The LG G4 Review
by Joshua Ho on July 30, 2015 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Qualcomm
- LG
- Mobile
- Snapdragon 808
- LG G4
Video Performance
Along the same lines as still image performance, video performance is evaluated by using relative comparisons with various smartphones. However, unlike still image testing we attempt to more strongly emphasize the need for effective image stabilization, whether through digital or optical means. As we lack a standardized testing rig for various types of motion, these tests are purely relative and should only be used to compare between two different devices that are recording at the same time.
There are also a number of factors that affect image quality here, as there is both a need to meet real time latency targets and keep spatial resolution as high as possible. As a result, there is a stronger emphasis on ISP performance as digital image stabilization, sensor correction, lens correction, demosaicing, and other compute tasks must be done at rates as high as 480 FPS depending upon the device, with resolutions reaching as high as 2160p for output.
Looking at the stats for 1080p30 video, we see that the LG G4 uses 17Mbps high profile H.264 and 96Kbps AAC at 48KHz stereo audio, which is pretty much par for the course for high-end smartphones as far as I can tell. Comparing it to the Galaxy S6 shows that contrast is a bit lower, but dynamic range appears to be higher as well. Detail is also pretty much comparable, although the high contrast of the Galaxy S6 seems to help with improving edge contrast in certain scenarios.
The big differences are in audio quality and stabilization, where the G4 appears to reset often and is less able to dampen significant motion while the GS6 manages to avoid resetting the OIS as often and appears to have a greater maximum angle before the OIS reaches a travel limit. The G4 also has sharper wind noise, although the difference isn't enormous there, and in general noises seem to be a bit louder on the G4's video here. The color balance here is also slightly too cold for some reason.
In the interest of trying to add some more comparison points I also added the iPhone 6, which has noticeably more natural stabilization than either the G4 or the GS6. The tighter crop of the iPhone 6 also helps with improving detail, as I suspect all three are pretty much limited by the 1080p resolution rather than encode settings. The G4 also ends up noticeably louder relative to the iPhone 6, which is closer to the GS6 in terms of sound profile.
Unfortunately, there's no 1080p60 sample because for some reason I couldn't find the option to enable it in the G4's camera application, which feels like a pretty significant omission as any sort of movement would benefit greatly from greater temporal resolution. However, LG does have 4K30 recording, which has the same settings as 1080p30 but with a 30Mbps bit rate for video. Once again, the Galaxy S6 and G4 are incredibly close here in terms of detail, but the G4 avoids excessively high contrast and seems to expose to allow for much more shadow detail. OIS continues to reset more often, and noise tends to not be suppressed as well as it is on the Galaxy S6.
Moving on to slow motion, the G4 supports a maximum of 720p120 played back at 30 FPS, with 24Mbps baseline H.264, with identical audio to the other two video modes. Comparing this mode to the Galaxy S6, it's clear that the Galaxy S6 has much better detail and less obvious pixelation/blockiness throughout the video. As a result, it's also not as good as the iPhone 6 at slow motion video at 720p120. Neither the Galaxy S6 nor the G4 support 720p240, so the iPhone 6 definitely stands alone there as well.
Overall, video quality is acceptable, but slightly trails the Galaxy S6 due to slightly worse noise cancellation, worse slow motion video capture, and the lack of 1080p60 video mode. The slightly more obvious OIS might also be a negative, but this is somewhat subjective as it's basically up to the end user to decide whether they want to see large resets of the OIS somewhat rarely or smaller resets that happen more often. I personally would rather see simple dampening of motion rather than completely compensating for it, as in cases where it's almost impossible to completely defeat the motion with OIS video will appear unnatural and strange, to say the least. If the G4 has a downfall in camera, it's in video quality.
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Impulses - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
I get that Anandtech is US centric to an extent, but with a lot of people in the US opting for contract-less plans to save money it might make sense to start factoring price into the equation when it comes to flagships... I wouldn't even have a clue if there are any significant differences, last phone I bought was the N5 and that was the first and only phone I've paid for in full w/o subsidy.tuxRoller - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
Such a shame Qualcomm didn't make the 808's cores faster (say, 2GHz) and equip it with at least the adreno 420.I understand why they didn't, and given the 810's design wins, their strategy clearly worked, but it still leads me to wonder "what if".
I wonder what's going on with their implementation of cci(assuming that's the culprit)? They've had enough experience by now to know how to properly implement a standard two tier cache system.
Buk Lau - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
if they boosted the 808 to higher clocks, which I'm sure they could since all they've been doing since 801 is just overclocking the chips, that would give OEMs more incentives to choose the 808 over the 810. let's say this, if the 808 comes higher clocked A57s and adreno 420, how many people do you think would even consider the 810? After all the 810 is much more profitable than 808. It just sucks to see how many OEMs got burnt by 810.in a sense, OEMs only have themselves to blame rather than qualcomm for having to release junk phones all over this year. back in the old days qualcomm's SoCs suffered even worse overheating and performance and yet OEMs still persist to use their stuff, simply because they offered an integrated modem
if they didn't spoil qualcomm so much back then, there wouldn't be so little choices in the SoC market with players like Texas instruments and others competing against qualcomm.
Impulses - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Don't NVidia and Intel have integrated modems at this point? They're still making SoCs, as is Samsung, seems there's still plenty of choices... We lost what, TI and Sony? I must be forgetting others, I remember lamenting the contracting SoC market too...whiteiphoneproblems - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
"It seems that these improvements have been enabled with the use of photoalignment technology, which shares similarities with photolithography but attempts to induce anisotropy in a photoresist analogue on a glass substrate..."Well, you won't see a sentence like that in Gizmodo.com...!
zodiacfml - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Another excellent review. Thanks. I also love it when you include many other phones such as the Nexus 5 and Moto G in the benchmarks.Good thing the dual core has real life advantages over the 810. The 8 core spec is nothing but marketing advantage.
As a camera enthusiast, I would also love the manual controls. Yet, I don't think I would use it too often as the control you could get doesn't add to much to the image quality. I mean, using HDR mode pretty much fixes the IQ weaknesses of smartphone cameras to dedicated, larger cameras. The worse noise in the corners probably indicates vignetting with the lenses, only it is fixed/lifted in processing.
Few months after release, the G4 is now slightly cheaper compared to S6 yet I don't think it is enough. The S6 still has a lot better value to G4 because of the display and SoC. The external build quality and video specs makes the S6 even higher. The only fault of the S6 is the small battery they included with it. The Note 5 surely will fix that but it's going to be much more expensive.
Mugur - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Nice review, although some phrases were a bit too strange for my taste..."One of the major points of emphasis for us in the smartphone space continues to be display, as even though you can replace a display on a phone, the only real reason to do so is if you shatter the glass cover of the display."
And, of course, I fully disagree with the claim that "the GS6 is roughly equal to or slightly worse than the iPhone 6 Plus as a camera overall". In my personal experience, the S6 camera is the best all-around camera, at least with auto settings and I'm not a Samsung fan...
victorson - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
Hey Josh! You're fired.neo_1221 - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
I got a laugh out of that too. :Dmpokwsths - Friday, July 31, 2015 - link
These ridiculous nand/storage benchmarks...