The LG G3 Review
by Joshua Ho & Anand Lal Shimpi on July 4, 2014 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- LG
- Mobile
- Laptops
- G3
CPU Performance
By now, the Snapdragon 801 is mostly well-understood. It has four Krait 400 cores at either 2.26 or 2.45 GHz, an Adreno 330 at 578 MHz, a faster ISP, DSDA support, and higher clocks on the memory interface, along with support for eMMC 5.0 for faster NAND speed. However, OEM design choices can have significant effects on the relative performance of a device. For example, the Galaxy S5 trailed behind the HTC One (M8) despite a faster SoC due to worse thermal dissipation. This was because water resistance necessitated a new design that effectively encased the SoC in a polycarbonate cage, trapping heat in. The LG G3 has the same SoC and same build materials as the Galaxy S5, but the midframe is magnesium, not polycarbonate. This means that peak performance can be higher than the Galaxy S5.
Relatively speaking, there's not much in the way of interesting things to talk about here, despite the new configuration. The G3 seems to trail the other S801 devices in web performance but it seems to depend upon the benchmark. This seems to be partially because of the G3's willingness to throttle, or because of the display's heat output. Either way, the trend is clear because of how often the display brightness is capped to 90 or 95 percent of the maximum to cool off the phone. When this isn't an issue though, the short benchmarks tend to show the faster performance of the G3.
GPU Performance
While the state of CPU benchmarking is heavily subject to difference in the performance of the web browser, things are a bit better in the GPU side. All Snapdragon 801 SoCs have the same GPU clocks, so this means that it'll be much easier to examine throttling behavior and reduce variability due to confounding factors.
Here, we can see a noticeable trend. In the short tests, the LG G3 does great, easily nearing the top of the scores. However, 3DMark's extremely long-running test means that the G3 noticeably suffers in performance compared to the competition, and this is worsened by the G3's sinusoidal throttling patterns that cause significant degradation of performance for periods of time to balance out the high performance periods. On the on-screen tests, the G3 does worse than the high-end competition, which suggests that QHD/1440p truly does need Snapdragon 805's Adreno 420 in order to keep real-world performance from regressing relative to the Snapdragon 801, 1080p-screened counterparts.
NAND Performance
NAND performance used to be an afterthought, and effectively never discussed in most reviews. However, after the original Nexus 7 revealed the headaches that come with poor I/O performance this metric has increasingly come under greater scrutiny. To quantify this performance, we turn to Androbench with custom settings to evaluate Android smartphones.
Here, the G3 is off to a great start. The sequential read speeds set new records and sequential write speeds are almost as good as it gets. This means that LG isn't cheaping out on NAND, which means that shooting 4K video and similarly intensive situations won't be a problem on the G3. However, random I/O performance is much more important as that's where people will notice poor performance in the form of stuttering and pauses.
Here, we see a similar pattern. The LG G3 does great in random reads, but random write isn't quite as great. It's still perfectly usable and shouldn't present any problems for smoothness or general performance. The Moto X continues to hold its considerable lead here due to its F2FS file system that allows for much faster random I/O performance. Overall, the LG G3 shouldn't have any issues with I/O pauses, although you should still keep around 25% of your storage open to keep up I/O performance.
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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
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pp.vk.me/c614824/v614824401/15efd/3awlVBQMNfo.jpg
pp.vk.me/c614824/v614824401/15ef4/hCockYiBow4.jpg
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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.