your findings. Whilst your review states audio quality on per with the M8, I would have liked you to spend more time on this. After all we are still talking about a device which is primarily a phone! I'm an HTC purist, but I believe HTC have continued to disappoint in the Camera department. At the same time I believe the HTC logo and speakers however good, do come at an unacceptable wastage of display real estate. I have always loved the realistic color saturation of HTC devices, and again raise reference to your findings on the over saturated G3 which seems to be a view shared by yourselves. Thank you for an excellent overall review. Refreshingly detailed in substance.
Nahh, LG knew everything about this and just wants to compete with Samsung. How can LG beat Samsung's AMOLED display? I don't know but LG is probably not going the OLED route because Samsung's tech is superior.
This phone looks really awesome, especially finally going back to removable battery and SD card.
But what's putting my off is the QHD screen. It's just a waste in every way. Waste of money. Waste of battery power. Waste of CPU and GPU resources. Waste of RAM. Shame. Everything else about this phone is AWESOME.
I disagree with you. On screen buttons vanish in full screen apps like games, video players, browser if you like, photo viewer, ... so practically no screen area is lost at all. On screen buttons allow a larger level of customization if you root. For example left right arrow in text fields once the keyboard shows up. On screen buttons allow edge to edge displays. So practically you get a larger usable display at a smaller physical smartphone size.
If you feel too much space is wasted, I recommend you to root your smartphone, reduce the lcd density value, reduce the on screen button size and use the immersive mode of android.
My on-screen buttons disappear when I'm not using them and almost all apps are good enough to use that space to display more stuff. Only means I have to swipe up or down to active them again, which hasn't been a hassle when using the G2 for the past 2 months. The design is much nicer as a result as well. My wifes SGS3 looks so ancient even compared to my Galaxy Nexus.
Too bad about the display. That was one of the things I was hoping would make this phone stand out. I guess I'll have to wait to see if Samsung delivers an S5 Prime and what that has to offer.
I have the feeling G2 is better build than G3 as I am using both now. G3 is unable to install candy crush saga, ( reported not compatible device). I suspect this is G3 problem. LG does not want us to play Candy Crash on G3. This will show how quick battery is drain out from the phone.
Can you test future cell phones as to their integration with in car infotainment systems such as Ford Sync? My old phone HTC EVO 4G LTE worked fine but my G2 does not. Seems that LG has decided to not implement MAP so messaging over BT is not supported.
well for most part the tests it wins at are browser tests and synthetics. The biggest "real world" cpu test out there is ironically 3dmark and there iphone 5s is roughly where it should be.
If I root it to make it useable and give the better user experience (i'm a designer, after all) will I sacrifice a battery life? I guess I could carry another battery with me an charge it up.
Thank you for another excellent review. Your display, battery and camera tests are again without a doubt the best in this industry.
Just a couple of off topic points:
1) It would be great if you also reviewed the Sony Xperia Z2. Along G3, the SGS5 and the M8, it is arguably the other 2014 Android flagship. And I would love to have your take on its camera. I understand that Sony has a negligible presence in the US market, but you guys have significant number of readers from other countries where the Z2 is readily available and popular (Australia and the UK for example). Also a good number of your US readers are the kind of tech savvy people who buy their phones outright and so the review would be of use to them as well. I'm sure Sony would love to send you a sample if you asked.
2) While I don't want to take anything away from the stellar job that Josh Ho is doing, I do miss Brian Klug. I understand that you are not at liberty to shed any light on his sudden disappearance, but I just wanted to raise it here.
As Anand has said before: They review what get's sent in. Nothing more, nothing less due to budgetary concerns.
If you really want a Z2 review, you could always try and organise loaning out yours (something like order off amazon, ship to AT, then have it shipped along to you after the review is done) or something similar... I'd give it a try if I lived in the US, but I don't, I live in Australia, and the shipping costs make me sad.
This is by far the most thorough, insightful and intelligent review that I've seen on the LG G3. I own the G2, and this review gave me more valuable information than any other review that I've read (and I've read many, many of them). Kudos to Joshua and Anand!
Is it worth the extra $100 or $200 over the G2? I have an upgrade coming up on Verizon. I don't like the M8 with the wasted space from the HTC logo, and my wife has the GS5 so I can't get that ;).
Also, I heard there is a 2GB and 3GB version; would there be any noticeable difference in performance?
My biggest problem with my original Optimus G has been LGs speed in updating the software. There are reports that we might get one last bump to 4.4 kitkat, otherwise they they haven't released an upgrade since they went to 4.2, which is sad considering it's essentially the same phone as the Nexus 5, so Google practically does all the work for them.
Optimus G is the same phone as the Nexus 4, not the Nexus 5 which is based on the LG G2.
The OG is very easy to root and install custom ROMs onto. There's a vibrant community of devs working on the OG on XDA. My OG died before I could test Android 4.4 on it, but it ran beautifully with RootBox (Android 4.2.2) and Carbon (Android 4.3.1). ParanoidAndroid, SlimBean/SlimKat, and a handful of others are also available.
I tried to like the LG version of Android, but just could not get over the colour scheme (too bright for me; physically painful to use in the dark, even at low brightness). The only part of the LG ROM I liked was the handwriting recognition in the keyboard. However, the gesture feature of the AOSP keyboard is much nicer to use. :)
Pretty glad I got the G2 this year, this phone sucks. 5.5" really? The G2 is already a bit too large and I have huge hands. 4.7" is probably the ideal size. They need to stop going beyond that.
Perhaps because of LG's slim bezel chassis they can go larger, but certainly no larger than 5".
Just bought this phone 4 days ago and I must admit it grows on you quickly. Selfie cam looks like a mirror my s5 active selfie cam is not in same league. And if your LG g3 is dim turn off auto brightness. Also like that every icon can be replaced by any pic or icon you find by holding down icon and releasing it and touching little paintbrush. overall experience is great. Also the 2k screen is amazing if you find content to play on it. Knock codes are also useful.
I had a chance to check out the display of LG G3 yesterday and oddly I have to disagree with Anand on its color reproduction. Not sure about the charts and other tests he did but it extreme close in color reproduction to my iPhone 5s and with just a tad more on red tones but then I know the iPhone 5s has a little weakens with reds and greens hues, so in other words the colors on G3 is spot on! hmm....Samsung even in "movie" mode looks way off so I am not sure how Anand claims in the review that Samsung has best display??? I am sure it is not so!
Handled one yesterday in store and its a great device. Waiting for the Note 4 in September to see what changes they made before upgrading which I do once a year.
I'm surprised the Galaxy S5 brightness was not measured with auto on. DisplayMate measured the max brightness at 698 nits with auto on, the brightest display they've tested, beating out the Note 3 by about 50 nits.
It also would have been nice to see the G3 auto focus tested at less than 2 feet, to see the laser AF at its best conditions.
Thanks for the detailed review only issue with LG G3 is that they lauched it in 2 versions one is 16Gb with 2 gb ram for Rs.46,000 in Indian Market and other with 32 Gb with 3GB ram, now a person who is spending 800 US $ will not buy a smartphone with 1gb less ram,as a buyer dont feel right to buy a hardware which is any thing less of top gun when you are paying top dollar for it .
