Different manufacturers take different stands on how exactly are they going to market their products. This depends on the industry heavily and, in a highly evolving industry like smartphone industry, most of the manufacturers are struggling with this. The problem here is three fold; manufacturers can either improve the hardware, or the software. Occasionally some manufacturers try to improve both and most of the time it ends up in a disaster. The other way to differentiate is to change the overall design that would make the device a radical debut; but that radicalism can make the market collapse for the device as well in some cases. Today we are going to talk about a manufacturer who has used all of these ways to differentiate their product from other products in the market. LG G2 comes with ergonomic redesign, hardware improvements as well as tons of software improvements. All of these are timely changes that tell us LG is not kidding with their devices and want the crown of smartphones to themselves. Of course, the crown itself isn’t going to suffice unless it trumps sales targets as well at which point aesthetics of the device becomes a priority. So let us look at the device in depth and compare it with LG’s own predecessor LG Optimus G Pro.
LG G2 Review
LG G2 is LG’s latest flagship device, and it makes sure to emanate the feeling that LG has upped its stakes considerably. It looks somewhat like its predecessor LG Optimus G Pro but has a lot of differences that can effectively differentiate them from each other. LG has tried to redesign the ergonomic, upgrade the hardware, as well as introduce new software features all at once, which is a big task. Fortunately all of them seem to fit together very nicely, and we reckon it’ll be one of the favorite Android smartphones for customers in the near future. The first thing you can notice about LG G2 is that it has a really thin bezel, giving more real estate to the display panel. Looking a little more closely, you may be able to see that there aren’t any buttons on the top, bottom or the sides of the device which poses the question where is the side buttons and the volume rocker. Well that’s where LG has boasted the ergonomic redesign where they have moved the volume rocker and the power button to the back of the device right below the camera. This is actually a very sensible choice, and LG justifies this by emphasizing that we change the way we interact with mobile devices, when they get bigger and bigger. Hence LG’s new design allows you to use your index finger very easily to take control of your device and ergonomically the buttons lie at the exact same position where we usually keep our index finger when holding the mobile device. LG has also added some quick options for long pressing volume rocker keys which will definitely come in handy. We have a reasonable doubt whether these buttons would accidentally be pressed when the smartphone is faced up, but the curved design of the buttons will reduce that in majority of instances.
LG G2 has 5.2 inches True HD IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels at a pixel density of 424 ppi. It is absolutely a vibrant display panel and reproduces natural colors with extra brightness. The display panel alone ups the ante for G2 because it’s impressive. It is powered by 2.26 GHz Krait 400 Quad Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM 8974 Snapdragon 800 chipset and Adreno 330 GPU along with 2GB of RAM. This might be the smartphone with a processor at the highest frequency as of now, and it sure will deliver butter smooth performance without failing you for a moment. The underlying hardware is reined by Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, and we expect LG to release an update soon for this great device. In terms of software additions, we can see the usual UI experience from LG, and there is a more developed version of QSlide. For those of you who don’t know what QSlide is, it is LG’s toolbar for multitasking and the apps on QSlide can be used in a windowed mode without using the entire screen, and you can open up several other QSlide apps and use them simultaneously, as well. You can move the windowed app around and resize it as well which is really convenient. There is also an added feature called SlideAside where LG allows users to utilize three finger gestures to switch between running applications. Another interesting thing you can notice is that a lot of icons and toolbars are customizable in LG G2. For instance, you can change your smartphone’s system key layout, which gives you superior control over your device.
LG G2 has 13MP camera that comes loaded with a lot of software tweaks. There are tons of scene modes and camera modes inbuilt and it can capture 1080p HD videos at 30 frames per second. There is 2.1MP front camera that can be used for video conferencing. LG G2 camera also has an interesting feature in the video mode is called TrackingZoom which lets you to zoom and track a portion of your screen if and when it moves around. For instance, if you are making a video of your kid playing around, you can ask the camera to zoom on the kid and let camera track the kid as long as the kid is in the frame. As you can see, LG has put the monster CPU to good use.
LG G2 comes with 4G LTE connectivity which is a no brainier for a high end smartphone nowadays. It also has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual band with DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, and the ability to host your own Wi-Fi hotspot to share your superfast internet connection. LG G2 uses a micro SIM just like LG Optimus G Pro. It comes in 32GB version without the ability to expand the storage using microSD card. There is 3000mAh battery included in LG G2 with which LG promises a battery life of 1.2 days with complete usage.
