Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2014/06/27/review_lg_g3_android_smartphone/

LG drops G3 quad HD Android mobe with FRIGGIN' LASER camera

Could this be the Android handset of the year?

By Andrew Orlowski

Posted in Personal Tech, 27th June 2014 09:01 GMT

Review LG is releasing its new G3 smartphone today. It’s a large device made slim and comfortable by clever design, and is distinguished by a mind-boggling screen, and a superb camera. It’s let down only by hardware buttons, which can be a challenge to locate with accuracy, and the software execution, which hasn’t really tamed Android or added much to it.

LG G3 Android smartphone

A sight for sore eyes? LG's G3 quad HD display smartpone

This year’s flagship from LG has been designed to put a large, stunning display in your hands. At 1440x2560-pixels, the G3 offers more detail than anything else on the market, and actually much more than the naked eye can see. The 5.5 inch display also affords plenty of room to view your games or images.

However, specs don’t quite convey the excellence of LG’s design. After all, the G3 should feel like an enormo-phablet – but it doesn’t at all. That’s because, as with last year’s G2, LG has removed the side and top buttons found on most modern portaphones and moved the volume and power round to the back to make a slim, smooth, tapered design with very thin (but still comfortable and curved) edges.

LG G3 Android smartphone

The plastic looks convincing as metal until it gets a few scuffs

The bezels are very thin and even the phone’s chin – sans dedicated Android buttons, as is the norm these days – is quite narrow. It’s the hardware designer's equivalent to a trompe l’oeil something that is actually big doesn’t feel so big.

Now consider that the LG G3 has a removable 3000mAh battery, and also supports Qi wireless charging – a huge convenience most people haven’t tried. And it weighs just 149g, about the same as the Galaxy S5’s 145g and a shade less than the HTC One M8. For a display that trumps 6-inch tablets, this is a marvel of thoughtful miniaturisation and clever design choices.

LG G3 Android smartphone

Removable battery and microSD card expansion – wot's not to like? Click for a larger image

It’s achieved by eschewing metal and glass where it isn’t needed – the the removable back cover has a faux metal effect – but it doesn’t feel cheap and the trade-off is a significant one.

The good design extends to some of the complementary accessories LG has produced to work with the G3. Three of these merit particular attention. There’s a very nice windowing “QuickCircle” flip cover – which is not a new idea, but LG’s is the best implementation I’ve seen by miles; the LG Tone Infinim (HBS-900) headset with Harmon-Kardon buds, and an unusual Qi charger that folds away.

LG G3 Android smartphone

The QuickCircle flip cover provides a condensed view of shortcuts and notications

The potential showstopper with the G3 is you’ll have to get accustomed to groping around the back of the phone to activate the power and volume keys. The buttons are distinguished enough, but really they and need to be a millimetre or two bigger.

So after several days of using the LG G3, around one in seven attempts to hit the power button actually succeeds. Most of the time I hit a combination of power and one of the volume keys.

LG G3 Android smartphone

Those buttons take a bit of getting used to

If this was my long-term device I’d superglue a button from a kid’s craft kit, or a felt washer onto the power button. But this shouldn’t be necessary on state of the art consumer electronics kit. This is an issue that will confound some people but not others, but those it will confound will be well and truly annoyed.

Putting on a display

LG notes that you can wake the phone and turn off the display by double tapping on the screen. Or, you can buy the quite beautiful and well thought out a magnetic flip cover which will wake the phone as usual. Yes and yes: but the double tap stops working when you use a third party launcher, and given the state of LG’s skin – which I’ll come on to – the discerning ‘Droid user will probably want to.

LG G3 Android smartphone

Light weight and deceptively slim

With a pixel area four times the size of a standard HD screen (or, if you like, 1.8x the pixels of a full HD telly), the screen is the G3’s showpiece – complementing its 13Mp stills camera and 4K video capture. Games I tried - Badland and Smash Hit - looked good, and sounded great, thanks to the 1W speaker. In all the G3 has 11m sub pixels, so there is extraordinary detail, literally more than you can see.