Also the Nexus 5 is available for 480$ in India which is much lower than what LG has launched its flag ship G3. making a good phone is one thing understanding consumers and selling is another.
Lg has failed with G2 and proved many times it just fail to understand buyers
Just had this fone for 2 days and i love it. If you dont like it dont hate. Because there really is nothing to hate about. Standby battery is great and the os doesnt look like a kid took a crayon and created it "samsung/new ios." solid device. Couldnt be happier.
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piroroadkill - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Basically, the screen is stupid, costs more, wastes battery, slows down performance, heats it up so it throttles more, and isn't actually noticeably different compared to 1920×1080 at viewing distance.Yeah, so predictable. LG is doing the worst kind of spec-sheet oneupmanship.
Homeles - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I picked up a G2 last year, and was a bit frustrated that the G3 came out so quickly. Looks like I'm not missing out.piroroadkill - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Yeah, the G2 is a fine device, and I'd choose the better battery life.mahalie - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
The G3 has significantly better battery life than the G2. You can complain that the screen is unnecessary all you want, but the phone performs wells and has great battery life, so what's the issue?fokka - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
the g3 beat the g2 in one test here, what numbers are you referring to?the issue, as i see it, is that the 1440p display adds cost, decreases performance, battery life and screen brightness, not to mention overall screen quality, compared to using a good 1080p display, all while adding very little in regards to usability and visual advantages.
many people, me included, think that LG should have gone with a "good ol'" 1080p display in this generation and improved upon the great battery life that the g2 offered, instead of using a 1440p screen with borderline useful benefits mainly for bragging rights.
of course not everybody agrees with this stance, but it seems to be the one main complaint about this otherwise mighty fine piece of technology.
and you are right, the g3 (still) performs well and (still) has great battery life, but with a more reasonable 1080p display those points could have improved even more. that's all i (!) am saying.
retrospooty - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
You may be right about the screen. Looks like some trade-offs were made, but it's still a good phone that stacks up well against it's competitors. It's still a good 5.5 inch phone that is basically the same size as an S5 or One M8. That and I cant remember the last time I had any phone on 100% brightness. I have a G2 now and keep it as 66%. In rare cases I move it up to 70%. 75% is simply too bright to look at.flatrock - Tuesday, July 8, 2014 - link
I just checked the brightness on my G2. It's at 41% and is plenty bright for indoor viewing at that level. I might put it up to 75% while using it outdoors such as at my son's soccer game. Unless the sun is shining directly on the screen, 100% is overkill. In a dark rooms I set the brightness somewhere in the teens.ColinByers - Monday, September 29, 2014 - link
Well, LG G3 is definitely one of the better phones on the market, all though there are a few like HTC One M8 and Motorola Moto G that can compete with it (see http://www.consumertop.com/best-phone-guide/ for example).upatnite2 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Same thoughts! I can deal with the battery life, but brightness and contrast are major issues. We're seeing at least a few reviews that mention "dim", which isn't a good sign, and I'm starting to wonder about performance after it heats.If they put in the same display as last year, LG would sell tons more, and myself included.
Now, I have to wait to see if the S805 vsn comes to the states and if it's any better, wait for the N6, or get a used G2..
HotInEER - Monday, July 7, 2014 - link
I agree. 3 things are keeping me from trading in my HTC One M8 for this. The brightness, contrast, and lack of built in wireless charging. I don't want a flip case for that feature. Can't stand them, and sure in the heck are not paying $60 for a stupid case for that. I'd consider buying a additional back for wireless charging, however I've read on numerous sites that the US models do not have the pins.akdj - Sunday, July 13, 2014 - link
"...and sure in the heck are not paying $60 for a stupid case for that."That made me laugh. You're unwilling to throw down $60 on a case while 'considering' dropping/dumping or upgrading from one of today's 'Flagship' phones! Thanks though for the Sunday chuckle but WOW. Color me silly, but that's a helluva 'first world' challenge you've got going there! Anand posted an(other) excellent, well written review. Another flagship handset. Innovative display and yep...as so many others before you have mentioned... All at the expense of a bit of brightness (typically a 'non issue' as we use our phones most often indoors, and outdoors the measurements are still just 'fine' for usage & snapshots), wireless charging? Really, you're basing your purchase decision on an unproven, completely niche and rare...without common specification technology? I own a Note 3 & an iPhone 5s. The former, solely for my business. The latter, my personal phone. I love them both and honestly feel like we've hit that 'plateau' in performance. Almost a year in, I'm wondering if I'll even take advantage of the NEXT deal at AT&T. They're both still fast as hell, no way I'd notice any differences between those and today's offerings (iPhone TBD, obviously) from Android. While Sammy has improved its AMOLED technology in the S5 even more than the S4-->Note 3, I've used both and honestly, even as an almost three decade professional audio and video production company business owner and operator, the differences to me were hardly distinguishable. They've come a LONG way with AMOLED in comparison to the long time king of displays, the LCD, to the extent in many (possibly more than) measurements, it's taken over as the 'better' technology. Longevity? We're yet to see, but without Samsung innovating their technology, and listening to the detractors...or paying attention to reviews, numbers and measurements each generation, they'd have 'pulled out'. You've got a damn sweet phone NOW. There's not a single phone available today that's going to 'better' your M8 if you bought it knowing its strengths, and more importantly it's limitations. If you're looking for the all around 'best' camera, you made the wrong choice. If you take few photos or primarily shoot in low light situations ...you made the right choice. Hard to bitch about HTC's UI. It's excellent! While I'm one of the very few that actually 'like' T/W, you're probably best taking my GUI opinion with a grain of salt but other than your issue with contrast (valid complaint, IMHO as a 'visual geek'), I know I took a long time to get to the point, so ....
Tl/Dr, that's silly. Don't even THINK about replacing your M8 today. Unless you're A) still within the 'return period' and/or
B) not happy with the phone for some reason (why did you buy it? It's a bad ass hand set! Don't 'chase' specs, the genesis of technologies or 'absolutes' when it comes to a 'smartphone' --- in the end, you'll be underwhelmed, disappointed and you'll lose money EVERY time you do something so 'silly')
Ultimately today's smartphone market is awesome. With over two million apps between iOS and Android, Windows making their own moves (& certainly, while late to the game with the SP3, ousting of Balmer, and it's iOS MS Office suite 1.0 release...Win 365 subscription family package @ $10/month for five tabs and five computers and five users, EACH with a TB of their own storage accessible via OneNote from anywhere, anytime, GRAND SLAM! Go to Best Buy and save $40 for the year, about every other week they've got the bundle on sale...& it's completely 'cross platform' with an Android full release imminent, I'm an OSx user primarily but also own a pair of Windows machines. As well, being a Note 3 user, I'm very excited to see where MS is going...)
