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
System Performance Cont'd
While we’ve seen how the LG G4 performs in some general system workloads, in the interest of focusing a bit more strongly on GPU performance and gaming workloads we’ve also run a suite of benchmarks that are closer to mobile games in terms of workload and more strongly emphasize GPU performance. These tests are usually representative of burst/turbo performance. Those interested in steady-state performance can take a look at our extended rundown tests in the battery life section.
In GFXBench, we can see that the Adreno 418 GPU is a definite step up from the Adreno 330 in the Snapdragon 801, but not quite at the level of the Snapdragon 805's Adreno 420. As a result, on-screen performance is similar to the Snapdragon 800's Adreno 330. This seems to hold in both tests, which suggests that the balance between shader hardware and texturing hardware is relatively similar to the Adreno 330.
3DMark is a bit of an odd test in the sense that the factors that influence performance in the test are generally hard to predict, but we see a significant deficit in the physics test as it seems to be strongly influenced by main memory latency as the test is cache-unfriendly. The graphics test also indicates a minor improvement over the Snapdragon 801, likely due to differences in architecture from the Adreno 330 to 418 that are coming through in this test. At any rate, the end result is that the G4 ends up around the same level as Snapdragon 801 devices.
In this test we see that the G4 has a noticeable uplift relative to various Snapdragon 801 devices, but the improvement continues to be slim enough that in on-screen performance the 418 is really comparable to the Adreno 330 in the Snapdragon 800 rather than the Snapdragon 801, which puts it just below the Adreno 420. Overall, the LG G4 is definitely fast enough to enable a good user experience, although the somewhat weaker burst GPU performance leaves it at a handicap relative to anything equipped with an Exynos 7420. Given some of the issues we've seen with the Snapdragon 810, it seems that LG's choice was a wise one.
NAND Performance
Although NAND performance has always been important, until the Nexus 7 (2012) it wasn’t really an area that received a lot of scrutiny. For the most part, people didn’t really pay attention to storage beyond how much storage was available. As a result, this aspect of the device was often subject to aggressive cost control, often to the detriment of performance. However, in the case of the Nexus 7 we really started to see how cutting too far could make a device almost unusable instead of just slow and frustrating.
In the interest of testing this aspect of device performance, we use Androbench with some minor modifications to test settings to get a rough idea for how fast the internal storage solution is. In the case of the LG G4, it seems that Toshiba manufactures this NAND, named 032G74, but there’s otherwise not much information publicly available on this eMMC solution.
As far as I can tell, the LG G4 has relatively similar NAND performance relative to the G3, but the tuning appears to be somewhat different as the G3 is faster in random reads but the G4 is faster in random writes. Either way, the storage solution in the G4 is sufficient for good performance, although not quite as fast as the Galaxy S6. I suspect that in the absence of an SLC caching system similar to the variant of iPhone 6 that we tested that sequential reads/writes will continue to be relatively low.
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bleached - Sunday, August 2, 2015 - link
http://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Column-right/Mobile...Arcetnathon - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
You point something really strange.Each review of tech website published month after release is worst than first tests.
Maybe big company doesn't play fair and send very specific smartphone that will never be in store...
akdj - Thursday, August 6, 2015 - link
As an owner of three of the top 5; S6, Note 4, & indeed... The iPhone 6+, which raps the 'top 5' "Apples is (sic) 'rate' in the top five'The 6+ is indeed produced by Apple ...my subjective feelings are almost identical to Josh's. S6 Edge is an incredible camera. I love it. My Note 4 always has been, with micro SD it makes shooting 4k practical, but my low light shots are pretty sad in comparison to the 6+, as well as 'action' or fast moving shots. S6 shoots 4k, excellent 1080p, but the video stabilization and 60fps-240fps adjustments on the iPhone tump the other two, and I'm just realizing I've placed my response after the wrong reply of your dxo link.