All well and good, but is it legible outdoors and does the Quad HD screen kill the battery? Yes, and not so much, I found. The IPS is perfectly acceptable on a rare sunny June day and while the device doesn’t chug along as it might on a 3,000mAh cell, LG’s power saving has given it a useful stretch – one it can replicate usefully in other models.

LG G3 Android smartphone

Laser focusing camera enables accurate and rapid snapping

LG reckons that by using adaptive frame rates, and other tricks, it’s chiselled out about 20 per cent battery savings. In all, I found I could get a day out of typical use if I wasn’t playing games. There’s no getting away from the fact that the display draws a lot more power than standard HD displays, and most of the time you cannot see the Quad HD advantage – but in practice it gets you through the day.

LG didn’t cut corners by omitting a microSD slot; it’s present and correct. And it’s particularly good to see Qi wireless charging included, as once you have a couple of charging pads installed where you most use the phone, the battery life ceases to be a worry – it’s always topping up.

LG G3 Android smartphone

Topping up the power wirelessly on a Nokia Qi charger

Qi is built into a few Nokia Lumias and Google’s LG-built Nexus, but has not yet appeared on a popular, operator-subsidised phone. With prices for chargers now as low as £14 on Amazon, you should pick up a handful. Or even pop for a wireless battery pack like the Nokia DC-50, that never needs to be plugged in. You won’t regret it. It’s also nice to see infra-red blasters returning to phones – LG bundles in a Quick Remote app so programming your own Peep Show Master Blaster is straightforward.

Software fit and finesse

LG says it’s aimed for simplicity and tried to remove clutter with the G3’s software experience – but if that was the goal, we will have to judge it harshly. Tier 1 Android device manufacturers have, in recent years, attempted to add their own cumbersome skins and stuff the phone with their own-brand duplicate apps, and felt a backlash.

LG G3 Android smartphone

Homescreen – tapping the circular Google folder brings up a cluster of apps

Google has developed its own “stock” and Play Edition phones, and this no-frills Android has been popular at both ends of the market: at the tech-savvy end, where people add their own launchers, and at the bottom, where they want a basic feature phone, and stock Android is plenty good enough.

LG, which developed the most recent Nexus phones for Google, finds itself between two stools. Compared to stock Android, it’s a performance with a lot of dissonant notes. I wouldn’t grumble here as a bumpy ride has always been part of “the Android experience” – and it’s an Android world now. But Android has got much better.

LG G3 Android smartphone

Apps and browser

In particular, this year HTC has shown that it is possible to tame the wildest contours of the Android experience, and yet not bloat the device in the process. While LG’s 2014 skin is simpler than before, it doesn’t match the consistency and superior design of HTC’s current offering.

Thoughtful gesture?

Yes, most duplication has been removed; the LG store “LG SmartWorld” is fairly easy to avoid. But inconsistencies and yeuchs abound. For example, the G3’s screen populates with new apps very quickly, giving you an out of space error. Adding widgets “the preferred LG way” is incomprehensibly difficult, as it gives you a small horizontal window that can only show two or three at a time. There is no visual indicator showing you how to add additional home screen panels, and no help to consult.

LG G3 Android smartphone

Smart choice? LG's SmartWorld top paid app is a bit of stinker

In fact, you do a pinch gesture, as on Samsung devices – which is fine if you’ve come from a Samsung, as sooner or later you’ll try it. Also, the font is too large on the icon labels and the gallery names. Alas, there are only comedy, novelty alternatives to the stock system font. The G3 includes what it calls QSlide apps, which are widgets that overlay the screen (like Mac desk accessories or er, Vista widgets) but in practice these don't add much utility. They (obviously) obscure real apps, and don’t bring much of their own.