Yep. LG took a leap at this resolution. But they're one of very few display manufacturers. Most OEMs use Samsung, LG, or Sharp displays. Makes sense to me at least they'd be the ones aiming for the 'ultimate' resolution for human visual acuity. Is THIS the version to buy? If you're an original LG 'g1' owner, maybe switching out of an S3 contract, or not exactly crazy any longer with iOS and considering upgrading a 4s or iPhone 5 that you purchased almost two years ago, ABSOLUTELY! If you're an owner of a 2013 flagship, either iOS or Android, from those measurements (other than PPI/display technology and size preference), it's very obvious 2014 to this point had been 'iterative' with refinements to UIs (Samsung has definitely worked in TouchWiz instead of adding 'more' they've refined existing features, ala S-Pen/features and it's recognition when the pen is out ... Better overall ability to 'control' the OEM's pre-installed software (carrier bloat, different story but ubiquitous regardless of Android choice) -- point being they've succeeded with UI improvements and that's a BIG end user 'upgrade' IMHO. While the UI needs a refresh, a launcher of choice is a simple and cheap addition. The A7 hit Qualcomm like a ton of bricks. While indeed Apple is still a ways away from utilizing its full power due to RAM, the A8 instruction set, new memory management and the 7.1 'update' were HUGE. Obviously still keeping computational pace with significantly 'faster' clock speeds on half the cores with half the memory. As well - the dated IT graphics solution Apple used on the A7 will certainly be updated on the A8. Qualcomm will be ready with 64bit SOCs next year, or late this year. I guess my question would be 'why' HTC, Samsung, and LG aren't using the faster 805/420s today? Sorry to ramble but ultimately, I'm extremely excited to see this type of evolutionary improvement from one of today's largest display manufacturers. I'm glad to see the transition from '3D' to HiDPI from the 2011/12/13 CES shows to the '4K' and HiDPI displays shown off this past January in Vegas, and actually 'affordable' 1.0 releases @ Best Buy half way through '14. IMHO, display resolution rules the roost. With resolution, comes ALL the primary factors that make ANY resolution 'good' vs 'great". Attributes that come FAR before resolution updates, you're correct ...kind of. Brightness while important, especially in a cell phone is pretty important. Though as you can plainly see, it's still 'good' and easily visible outdoors. Contrast = Huge. Color and gamut/calibration as well as grey scale, gamma, display technology used, viewing angles, saturation and 'response time'. If you're gaming, you're looking for fast refresh rates, you'd hate my new Eizo. Soooo many factors that go into a good display and they're each (OEMs) beginning to 'get it'. Pre sale calibration. Options for, albeit limited post purchase calibration (TouchWiz and the display adaption option). Pushing barriers is good. My dream is to have 4k displays and a delivery system for the content in place by 2020. HiDPI displays are ubiquitous on computing displays. (Hard to explain my passion and 're' invigoration for using my computer, my laptop ...daily, since purchasing my first rMBP in 2012. We've now got seven, five for the business, two personal 15" 2013 rockets! PCIe TB storage that is faster than anything I've used in my life, a display that blows my mind EVERY time I turn it 'on' ...its I/O options, TB2 has become a GodSend for us, as have the new docks and the ability to literally turn it into a 'desktop' workstation (- the Xeon procs and enterprise RAM, you'd never know. It's truly THAT fast!)). I could go on and on but I guess I'm blown away by the 'reasons' some folks come up with to not replace their five month old bad ass pocket computer. Nor do I understand the backlash from our 'geek' community against LG for pushing the barriers AND using scientific reasoning to explain human visual acuity, how much density is 'truly' necessary to be indistinguishable from the sharpest photo, the finest print (especially for many traditional Asian writing/text/characters and alphabets)... Or and while I so hate the cliche itself; "Like looking through a window" ...IOW, his explanation was pertaining to the ability to 'see' in a display the 'same' visually your eye would see in a 'real world' scenario.
Again, all my opinion. Yours is different, I respect that. But I don't respect spec chasing, bullshit reasons to upgrade every three months to chase specs and bragging rights. That's dumb. It's not what you make, it's what you save. From your comment, I'm assuming your young (ya know what they say about assumption though). If I'm wrong, I'm sorry. If I'm correct, the difference in you saving that extra three to six hundred a year you're dropping on cell phones when you're 30, 40, 50...65 and ready to retire, is HUGE! Say you're 25. Without interest, that's $12-$24,000. With that cash each year and another $150/month stashed away starting at 20 instead of thirty in a fund that nets you an 8% average yearly increase (over 40 years) is 3.9 million @20 vs 2.2 million at 30 years old. At 40, you'll be lucky to hit a million. Figure out today what tomorrows 'Apple' stock will be and throw all that out the window. Buy all ya can and sell in a decade. You and the next six generations of your family won't have to work ;)
anishannayya - Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - link
No one has the time or energy to read your massive wall of text...tenaciousjesse - Tuesday, July 29, 2014 - link
Wow. You may have priceless knowledge. U DO ramble, but it's not just random idiotic rambling. Email [email protected]soldier4343 - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
Ignorant.TechShark - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
I have a Sprint US G3 and the screen is super bright and colors seem very close to my iphone 6. I actually prefer the G3 display. I've heard that LG tweaked the display for the US version of the phone after some of the brightness and calibration criticisms about the Korean model such as was reviewed here. In fact on reviewer said he thought it might be a different panel altogether. Maybe Anandtech can look into this and see if recent US spec G3 models are in fact getting an improved display because mine is simple gorgeous and very bright.soldier4343 - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
Having the top of the line is all about bragging rights over actual benefit of a higher resolution.vr4africa - Friday, May 1, 2015 - link
I do not agree, with VR becoming big, I for one are big fan of VR, you need at least a 1440p screen. For proper VR you actually need a 4k screen. That is one of the reasons LG has pushed for the 2k screen. So if you were living under a rock the last 2 years and do not even know about VR, you should not make comments and judgement!hughlle - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
And how do you arrive at that conclusion? It is stomped over by the G2 in the majority of the battery life tests.cylemmulo - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
did you mix up the words G3 and G2?ASEdouard - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
I don't know. Brightness/viewing angles in a photo display is very important to me. I'd take that over the higher pixel count. I think I actually like the G2 better than the G3.ASEdouard - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
in a ''smartphone display'', not photo. Damn not edits.Midwayman - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link
No kidding. If I were comparing the specs of the two as competing phones, the g2 wins more of the tests I care about and is really close in the others. Only think I don't like is the sealed battery, but the cover is easy to remove even if its not technically 'user servicible'coburn_c - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
The better battery life, the better display, the better size, the cheaper price.. Yeah the G2 is LG's best phone of 2014..ASEdouard - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
True that.goobersnatcher - Saturday, July 12, 2014 - link
I agree .... you can currently buy the G2 for slightly under $400. The G2 is a significantly better value. However, if money is taken out of the comparison ...... the G3 wins by a tad! Either would be a good choice. IMHOESC2000 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Remember that android L is showing massive improvements in battery life. If G3 owners can get android L onto their devices without too much delay, admittedly a big if, then the battery life of the G3 can be expected to improve a lot. And it already ain't half bad.soldier45 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
No SD card support kept me away from the G2.rowlin - Monday, July 7, 2014 - link
The problem is the G2 battery is not replaceable and the 4.4.2 upgrade degraded the battery life.Midwayman - Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - link
It actually can be replaced pretty easy. Not something that I'd want to do in the middle of the day as part of a routine of carry multiples, but easy enough if you're worried about the battery dying later in life.soldier4343 - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
Technology advances daily, they aren't going to wait on you and your 2 year upgrade cycle.SlyFoxHD - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
LG G3 battery can withstand 6 hours of screen-on time,on full brightness.And watch
Suck it up.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/First-improvised-LG...
