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
Platform Power
In the weeks leading up to this review there seemed to be a litany of headlines crowning the G3 as the new king of the battery life hill in the Android space. Our own battery life results disagreed with the conclusions but I wanted something a bit more concrete. Thankfully with a removable back cover and removable battery, instrumenting the G3 for power analysis is just as easy as it is on the Galaxy S5. Just like we did in our Galaxy S5 review, we measured device level power (with the display enabled) running a number of workloads. As always, all displays were calibrated to the same brightness level (200 nits, full white). Note that we are looking at average power here, not energy consumption. The latter is really what you want to report but for our needs here average power should be good enough.
At idle looking at a white screen the G3 uses more power than a Galaxy S5. Here we see the real burden of using LG's 2560 x 1440 panel, lighting up that many pixels definitely takes its toll on power consumption. Compared to the GS4 however, LG's G3 is an improvement. When asleep and in pocket the GS5 has a negligible advantage, the G3 is fairly close and is clearly better than the Snapdragon 600 based GS4.
The SunSpider results give you the other datapoint that should put to rest the G3's power consumption story. Under a heavy CPU load, the GS5 still manages lower overall platform power although the G3 again is better than the GS4. The SunSpider numbers combined with the idle/white screen numbers are enough to tell the story about G3's battery life vs. Galaxy S5. The G3 has a 5% larger battery but the potential gap in power consumption is much larger.
The video capture, camera preview and GFXBench results are interesting to look at but I wouldn't conclude much here other than to say that the G3 as a platform can consume quite a bit of power under load. For a better look at these scenarios we'd need to integrate power consumption over time to calculate energy usage, which as I mentioned before was beyond what we really needed to do for this review.
The main point here is to settle the debate about the G3's battery life. Yes, it has a larger battery than the Galaxy S5, but that doesn't mean it'll last longer on a single charge. I won't comment on reasons that other battery life tests would conclude differently.
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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
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pp.vk.me/c619218/v619218401/ad50/vZosnbAwfNo.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.