LG G2 – LG’s finest smartphone review

Not everyone remembers this, but there was a time when LG was a leader on the phone market and the first company to use a capacitive touch screen on their phones, even though they weren’t smartphones but simple feature phones with a penchant for style and fashion.

Nowadays, LG is spending its time trying to catch up to Samsung, Apple and HTC, with little success apparently. Their smartphones are good, but they just don’t seem to have the same capacity for marketing or production numbers as the top smartphone makers.

This year, however, LG has finally decided to go toe to toe with Samsung’s flagship phone, the Galaxy S4, and their contender is nothing to scoff at – the LG G2 gets nearly everything right and is a perfect example of a high end smartphone that people should not have any problem buying.

Design

The LG G2 has a very nice design and is one of the best looking smartphones to be released in 2013, despite its apparent minimalism. On the outside, it looks pretty much like a perfected Galaxy S4, with smaller borders around the display, curved Gorilla Glass 2 and a textured pattern finish on the back.

That’s kind of a shame, since LG does have their own unique design (check out the Optimus L7 and L9) that they could’ve used to avoid the Samsung clone accusations, but apparently that’s exactly what they’re going for with their new flagship phone – just like they did with the Optimus G Pro.

Nevertheless, the company managed to improve on Samsung’s design and add a few unique features that make the G2 more unique, most indicative of which being the power and volume buttons on the back – not many people may find this setup convenient, especially at first, but after a while you may learn to love it.

The lack of buttons on the sides and on the front also makes the phone’s borders impressively thin – that’s how LG managed to fit in a 5.2 inch display in a housing that’s very close in dimensions to the 5.0 inch Galaxy S4 – as a matter of fact, at the moment, the LG G2 has the highest display size to case dimensions ratio on a smartphone. The build quality is also great, just as good as the competition, although the plastic doesn’t feel as good in your hand as HTC’s One, the iPhone 5 and Sony’s glass covered Xperias.

Hardware features and performance

The hardware on the LG G2 is also top of the line – in fact, this smartphone has nearly everything that the other phones have combined. The above mentioned display uses an IPS LCD panel and has a 1920×1080 pixels resolution, with a 424 PPI pixel density that vastly outmatches the iPhone’s and even the iPad’s Retina Displays. Needless to say, the color quality, viewing angles and brightness are all excellent.

Performance wise, the G2 is one of the most future proof smartphones at the moment – it’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800, the fastest and most feature-rich platform the company has. The chip has four processor cores that run at 2.2 GHz, the Adreno 330 graphics adapter and 2048 MB of RAM – the latter might seem on the lower side, but keep in mind that most tablets, Chromebooks and a lot of laptops are also equipped with 2 GB and they’re doing perfectly fine.

By far the most disappointing spec is the storage – the G2 does not have a micro SD card slot, which can make things slightly more difficult in the future. There are only two models – with 16 and 32 GB of storage onboard, and I reckon you’d want to get the latter if you intend to use the phone for more than the occasional calls, web browsing and video streaming.

LG has equipped the G2 with the standard dual camera setup, with a 13 Megapixels shooter on the back and a 2.1 Megapixels unit on the front, both of which can take 1080p video and some pretty great photos.

The connectivity features include Wifi AC, Bluetooth 4.0 with low Energy mode, LFC, GPS, an Infrared transmitter, GPS/GLONASS, a micro USB port with MHL capability, HSPA+ 3G and 4G LTE, DLNA and Miracast.

Even with all that, the LG G2 is supposed to last up to 18 hours of moderate use, or up to 12 hours of continuous use, which is on par with the competition and rather impressive considering the high resolution display and the sheer raw performance. The phone is fitted with a 3000 mAh battery for that purpose, and so far tests have confirmed that the G2 does indeed reach those numbers.

Technical specifications

Specifications	LG G2
Display	5.2 inches, 1920×1080 pixels, IPS LCD, 424 PPI pixel density
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, 2.2 GHz, quad core
RAM	2048 MB
Graphics adapter	Adreno 330
Storage Space	16/32 GB onboard storage
Camera(s)	Back – 13 Megapixels with support for 1080p video recording at 60 FPS; Front – 2.1 Megapixels with support for 1080p video recording at 30 FPS
Connectivity Options	Wifi AC, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, NFC, Infrared, GPS/GLONASS, micro USB port with MHL support, HSPA+ 3G, 4G LTE, DLNA, Miracast
Sensors	Accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity, light and magnetometer sensors
Battery	Li-Po, 3000 mAh, up to 18 hours of use
Dimensions and weight	138.5 x 70.9 x 8.9 mm, 143 grams
Operating System and Software	Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean

 

Software

The LG G2 comes with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean onboard, which is not the absolute latest version, but it’s the most stable right now. Unlike Samsung, LG hasn’t put that much work into customizing the interface, so the OS looks pretty much like a default installation of Android 4.x.

That’s not a bad thing, as the phone is faster and less cluttered this way, and there are still quite a few features that are present only on the G2 – including the dual camera recording mode, QSlide minimized app widgets, TV remote control, sensor gestures (including the convenient double screen tap for waking the phone), customizable buttons on the navigation bar, Notes and more.

Modders will also like this phone, as it’s very easy to install custom ROMs onto and do a bit of undervolting/overclocking – the latter can significantly change the battery life depending on the settings, as testified by all the owners who have tried it on their Galaxy S3 and other Qualcomm-powered phones.

Price and Availability

The LG G2 has just launched at a $600 retail price for the 16 GB model – you can also get it for $200 with a 2 year contract, both of which are acceptable prices and comparable to the iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones. For what it offers, the G2 is a great choice for an all-in-one smartphone with a large display that can still fit in most pockets.

image credits: LGE , TheBetterDay