Flunk - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
What you're saying isn't really compatible with what's said in this article, if it dims the screen even when you set the brightness manually how can you possibly test at 100% brightness?Troll fail.
mahalie - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
It only dims the screen slightly if the phone is in danger of overheating, so it's possible to test the screen at 100% brightness.Alexey291 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
So its 100% but its not full brightness - way to twist words /sighfokka - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
full brightness*david4041 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
No.. If LG G3 had the same resolution as the GS5 or M8, with the bigger screen it would not have been as sharp (ppi). What LG managed to do was build a phone with a significantly bigger screen AND a higher ppi. And since the G3 has a thinner bevel, it isn't much bigger than the GS5 and M8.Battery life? From what I've read, the phone should last all day. That's all one really needs. Charge the phone at night, charge it while you're at your desk, charge it in the car, buy an extra battery, buy a battery pack.
peterfares - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
It would have been plenty sharp with an RGB 5.5" screen. Look at the Note 3, that has a PenTile 1080p 5.7" screen.soldier45 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
Haters going to hate innovation and moving forward with tech.flatrock - Tuesday, July 8, 2014 - link
The G3 is a showcase for what LG is capable of, so spec-sheet oneupmanship is to be expected. I would like to see 1080p screens show up on some slightly smaller and more affordable devices. Or LG can just keep making the G2 for a while. The G2 is a great phone and is still a high end phone even this long after the initial release. If the G3 didn't pull some spec-sheet oneupmanship the reviews would just be complaining about a lack of compelling differences from the G2. I guess it's the price LG pays for doing the G2 so well.barleyguy - Tuesday, July 8, 2014 - link
One place I can think of where the resolution would be a benefit, is Google Cardboard, or future VR implementations that use the same idea. With VR, the resolution of a small screen makes a significant difference, from what I've read.I'm pondering a G3 for that reason, as well as the removable battery and SD slot.
Midwayman - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link
By the time VR on your phone is a 'thing' you'll have been through a couple more phones most likely.soldier4343 - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
So on your book we should stick with 1080p forever...Tyler_Durden_83 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
MSM8974AC 2.45 GHz Snapdragon 400I don't think that you meant 400 :)
JoshHo - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Whoops. Fixed, it should be correct now.dyc4ha - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Do you mean Snapdragon 801 in the table?JoshHo - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Yes. I distinctly recall fixing this same exact typo too. Not sure what happened there.editorsorgtfo - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
IMO the stacked-battery issue is a red herring. Removable batteries haven't hurt Samsung's battery life versus their competition, and a stacked battery didn't break any runtime records for the Moto X. (OTOH, 720p didn't seem to help the Moto X's runtime either, which is odd considering how 1440p hurt the G3 here.)JoshHo - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
The stacked battery design does increase volumetric efficiency. The LG G2 and Galaxy S5 are about the same size in the hand, yet the G2 has a noticeably larger battery. The Moto X is another discussion entirely as it was on a much less power efficient process and the AMOLED technology in the Moto X had much higher power draw than the LCDs available at the time.SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
My old phone once froze so bad i couldn't turn it off by holding the off button. Removing the battery was the only way to get it to work again. I think that's a big enough deal to keep the battery removable.darwinosx - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
No that would be bad hardware and software design.JoshHo - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Any phone with a non removable battery will have a reset mechanism. It's usually holding down the power button for 5-10 seconds.SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I was holding it down for a minute. Nothing happened. And now in the newer Android holding down the power button opens pop up. The pop up is useful, but it does not turn the phone off.devione - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
My Sony Xperia Z1 Compact (and probably most in the Xperia line) hard resets when you hold volume down and power at the same time for a few seconds. It has yet to fail me and resets every time I've used it.Without mentioning your mobile phone model, which probably has a similar hard reset mechanism, you're probably just being disingenuous.
Do you complain about not being able to hard reset sealed laptops or tablets too?
SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I don't use or plan to use tablets. My laptop has a removable battery. The hard reset that you mention is a factory reset. At least it was on the LG L5. My old phone was the LG Swift.ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Sony uses different combos than LG.flutberf - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Does your Z1c freeze often? I've never had my Z1s freeze. In fact, I haven't had a random reboot or freeze since my Galaxy Nexus.ZeDestructor - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
I've had it happen on my Z once, never on the Z1 or Z2.Then again, I seem to have amazing luck and miss almost all bugs...
cmdrdredd - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
I have had my Galaxy S3 freeze or restart on me at times. Mostly because I was not running stock software I think.fimurca - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Hold power button and volume down at the same time for several seconds. Internal battery is a non issue. I've had it lock up before. Power and down volume always works.ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
My Z1 (to be sold) and Z2 have a hard power-off switch near the SIM tray (or you can pull the SIM card out, that reboots the phone too). My Z before both (now my dad's) had a hard-poweroff if you held down the power button for some time (not sure if 4s or 10s), like most current PCs. Phone freezes are a non-excuse for people who want removable batteries.SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
An Android phone works without SIM, so why does pulling it out reset it? Does the flight mode reset it as well?And you can't tell me that's a non-excuse. If you pay 200€ for a phone and you can't use it after a freeze. I would be very pissed off. A power off switch under the cover that physically cuts power would be the best way to go, but no review ever mentioned that, as far as i know.
ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Some form of security perhaps? I just noticed it in the manual where it states that removing the SIM-card from a powered phone will cause it to reboot.If I pay any amount for a phone and it freezes unreacoverably, I would be pissed too, but like I said, there is a key you can press to power off, or you can implement some form of key combo or long-press. Be pissed at the implementation and manufacturer, not the concept.
Besides, just about the only time I've had an android phone lock up was when I overclocked or ran very early custom ROMs, something I don't do since I got a Sony phone, their ROM being so lighweight and bloat-free (admittedly after uninstalling/disabling bundled stuff like facebook) in comparison to the usual Touchwiz/Sense4 bloat
SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
At the time i did not know about the factory reset button combo, but removing the battery was so easy i didn't give it a second thought (until now). Factory reset means that you have to install all the apps and change the settings. Your google account has that stored but it still takes time to download everything.ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
It doesn't do a factory reset, just a hard reboot, similar to what happens when you press the reset button on desktop computers. If it has one...What I would like on the other hand would be that the back cover would be bolted to the frame, rather than glued... means I could swap the battery when it wears out, like current lightweight laptops/ultrabooks have.
SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
It did a factory reset for me on LG L5. Or maybe i pressed the wrong combo (volume up + power off). Who know anymore. I didn't have to do it since.The possible battery swap sounds perfect. Kind of like a removable battery, but only the cover holds it in place, so the phone can stay thin. Is that what you meant?
ZeDestructor - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
Yup. I don't mind pulling wires or carefully avoiding PCBs (And I bloody well should be, given I'm a Computer Engineering student!), and I understand why the batteries are sealed (less redundant casing), but I would like the replaceability to remain. Thus some screws holding things together looks like a good compromise to me: things can stay thin for marketing, I get my repairability, everyone is happy.ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
How do you measure up the Sony Xperia Z line? They all have strict "bands" in the phone body for different elements between the screen and the back panel: top is just enough room for a double-sided PCB containing almost all the electronics, the very bottom contains a speaker, microphone, vibrator, camera button and some antennas which leaves the middle as a large battery block, which as of right now is the biggest battery in a non-phablet phone.phoenix_rizzen - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link
Xperia Z: 2330 mAhXperia Z1: 3000 mAh
Xperia Z2: 3200 mAh
G2: 3000 mAh
G3: 3000 mAh
So, out of the complete Z line up, only 1 has a larger battery, and each of the phones is physically larger (taller and wider) with smaller screens (diagonal) than either the G2 or G3.
rxzlmn - Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - link
Well, the current one (who would care about past models?) does have the bigger battery. And the screen has the same diagonal as the G2.H20_mike - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
The slight increase in volumetric efficiency doesn't make up for the loss of capacity over time that all LIPO batteries suffer with enough charge cycles. As a heavy user having the option to replace the battery with a new one is a huge benefit. Also nice if buying a used and not knowing the state of the battery.peterfares - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I agree. Give me a damn removable battery and SD slot.Stacking it might get it to have slightly more capacity but not that much. Like 5% more. I'd rather have it be removable.
Krysto - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Android OEMs short-sighted focus on marketing gimmicks to the detriment of actual performance is infuriating. As you said, LG could've chosen a higher quality 1080p display, that along with the same battery would've also given better battery life and higher performance. But no, instead they chose to chase the "bigger is always better" gimmick.We have a Full HD display in the palm of our hands - what more could we possibly need? They could've chose a 1080p display with a bigger focus on sunlight visibility, or just leave it the same, and focus on improving the camera even more, or making a more solid device.
ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
What kills it for me is the 5.5" Size. As someone who did the Xperia Z->Z1->Z2 route (the LCD did improve successively every generation, especially wrt colour gamut), phones are getting more and more unwieldy. If it weren't for the fact that the Z2 is physically narrower than the Z1, I'd have skipped it and waited for the Z2 or Z3 compact.SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I still prefer battery life. 480x800 is enough for me. It doesn't distort smaller letters, so i can still read a fully zoomed out web page (if it's not too wide). And you can have a smaller phone (a must since i keep it in my front pocket). I also prefer a bit more space between the screen and the edge. Right now i can't use my phone with one hand as it detects the tips of my fingers when i hold my phone. My grip has to be too lose for my liking.ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
480x800 and even 1280x720/1280x800 suck compared to 1080p. It's not just the ability to render, it's the font smoothing that's required. You need extensive smoothing at lower densities, and while it produces something readable (if fatiguing) for Latin-based, Cryllic and most Middle-Eastern and Indial peninsula characters, far-eastern scripts like Japanese or Mandarin render poorly, especially beneath 300ppi.Here's a comparison between 300ppi and 600ppi by JDI in 2012: http://www.j-display.com/english/news/2012/2012060...
SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Yeah with 3mm blown up to 2cm. But that's not how zoom work is it? Like you said, the font smoothing solves it and since there is less pixels the GPU consumes less power as well.ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
If you've never read Asian characters for any extended period of time, you'll think that font smoothing is enough. Fact is, it's not. With font smoothing, at small sizes, Far-Eastern characters just look like a blurry, gray mess, so people use hand-designed, pixel-perfect bitmap fonts instead.. For an equivalent comparison zoom it out to around 40-50% (because yay 100ppi on most computers :/). The difference in quality matters in person. Not for us, but for other people elsewhere on the planet.SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Another problem with the comparison is the size of Asian characters. In the picture they are the same size as latin characters. They write them bigger on paper for a reason. They would be a blob of ink if they were only a few millimeters. They need to use bigger fonts for their characters. Problem solved.ZeDestructor - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
On electronic media, Asian characters are sized similarly to Latin characters.fokka - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
i also prefer battery life, but i think the z1 compact, moto g and moto x are at the sweet spot of resolution for me 720p is nothing over the top anymore and makes for perfectly fine ppi at 4.3-4.7 inches.1080p is great too at 5 inches and upwards, but that's already where diminishing returns kick in heavily.
but 1440p is just stupid with phones you can burn through in 3 hours, if you really want to.
ZeDestructor - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
At normal view distances (15-30cm), I can see the pixel grid and aliasing on a 720p 4.3-4.7" screen :(.I'll move back to 4.x" once we get 420+ppi into the 4.3-4.7" segment.
ASEdouard - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
Aaah, didn't like the move to 1440p, but I feel there tradeoffs to get a 1080p display over a 480 800 are worth it. They look so much better.Homeles - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I actually have a huge struggle with getting the G2 to fit in my jeans, although that's mostly because of the case.Midwayman - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link
You must be wearing women's jeans.HarvesterX - Wednesday, September 3, 2014 - link
LG has been making the displays in iPod Touches as well as the newer iPhones. I agree a lower resolution would have been nicer and mainly why I stuck with my G2.My G2 performs just as well if not better (nodded of course) and all I'm really missing is that display, which I'm not actually missing one bit. Let's see what LF does with the G4 or by then I'll find another OEM (not Samsung)
Krysto - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I'm also disappointed to see nobody else has chosen the F2FS file system besides Motorola - not even Google in Android L, which is a real head-scratcher. Why could that be? Too much on their plate for L? They don't think it's quite ready yet? (it clearly seems to be on Motorola devices).It's weird they aren't racing to adopt it, when it gives nearly 2x performance in write speeds, for free.
ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I suspect it's the same reason I'm still on ext4 rather than btrfs: they don't have enough faith in the FS just yet and want to see how it performs (especially wrt reliability) before committing to it, or it did something similar to what happened in my test of btrfs, it died and corrupted data.editorsorgtfo - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Somebody filed a bug for switching Android to F2FS:https://code.google.com/p/android-developer-previe...
You can vote by starring the issue.
ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I see Z1s results in the graphs. Should we be expecting a review soon?piroroadkill - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Surely the Z2 is the current one to review. Z2 Compact when it hits will be the real star of the show, in my opinion.ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
They have said before that they will only review what Sony sends them. If sony sent the Z1s, then the Z1s is what will get reviewed.Also, is the Z2 even out in the USA yet?
ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
And by out, I mean non-gray-marketpiroroadkill - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
Don't know, live in the UK so I could pick a Z2 up no problemZeDestructor - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
I live in Asutralia, and yeah, I just walked into my nearby Telstra store and bought one outright to use with my Virgin Mobile SIM card. Took like 15minutes to go from house, to store and back. US on the other hand I think is still all gray market, and no carriers have picked it up yet :(DIYEyal - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
With these bad contrasts and low maximum brightness, I would guess that this display is a worse experience than a good 1080p display. even when not factoring the shorter battery life and the lower performance.Although I would like to get my eyes on this display and see how small of a text I can read comfortably, I have a 5" 1080p smartphone and I have no problem reading most desktop sites without zooming in. I wonder how much will a 1440p display at that size will improve..
Not going to buy this phone, but I would like to get my eyes on it..
Also, the camera on this phone seems top notch by these tests. I would like to see how does this camera performs against the sony Z2 and the nokia 1020, or the oppo find 7 (50mp software enhanced).. Not going to lie, I don't know much about cameras. a good auto is very important because you can make bad photos on an expensive DSLR and you can make nice photos with a phone. But all I know is tap to focus.. I expect the auto settings to do the rest. How well does this camera perform on auto in a variety of conditions?
Taracta - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
300 DPI is a MINIMUM! Stop treating it as an end-all measurement. It is quite obvious that 600 DPI is better than 300 DPI at 12 inches away. Try it with your desktop printer (this is probably the only device that can vary DPI as this level). When has a minimum ever been good enough? Double it an then it MIGHT be good enough. This is what desktop printers have done. So until displays are 600 DPI, and this includes DESKTOP MONITORS, I for one will not be satisfied enough to call them good enough.piroroadkill - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Why do you hate pixels? You made them sad.mkozakewich - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
Naw, we just like more of them working together!DIYEyal - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Doesn't mean that we should trade contrast and brightness in favor of high resolution. Not to mention battery life and performance..SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
DPI, PPI doesn't mean shit!! You should be worried about PPD. What is the point of having 600DPI if your ocular sensor can't capture enough data for your brain to tell the difference? We, the consumers, have to convince reviewers and manufacturers to use PPD. I am using a 1080p 21'' monitor which makes 102PPI. At about 3feet away (1 meter) i can't see a single pixel. Why would i need more PPI?ZeDestructor - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I can't see individual pixels on my 24" 1920x1200 screen (~97ppi), but I can EASILY tell the difference between 1920x1080 on a 5.0" phone compared to 1280x720 on a 4.7" phone at 30cm view distance.Hell, when the iPhone 4 came out with 326ppi, I could see the grid at around 15cm view distance, probably more - some of us have better eyes than others.
Not seeing the pixel grid doesn't mean it's past ocular limits.
SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
If it looks like a perfect circle it can't look any more like a perfect circle. Can it?ZeDestructor - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
The eyes is very good at spotting aliasing. It doesn't jump out at you, but you get the inherent feeling that it's just not right, and with someone like me, that breaks down to peering closer, and closer, and closer, then suddenly microscope D:jeffkibuule - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
We must stop this silliness that "not seeing pixels" is the only goal of a display when there are several other metrics at play. You'd still be able to tell the difference between aliased and non-aliased fonts at 12 inches because our brain does a lot of "massaging" of the raw data our eyes capture before we interpret it in our visual cortex. Or more simply put, "the eye is not the be-all end-all of human vision".SleepyFE - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I didn't say not to alias fonts. That has nothing to do with resolution, PPI or PPD. The point is that when you can't tell the difference anymore, you can't tell the difference anymore. Aliasing and proper color reproduction and so on are different problems.mkozakewich - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
Just because you can't see them doesn't mean other people can't. I could see the tiny spaces *between* pixels on my desktop monitor, and hairlines were still really thick. On my 1080p 10.5" screen right now, I can still make out two parallel lines from two feet away, and can see the jaggedness of an aliased 1px line drawn diagonally. At least the white background of this page doesn't look like a big mosquito net at this density.In short, we can see a *lot* of detail, and I know it's not enough for me as certainly as you know it's enough for you.
We really shouldn't need any kind of antialiasing. Until our screens are of high enough resolution, though, they make good stopgaps.
phoenix_rizzen - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link
And PPD stands for ... ? And it compares to PPI how ... ?kaelynthedove78 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
"The laser appears red to my eyes, but a camera with a poor IR filter sees the laser as purple, which suggests a spread of spectrum rather than a single wavelength."kaelynthedove78 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Lasers are single wavelength sources, so what are they actually using? Does the phone come with the mandatory laser safety class certificate/sticker that lists the power and wavelength?soccerballtux - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
did you get the placemat you used for the photograph background at Target? ;)Rdmkr - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
The concluding statements gave me a laugh; I agree that everything about this phone is perfect except what distinguishes it from the LG G2. If they just made an incremental update of that model they'd be exactly where they need to be. Which kinda raises the question of why they don't just do that. The way smartphone OEMs rigidly classify and offer their models without them ever changing has never been something I well understood.MonkeyPaw - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
You need some Lumia phones in your camera tests. The 1020 and the 930 might be a nice start.BPB - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Agreed!MonkeyPaw - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Can't say I've ever seen a Lumia (or WP device) review on Anandtech, save the 521. As unique as the 1020 was, all we saw was a "hands on" at a press event. A little more coverage would be nice.webby7 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
So, are we still pretending your senior smartphone editor has dropped off the face of the planet?The lack of information on this is really poor form.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
If there was something I could share I would :)cylemmulo - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Any phone that resolution, even like a 7 inch tablet serves no purpose except to trick people into buying the phone and eat battery life. Leave me at 720p and give me my battery life back.cmdrdredd - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
720p isn't enough, it's gotta be 1080p because yes, I notice differences when watching 1080p videos.phoenix_rizzen - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link
LG Optimus G has a 4.7", 720p screen, and a 2100 mAh battery, weighing only 145g.LG G2 has a 5.2", 1080p screen, a 3000 mAh battery, weighing slightly less (143g), and is only just barely larger than the OG.
OG: 131.9 x 68.9 x 8.5 mm
G2: 138.5 x 70.9 x 8.9 mm
Yet, battery life on the G2 is phenomenal compared to the OG (or, really, any other phone out there). People routinely get 6+ hours of screen-on time, even with the default LG version of Android. And plenty of people can push that to 10+. Personally, I've only ever topped 7 hours, but it's an almost daily occurence now (Mahdi ROM, based on Android 4.4.4, with ART enabled).
There's more to a solid performing, long lasting phone than just the screen. :)
However, I (personally) don't see a reason to go above ~5 inches and 1080p on a phone. For a tablet (7"+), sure. The 2012 Nexus 7 has a horrible screen resolution for the size, although the SoC really limits the choices in resolution. :)
The LG G2 is just about perfect. If only it had a slide-out keyboard ... :(
dwade123 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Android is so damn ugly. Hire some actual designers.sherlockwing - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
You listed Nexus 4 in the first Display Brightness graph then Nexus 5 in all the rest, could it be a typo?sherlockwing - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Nvm, I misread and didn't see Nexus 5.Niteowl360 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Thank you for an awesome review.Technically better than most reviews whilst ensuring the layman remains in touch.