You can also run some apps in split screen mode – which is more of a party trick than something you’d use. (I can envisage people Tweeting while watching TV, for example, but most people who do that have two screens already).

LG G3 Android smartphone

You can change fonts although the choice is limited and configure preferred notifications

And there’s a quite useless bit of ambient “personal assistance” – called Smart Notice. This is a service that nags you that you haven’t answered a call, or if there’s a change in the weather. A bit redundant here in Blighty, that. I found it useful for reminding me whether or not to add a contact to my address book but that was about it – and even that quickly became irritating. I suspect many users would gladly swap the QWidgets for browser reflow, sadly not supported here.

It’s not all bad news, though, as one unreserved success is the keyboard. The litmus test of an own-brand keyboard is how long it takes me to install Swiftkey. I found I still hadn’t after a few days. You can adjust the height easily and the error correction (finding the right key for sloppy or drunk typing) is very good. Knock Codes work well too – you define a pattern with taps and then unlock the phone by tapping anywhere on the screen. I also appreciated the Guest Mode.

LG G3 Android smartphone

Stretchy keyboard, anyone?

For the record, call quality is OK but I'd say the earpiece could be a bit louder. However, the in this respect speakerphone is fine.

Despite the microSD card expansion, LG offers both a 16GB and 32GB model, the former gets 2GB of RAM, the latter 3GB and both rely on a Snapdragon 801 processor that's clocked at up to 2.5GHz. However, LG tells us the UK is only going to get the 16GB version.

A quick blast with AnTuTu on this 16GB model notched up a respectable score. When run again, with barely any juice left in the battery, the power saving kicked in and shaved about 20 per cent off the full charge figure. It's not the highest ranking but it holds its own and in the hand the performance isn't found wanting.

LG G3 Android smartphone AnTuTu and graphics details

AnTuTu benchmark results and graphics details

Photo finish

On a high end flagship smartphone the camera shouldn’t disappoint, and this one didn’t. In test shots the G3 bested the HTC One M8 and even Nokia’s 1020 in many situations, and performs better in low light than Samsung’s Galaxy S5, turning out beautiful pictures without the customary noise.

And as you can see from the pictures, the camera performs well in demanding, high-contrast sunlit situations which cheaper phone cameras tend to struggle with, and usually over expose. For example, here's a before and after HDR shot of St Paul’s – a photo where two thirds of the image is in gloomy shadow – that enhances the amount of detail. HDR has been around on flagship phones for a while now and delivers in challenging lighting.

LG G3 camera shots

Shooting with the High Dynamic Range (HDR) option (right) makes all the difference, bringing out detail in shaded areas that are lost in normal mode (left) – click for a full-resolution image

LG G3 camera shots

HDR again - here showing off the G3's slightly wider angle lens than most phone cams

LG G3 camera shots

Even without HDR active, you still get a decent shot – click for a full-resolution image

The camera boasts a novel (for a smartphone) infra red laser rangefinder allowing very rapid autofocus – LG says it can focus in 0.276 seconds. The LG G3 also has optical image stablisation (OIS+) along both axes – and this produced a steady video image stream.

There’s good visual feedback on the focus points, and a simplified camera UI. A little over-simplified in the case of video – you’re shooting footage as soon as you activate the video button. LG boasts that it can shoot 4K video which it works a treat with the digital zoom, maintaining a respectable quality in all but extreme magnifications. Playback is on the phone isn't too smooth though and I’d be more inclined to forego 4K for better access to controls.

LG G3 Android smartphone

A big, HiDPI screen without the bulk – let the resolution wars begin

The Reg Verdict

The LG G3 has its share of contradictions, such as its quad HD screen and a laser focusing camera coupled with a so-so Android reskin and basic photo shooting controls. And then there's its appealing compactness, offset by those back buttons that are a bit Marmite. Yet there's some sensible thinking here too, as the storage expansion and removable battery are must-haves for many. All in all, LG arrives with one of the year’s best phones – as long as you can get used to the controls. ®