The LG G3 Review

Final Words

Without question, the G3 has been the most interesting smartphone to learn about this year. With a 1440p display, laser autofocus, and all sorts of new power saving methods, there was a great deal to learn about. However, just because a device has a novel design doesn’t mean that it’s a good phone. On the other hand, a novel design makes a good phone that much better. The HTC One (M7) is a great example of the latter, with a radio system that is novel enough that people continue to misunderstand how it actually works. In some ways, the LG G3 draws similar parallels. Before launch and during the launch, there was pervasive misinformation on how the laser focus system actually worked. Even now, it’s not uncommon for people to say that there’s no significant delta in battery life from the 1440p display.

Unfortunately, if there is any real flaw in the LG G3, it is the display. The goal of attaining a ~540 PPI has come at immense cost. Relative to the competition, the LG G3 definitely sees a noticeable reduction in battery life, although it’s still firmly above what we’ve seen from 2013 (Snapdragon 600) flagships. Outside of the power trade-off, the display doesn’t get particularly bright for daytime viewing. There are also issues with the saturation compression that causes obviously oversaturated colors in almost every situation. LG has also added significant artificial sharpening to the display image, which causes noticeable artifacting in some situations.

Yet, outside of the display, LG has done a great job on the G3. The industrial design and material design is surprisingly good for a plastic phone. LG has also addressed the complaints of users by adding a removable battery and microSD slot, although the former has a significant cost to the battery life experience for those that don’t swap batteries.

LG has also innovated on the camera. While they still use the same camera module from last year, LG seems to have struck an acceptable balance with the G3’s camera system. By leveraging the 1.1 micron pixel pitch for higher spatial resolution and OIS for low light photo quality, I suspect most people will be happy with the camera. The new laser auto focus system works surprisingly well in most situations, allowing for better focus in low light and low contrast scenarios. In my experience I almost never saw a situation where AF failed, even in macro.

The camera isn’t the only area where LG has done well. I found LG’s UI to be genuinely good, and well-designed. While I have some minor nitpicks (at best), I would have zero problem using this UI. KnockCode is surprisingly great, and the addition of LED feedback over the G Pro 2 makes for far greater reliability. I used to question whether I was entering my code incorrectly or if the display simply wasn’t registering my taps, and with this small feature that point of frustration is gone. In the past, I found that LG UI was more usable than TouchWiz, and the same seems to be true now. LG has managed to follow Google’s UI guidelines to make the interface out of familiar elements, yet put their own unique visual style.

Even in the display, there are still signs that LG is actually trying to do things well. While I object to the dimming behavior, LG is correct in saying that the dimming behavior is below the level of human perception. It’s also interesting to see that they continue to push power savings through mechanisms such as dynamic refresh rate. There’s also potential in this area to adjust battery life through kernel modifications, although it’s unclear just how far LG can push in this area without visible decreases in smoothness.

Overall, the G3 is frustratingly close to perfect. A much-improved 1080p display, smaller size, and staying with the stacked battery design would’ve made this phone much easier to recommend as the best phone of the Snapdragon 801 generation. Unfortunately, as-is I can only say that it’s equal to everything else on the market. Everything seems to be similarly imperfect in their own way, and it comes down to personal preference which imperfections are tolerable and which aren’t. HTC delivers the best audio experience, LG provides the best balance of camera experience (from day to night shots), and Samsung offers the best display. Perhaps this is a taste of what the future will hold for enthusiasts. However, if the past is any indication, there’s still hope that there will be one phone to rule them all.