Only thing I found a little strange was the lack of excitement over the display.
Particularly most reviews have pointed to a slightly undersaturated display, in contrast to your findings.
Whilst your review states audio quality on per with the M8, I would have liked you to spend more time on this. After all we are still talking about a device which is primarily a phone!
I'm an HTC purist, but I believe HTC have continued to disappoint in the Camera department.
At the same time I believe the HTC logo and speakers however good, do come at an unacceptable wastage of display real estate.
I have always loved the realistic color saturation of HTC devices, and again raise reference to your findings on the over saturated G3 which seems to be a view shared by yourselves.
Thank you for an excellent overall review. Refreshingly detailed in substance.
Alexey291 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
The display is of below average quality, albeit with higher resolution which reduces performance and battery life.Its a lot of tradeoffs for a small gimmick which is barely visible in reality.
zodiacfml - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Nahh, LG knew everything about this and just wants to compete with Samsung. How can LG beat Samsung's AMOLED display?I don't know but LG is probably not going the OLED route because Samsung's tech is superior.
peterfares - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
This phone looks really awesome, especially finally going back to removable battery and SD card.But what's putting my off is the QHD screen. It's just a waste in every way. Waste of money. Waste of battery power. Waste of CPU and GPU resources. Waste of RAM. Shame. Everything else about this phone is AWESOME.
flyingpants1 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Having onscreen buttons costs you 7% in screen are, and defeats the whole purpose of having a larger screen.Buttons should be capacitive, no bezel, and the browser UI and notification area should be cut down by about half.
Should have made a G2 with front speakers..A
UpSpin - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I disagree with you. On screen buttons vanish in full screen apps like games, video players, browser if you like, photo viewer, ... so practically no screen area is lost at all.On screen buttons allow a larger level of customization if you root. For example left right arrow in text fields once the keyboard shows up.
On screen buttons allow edge to edge displays. So practically you get a larger usable display at a smaller physical smartphone size.
If you feel too much space is wasted, I recommend you to root your smartphone, reduce the lcd density value, reduce the on screen button size and use the immersive mode of android.
Death666Angel - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
My on-screen buttons disappear when I'm not using them and almost all apps are good enough to use that space to display more stuff. Only means I have to swipe up or down to active them again, which hasn't been a hassle when using the G2 for the past 2 months. The design is much nicer as a result as well. My wifes SGS3 looks so ancient even compared to my Galaxy Nexus.Cruisecontrol - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
Too bad about the display. That was one of the things I was hoping would make this phone stand out. I guess I'll have to wait to see if Samsung delivers an S5 Prime and what that has to offer.sna1970 - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
S5 prime will be 999$ forget itPETER WONG - Friday, July 4, 2014 - link
I have the feeling G2 is better build than G3 as I am using both now. G3 is unable to install candy crush saga, ( reported not compatible device). I suspect this is G3 problem. LG does not want us to play Candy Crash on G3. This will show how quick battery is drain out from the phone.PETER WONG - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
Anyone install Candy Crush Saga on G3? Only can play on G2!xmen77 - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2797810mbehna - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
Can you test future cell phones as to their integration with in car infotainment systems such as Ford Sync? My old phone HTC EVO 4G LTE worked fine but my G2 does not. Seems that LG has decided to not implement MAP so messaging over BT is not supported.ASEdouard - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
Crazy how the iPhone 5s still hold its own in the cpu and gnu tests. It's almost 1 year old. The Nexus 5 isn't too shabby either.ASEdouard - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
''holds''Alexey291 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
well for most part the tests it wins at are browser tests and synthetics. The biggest "real world" cpu test out there is ironically 3dmark and there iphone 5s is roughly where it should be.poohbear - Saturday, July 5, 2014 - link
When are u getting your devils canyon review up? Smartphones r nice, but dont neglect your core audience who are computer enthusiasts first!!ZeDestructor - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
Reviews are usually written in parallel.blabby - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
I saw a movie where some characters had shiny buttons instead of eyes. This review reminded me of that movie.On a positive note, maybe the line to get this phone will be shorter! That's good because I want it ASAP!
plonk420 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
is it just me or does the SGS4 and 5 oversharpen? that good ole ring around hard lines...snark9a - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
If I root it to make it useable and give the better user experience (i'm a designer, after all) will I sacrifice a battery life? I guess I could carry another battery with me an charge it up.soldier45 - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
Will wait to see what the Note 4 brings in September over this phone.austinsguitar - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
oh man that camera though.... bestxmen77 - Monday, July 7, 2014 - link
phonearena.com/reviews/Camera-comparison-LG-G3-vs-Samsung-Galaxy-S5-Galaxy-Note-3-iPhone-5s-LG-G2-Sony-Xperia-Z2-HTC-One-M8_id3728eprice.com.tw/mobile/talk/124/4899661/1/rv/sony-xperia-z2-review/
eprice.com.tw/mobile/talk/124/4899662/1/rv/sony-xperia-z2-review/
4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=515584&st=860#entry30435226
blog.gsmarena.com/weekend-poll-samsung-galaxy-s5-vs-sony-xperia-z2/
phonearena.com/news/Samsung-Galaxy-S5-tops-our-blind-camera-comparison-for-the-third-time-in-a-row-LG-G3-close-second_id57178
polls-polarb-com.a.ssl.fastly.net/000/186/650/186650-1-large-d063293267b7ddb6.jpg
pp.vk.me/c618826/v618826401/95e9/7bw7hDlOdSg.jpg
pp.vk.me/c618826/v618826401/95e2/NMeVKQWoFs0.jpg
pp.vk.me/c614824/v614824401/15efd/3awlVBQMNfo.jpg
pp.vk.me/c614824/v614824401/15ef4/hCockYiBow4.jpg
pp.vk.me/c619218/v619218401/ad50/vZosnbAwfNo.jpg
pp.vk.me/c619218/v619218401/ad49/TX4mRgFNq3I.jpg
phonearena.com/reviews/LG-G3-vs-Samsung-Galaxy-S5_id3724/page/3
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2662379&page=65
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2662379&page=62
xmen77 - Monday, July 7, 2014 - link
good only low light shotscnet.com/news/lg-g3s-laser-equipped-camera-put-to-the-test/
aryonoco - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
Thank you for another excellent review. Your display, battery and camera tests are again without a doubt the best in this industry.Just a couple of off topic points:
1) It would be great if you also reviewed the Sony Xperia Z2. Along G3, the SGS5 and the M8, it is arguably the other 2014 Android flagship. And I would love to have your take on its camera. I understand that Sony has a negligible presence in the US market, but you guys have significant number of readers from other countries where the Z2 is readily available and popular (Australia and the UK for example). Also a good number of your US readers are the kind of tech savvy people who buy their phones outright and so the review would be of use to them as well. I'm sure Sony would love to send you a sample if you asked.
2) While I don't want to take anything away from the stellar job that Josh Ho is doing, I do miss Brian Klug. I understand that you are not at liberty to shed any light on his sudden disappearance, but I just wanted to raise it here.