It's saying damn near what Josh concluded. DxoMark is specific to still photography, heavy on resolution and to those ends the sensors in the S6, N4 & G4 indeed play in the same field as the iPhone ...and in some cases beat it. That said, for simplicity point and shoot and nearly every time get an excellent shot without latency or buffering, the iPhone is hard to beat. Without G4 experience I'll hold judgement, but for video, the iPhone is it. For stills, I'm partial now to my S6 and the Note 4 has always been phenomenal
Apple opening their 'souls' a bit with the ability to interact with the SoC ala their native apps, there are plenty of manual control, high resolution shooters (using the 8 megapixel, 4K sensor and its speed) as well as slow motion and video editing tools --- probably the biggest weight in the iphone's favor is the App Store, it's amazing selection of editing and shooting tools as well as continuous updates might just top the subjective list of top 5.
*i don't own a 4K TV but I've got the ability to playback 4K on my MacBook Pro -- looks amazing but it's limited in length of time you can shoot and heats the camera up nice and warm. The S6, all around, my favorite for everything and now my go to camera in most situations. It's smaller and easier to shoot --- but for video capture, my son playing baseball, or last weeks Mötley Crüe show, the iPhone and it's incredible stabilization, video processing and iCloud uploading, ....see where I'm going?
I own a business, have for two decades and with a dozen employees equipped with their choice, I pay for them ...and have iPhone as a personal - S6 personal and Note4 business only. Primarily the stylus and autographs for credit cards has a cool vibe with clientele. You mileage may vary but dxo mark scores in the mid 80s rivals and defeats many point and shoot cams under $300. A point or two difference isn't real world, nor the bible on what to buy. Iphone is ranked 5 & 6 (+ & standard) - can't seem to find the Experia in America and their separation of a couple points in the mid 80as -- without considering motion at all, I'm not sure ANY is the wrong choice and for many that don't want manual control, the iPhone with HDR is hands down the layman's favorite. Android, I'm with the S6, double tap home button to pop the cam and it's rare even as a DSLR shooter that I'm adjusting settings, modes or manually selecting ISO, Aperture or shutter speed
S6 Edge, I love it. 6+, love it. Note 4, still awesome - bit heavier but easily used now with experience and the right case
Take motion into the equation and the limitations on 4K, post processing there of and playback ...I think this is the reason Apple has put this much effort into their sensor as it's the perfect 'size' for non cropped, full sensor 4K shooting
Maybe I'm confused, but I'm ambidextrous, love both and have owned both since 07/08. Dxomark is a silly geek site for resolution of serious optics. Those scores and their differential is hardly a 'win' for any flagship mentioned
J
Pissedoffyouth - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
How does the handoff between clusters cope compared to the 810? Does it scale from 2>4 cores when stepping down, averaging the load across the A53 cluster?nikaldro - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
The S808 throttles about as much as the exynos 7420.nikaldro - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
The S808 throttles about as much as the exynos 7420.grayson_carr - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
My God. I thought this review would never come. I already lusted after the G4, bought the G4, owned the G4 for a while, and then bought a Nexus 6 to replace it haha. Still, it will be good to know the Snapdragon 808 lowdown seeing as the Moto X 2015 and Nexus 5 2015 will make use of it.ThisIsChrisKim - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
I bought the G4 and I'm really liking it--camera is just superb. UI is meh, but not annoying enough for me to get something else.Nice seeing this review, nonetheless!
grayson_carr - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
I liked the G4 (maybe even more than the Galaxy S6 I owned before it), but there were a couple minor annoyances that ultimately led me to buy a Nexus 6. I found that the G4 performed well most of the time, but as mentioned in the review, in some apps it would drop frames more often than the previous two phones I owned (Nexus 5 and Galaxy S6). Also, the touchscreen seemed to be less responsive than the previous phones I owned, which started to get on my nerves. Finally, there were a couple software annoyances like the inability to expand notifications in some circumstances, that were bothering me. I did like the screen on the G4 better than the Galaxy S6 and Nexus 6, and the manual camera controls were boss, but ultimately I prefer the Nexus software experience.Fitnesspro - Thursday, July 30, 2015 - link
Grayson. You are right. Speed and battery count. I liked the G4 specs but was disappointed when tried the phone out at T Mobile. Has a snag and the actual screen id not