LG Optimus G Pro Review
LG Optimus G Pro is the successor of LG Optimus G which was released last year. If you are keen about the smartphone market, you might know that Google Nexus 4 had a striking resemblance to LG Optimus G and still have a great demand. With what we have seen so far about the LG Optimus G Pro, we are positive that this is going to create a tight competition in the phablet arena. This handset is based on Qualcomm’s new chipset Snapdragon 600. It was announced recently along with the Snapdragon 800 version which is the best chipset offered by Qualcomm as of yet. The new chipset is said to be considerably faster and enables you to clock the CPU at higher rates. As such, LG Optimus G Pro is powered by 1.7GHz Krait Quad Core processor on top of Qualcomm APQ 8064T Snapdragon 600 chipset along with Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM. Android 4.1.2 commands the beast for now, but it will soon get an upgrade for v4.2 Jelly Bean. The internal storage is at 32GB with the ability to expand it using microSD card up to 64GB.
LG has included 5.5 inches True HD IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display panel featuring a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels at a pixel density of 424 ppi. As you can clearly imagine, the display panel is gorgeous and reproduces vibrant and realistic colors. LG has decided to mold the device with plastic, unlike the high end devices nowadays which comes with classier materials, but this doesn’t mean the built quality is degraded. It’s just not as classier as having a brushed metal back plate. However, this is compensated by the ruggedness introduced through the plastic material. Like any high-end smartphone nowadays, LG Optimus G Pro offers 4G LTE connectivity as well as 3G HSDPA connectivity. Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n is included for continuous connectivity while it also features the ability to create a Wi-Fi hotspot to share your super-fast internet connection. The inbuilt DLNA capability ensures that you can wirelessly stream rich media content to DLNA enabled big screens for playback. The internal speakers are enhanced for Dolby Mobile Sounds, as well.
LG has decided to give a boost to the optics and included 13MP camera that can capture 1080p HD videos @ 30 frames per second. It also has LED flash and LED video light when capturing movies. The 2.1 front facing camera can be used for video conferencing, and it also enables you to capture 1080p HD videos @ 30 fps. The camera application includes a few tweaks from LG which attracted us. First off, LG has tried to emulate Google’s Photo Sphere feature and also the camera app offers a mode where you can capture from both rear and front cameras. This is a clever use of beasty computational power available in this awesome smartphone. Another tweak added to the OS by LG was the QSlide, which enables you to multitask in the same window. The QSlide enables apps can be overlaid on top of one another, and their opacity can be changed using the slider available which gives you access to a couple of apps simultaneously. LG Optimus Pro G is also fortified in terms of battery having 3140mAh battery. This would provide plenty of juice to be drained by the power hungry CPU and display panel throughout the day.
A Brief Comparison Between LG G2 and LG Optimus G Pro
• LG G2 is powered by 2.26GHz Krait 400 Quad Core processor on top of Qualcomm MSM 8974 Snapdragon 800 chipset with Adreno 330 GPU and 2GB of RAM while LG Optimus G Pro is powered by 1.7GHz Krait Quad Core processor on top of Qualcomm APQ 8064T Snapdragon 600 chipset with Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM.
• LG G2 runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean while LG Optimus G Pro runs on Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean.
• LG G2 has 5.2 inches True HD IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display panel featuring a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels at a pixel density of 424 ppi while LG Optimus G Pro has 5.5 inches True HD IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display featuring a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels at a pixel density of 401 ppi.
• LG G2 has 13MP camera that can capture 1080p HD videos @ 30 fps with a lot of software tweaks and 2.1MP front camera while LG Optimus Pro G has 13MP rear camera and 2.1MP front camera that can capture 1080p HD videos at 30 frames per second.
• LG G2 is smaller, lighter and thinner (138.5 x 70.9 mm / 8.9 mm / 143g) than LG Optimus G Pro (150.2 x 76.1 mm / 9.4 mm / 172g).
• LG G2 has 3000mAh battery while LG Optimus G Pro has 3140mAh battery.
Conclusion
LG G2 vs LG Optimus G Pro
In terms of performance, the definite conclusion is that LG G2 is better than LG Optimus G Pro. This can be inferred in a lot of different ways, but the simple fact that LG G2 is the successor of LG Optimus G Pro should attest to that. If that’s not enough, we can point out that LG G2 has a better processor on top of a better chipset and GPU, a better display panel, a better camera with lots of new tweaks, a better UI with an intuitive UX and on top of that, LG G2 is smaller and thinner too. That’s a lot of reasons to vote for LG G2, but don’t believe our word for it; go ahead to the store and feel both smartphones and look at how they fit your need. You will need that especially here with the ergonomic change LG had done on the buttons. So, if that’s not your cup of tea, you might not want to get a LG G2 for yourself, but if it is your cup of tea, go ahead by all means.