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
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.
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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 me-jesse30135@Gmail.comsoldier4343 - 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.