ZeDestructor - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
As Anand has said before: They review what get's sent in. Nothing more, nothing less due to budgetary concerns.If you really want a Z2 review, you could always try and organise loaning out yours (something like order off amazon, ship to AT, then have it shipped along to you after the review is done) or something similar... I'd give it a try if I lived in the US, but I don't, I live in Australia, and the shipping costs make me sad.
Klug4Pres - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link
I don't think it is that simple, actually.They review things that the manufacturers want them to review, as evidenced by them being supplied with the review item.
They do not say they will review anything that their readers are prepared to lend them.
Mumrik - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
"even if it’s a bit off-putting that LG is trying to make plastic feel like metal. "I'm generally not a fan of that either, but surely it's better than Samsung working hard to make plastic feel even cheaper?
rlab_joo - Sunday, July 6, 2014 - link
I wouldn't worry about battery life too much. The devs, and rom creators, at xda developers, haven't got to it yet, you can do wonders there.CoryS - Monday, July 7, 2014 - link
No...people convince themselves they do wonders. In reality custom roms usually hurt battery life, and custom kernels have hosts of other issues.Sunsmasher - Monday, July 7, 2014 - link
This is by far the most thorough, insightful and intelligent review that I've seen on the LG G3.I own the G2, and this review gave me more valuable information than any other review that I've read (and I've read many, many of them). Kudos to Joshua and Anand!
rocktober13 - Monday, July 7, 2014 - link
Is it worth the extra $100 or $200 over the G2? I have an upgrade coming up on Verizon. I don't like the M8 with the wasted space from the HTC logo, and my wife has the GS5 so I can't get that ;).Also, I heard there is a 2GB and 3GB version; would there be any noticeable difference in performance?
yvn - Monday, July 7, 2014 - link
I was so gonna get this phone as I hoped the display would be the best in regards to color accuracy....i am very disappointed now :(djc208 - Tuesday, July 8, 2014 - link
My biggest problem with my original Optimus G has been LGs speed in updating the software. There are reports that we might get one last bump to 4.4 kitkat, otherwise they they haven't released an upgrade since they went to 4.2, which is sad considering it's essentially the same phone as the Nexus 5, so Google practically does all the work for them.Meanwhile the SGS4 is already running 4.4.
phoenix_rizzen - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link
Optimus G is the same phone as the Nexus 4, not the Nexus 5 which is based on the LG G2.The OG is very easy to root and install custom ROMs onto. There's a vibrant community of devs working on the OG on XDA. My OG died before I could test Android 4.4 on it, but it ran beautifully with RootBox (Android 4.2.2) and Carbon (Android 4.3.1). ParanoidAndroid, SlimBean/SlimKat, and a handful of others are also available.
I tried to like the LG version of Android, but just could not get over the colour scheme (too bright for me; physically painful to use in the dark, even at low brightness). The only part of the LG ROM I liked was the handwriting recognition in the keyboard. However, the gesture feature of the AOSP keyboard is much nicer to use. :)
PETER WONG - Tuesday, July 8, 2014 - link
Finally this morning Google help me to install Candy Crush in G3Shan83 - Wednesday, July 9, 2014 - link
Guys, people who are using this phone for quite some time, please do share your thoughts about "overheating" of G3 being mentioned by people.Is it abnormally getting heated even upon moderate usage / playing low graphic intense game or continuous Wi-Fi usage?
Please comment.
boe - Thursday, July 10, 2014 - link
This is a nice review but it would be great if the battery life chart showed talk time. I know it is crazy, but I use my phone to make phone calls.AncientWisdom - Thursday, July 10, 2014 - link
No way! oOHrel - Thursday, July 10, 2014 - link
Pretty glad I got the G2 this year, this phone sucks. 5.5" really? The G2 is already a bit too large and I have huge hands. 4.7" is probably the ideal size. They need to stop going beyond that.Perhaps because of LG's slim bezel chassis they can go larger, but certainly no larger than 5".
CampoX - Friday, July 11, 2014 - link
I was up for a G3 but after my Ultra died in my pocket this review was the reason I went for an M8 this week.goobersnatcher - Saturday, July 12, 2014 - link
If LG would have kept the size of the G2 and went 1080, QC 805 and made it the next Nexus .... I'd be all over this phone!andredogg - Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - link
Just bought this phone 4 days ago and I must admit it grows on you quickly. Selfie cam looks like a mirror my s5 active selfie cam is not in same league. And if your LG g3 is dim turn off auto brightness. Also like that every icon can be replaced by any pic or icon you find by holding down icon and releasing it and touching little paintbrush. overall experience is great. Also the 2k screen is amazing if you find content to play on it. Knock codes are also useful.yvn - Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - link
I had a chance to check out the display of LG G3 yesterday and oddly I have to disagree with Anand on its color reproduction. Not sure about the charts and other tests he did but it extreme close in color reproduction to my iPhone 5s and with just a tad more on red tones but then I know the iPhone 5s has a little weakens with reds and greens hues, so in other words the colors on G3 is spot on! hmm....Samsung even in "movie" mode looks way off so I am not sure how Anand claims in the review that Samsung has best display??? I am sure it is not so!soldier4343 - Thursday, July 17, 2014 - link
Handled one yesterday in store and its a great device. Waiting for the Note 4 in September to see what changes they made before upgrading which I do once a year.SpartyOn - Saturday, July 19, 2014 - link
Not a single Windows Phone for battery life comparison. It's like being a parent: I'm not upset... just... disappointed.Thanks Anandtech for continuing to promote a mobile phone OS duopoly.
deV14nt - Sunday, July 20, 2014 - link
I'm surprised the Galaxy S5 brightness was not measured with auto on. DisplayMate measured the max brightness at 698 nits with auto on, the brightest display they've tested, beating out the Note 3 by about 50 nits.It also would have been nice to see the G3 auto focus tested at less than 2 feet, to see the laser AF at its best conditions.
Kanuj5678 - Wednesday, July 23, 2014 - link
Thanks for the detailed review only issue with LG G3 is that they lauched it in 2 versions one is 16Gb with 2 gb ram for Rs.46,000 in Indian Market and other with 32 Gb with 3GB ram, now a person who is spending 800 US $ will not buy a smartphone with 1gb less ram,as a buyer dont feel right to buy a hardware which is any thing less of top gun when you are paying top dollar for it .Also the Nexus 5 is available for 480$ in India which is much lower than what LG has launched its flag ship G3. making a good phone is one thing understanding consumers and selling is another.
Lg has failed with G2 and proved many times it just fail to understand buyers
Regards
Kanuj Sharma
austinsguitar - Friday, August 8, 2014 - link
Just had this fone for 2 days and i love it. If you dont like it dont hate. Because there really is nothing to hate about. Standby battery is great and the os doesnt look like a kid took a crayon and created it "samsung/new ios." solid device. Couldnt be happier.Aritra Ghatak - Thursday, May 7, 2015 - link
Do I need to attach the sample review as a file with the email? Also is there any need of special tagline in the subject column of email?Elise - Monday, May 25, 2015 - link
Is it possible to deliver it to Lebanon?And can i know how much is it?