Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Pros- 1. Gorgeous big screen. 2. Fast smooth performance. 3. MicroSD and removable battery. 4. Better looking user interface. 5. Nice camera. Cons- 1. Additions are mostly useless or inferior copies of others. 2. Still plastic exterior. 3. No waterproof. 4. No fingerprint sensor. Neutral- 1. Good battery life but inferior to predecessor. I have been using this LG G3 for the past few days. I plan to give you an idea of what the phone is like and whether or not you should consider it when it comes time to upgrade your phone. I have used many phones over the last couple of years including the Galaxy S5, HTC One (M8) and the LG G2. I plan on using comparisons to some of these phones to give you an idea how the LG G3 stacks up against them. DISPLAY The LG G3 display is 5.5 inches in size and has an impressive resolution of 2560 x 1440. Most of the other high end phones on the market have a resolution of 1920 x 1080. Everything on the display looks sharp. The colors are nice but not as saturated as the Samsung AMOLED screens. LG has made a big deal about the resolution on this phone but to be frank I can't tell the difference when I compare it side by side with the LG G2 or the S5. In fact, I like the screen on the S5 a little bit more. I like the colors in the S5 better. Doesn't mean the G3 is bad though. It is simply a matter of preference. The LG G3 has the upper hand when it comes to videos because of the extra screen size. It is amazing that LG managed to cram that big of a display in a phone that is not much bigger than the HTC One. One thing that troubles me a little bit is that the display is not as bright as others I have seen. During daylight I had to crank the brightness all the way up and even then I struggled to read web pages. It was readable just not very comfortable. Most smartphones require that you increase the brightness when under direct sunlight but usually it delivers a good performance. I can't say that was the case with this one. Maybe there is a problem with my unit. That problem was not present indoors. Normally I keep the phone brightness at 60%. PERFORMANCE The LG G3 comes with Quad Core Snapdragon 801 CPU running at 2.5 GHz. The unit I am using comes with 3 GB of RAM. The phone runs very fast and smooth. Everyday tasks run very smooth without any stutters. The good amount of RAM memory allows me to have many open applications at the same time without causing the phone to stutter. The phone can handle all of the games available on the Play Store. I spent a couple of hours yesterday playing Grand Theft Auto San Andreas on the phone and it was buttery smooth. No stutters, no lag. It is obvious to me that we are getting to point where hardware is getting ahead of the software. I have a hard time separating the performance from one phone to another. For example, the LG G2 is a year old phone. However, at this point the difference in performance is minimal at best. There is not a whole lot of difference. Everyday things like text messaging, making calls, opening and closing apps, playing games. They are all the same. The HTC One (M8) feels to me a little bit faster than the LG G3 but that is because the animations are quicker. Once again, the difference is minimal. All of the current crop of smartphone are fast, really fast. DESIGN I was completely fooled by LG when they started leaking pictures of the LG G3. I was ecstatic when I saw that the phone was going to be metallic. I was very disappointed when I saw it was nothing more than an imitation of metal. It is the same plastic design from last year but this time it has a coating that looks like it is metal. Now with that said, I like the fact that it is not nearly as fingerprint prone as the LG G2. It also feels less slippery than the G2. That is an improvement. The G2 is a fingerprint and oil magnet. It gets pretty ugly after a while. The front of the LG G3 is made up predominantly of the display. The borders around the display are razor thin. Even thinner than the ones on the LG G2. There are no physical buttons like on the Galaxy line of phones or the IPhone line. There are no front face speakers like the HTC One. The very small borders in the display allows for easier handling of the phone. This phone is very big, there is no way around this but at least it is manageable. You will still require the use of two hands more often than not. The width of the phone is closer to the Galaxy S3 than the Note 3. After a few days you will get used to it and will be handling it like a pro. Most phones have the power and volume button on the sides. The LG G3 has them on the back. Don't hesitate to buy this phone because of this. It is going to feel a little weird for a couple of days but it will feel natural after that. The buttons themselves are very easy to find and the power button is only a small distance from your index button. I like this design that LG has implemented. Much easier to reach than that the top power button on the HTC One. Another thing that disappointed me a bit on the LG G3 was that it was not waterproof and did not include a fingerprint scanner. Neither of those features are necessary but they are useful. I personally never dropped my phone in water but I like having the peace of mind that my phone can withstand it. As it is, the LG G3 will die if it drops in the water for more than a few seconds. A real shame. The Samsung Galaxy S5 and the Sony Xperia Z2 are both water resistant. The phone I was using before getting this G3 was the S5. I got used to the fingerprint scanner. It worked pretty well for the most part and it is safer than a pin code or the "knock code" password found on the G3. A fingerprint scanner is "guess" proof. LG dropped the ball by omitting these two features. USER INTERFACE AND LG APPS Many people criticized the LG interface found on the LG G2. I was one of them. Not because it was not useful but because it was ugly. The icons and the overall aesthetic were not pleasing. They looked like they were designed by an 8 year old. The LG G3 has received a fresh coat of paint. Everything found on the menus and the notification bar is pretty much intact. But all of the icons have been redesigned. Looks much better. The good thing about android is that you have many different ways to customize your experience. Even if you do not like the LG launcher and icons you can always install a third party launcher from Play Store. I personally recommend Nova Launcher Prime. Along with the fresh coat of paint LG introduced a brand new keyboard. This one is more customizable than the one found on the G2. You can adjust the height of the keys to the one that pleases you. LG claims that the keyboard adapts to your use over time. The more you type on it the better it gets at predicting what you are going to say next. It is a good effort by LG. The keyboard doesn't lag and it is generally functional. I like it better than the S5 keyboard. However, after a couple of days I ended up download Swiftkey. It is much better at predictions. The text in both English and Spanish. The LG keyboard kept getting confused. Swiftkey does a much better job balancing both languages. Another feature they introduced was "Smart Notice". It is basically an imitation of Google Now. It gives you weather reports, notifies you of upcoming calendar events and not much else. It is not nearly as useful as Google Now. I hope LG introduces more features in the coming month but I am not going to be holding my breath. Multitasking on the phone has been improved. You can run two applications at the same time and place them one on top of the other. You have the option to resize the windows and switch them around. It is useful and a nice addition that was not available last year. If you do not like the dual windows you still have the LG QSlides that were present on the G2. The QSlides are like small windows of certain apps that do not take the entire screen and let you run other things on the background. For example sometimes I am browsing on a website and find a number that I want to call. Instead of having to go back and forth between the website and the dialer you can simply launch a small QSlide window of the dialer and dial the number while you still have access to the website on the background. CAMERA The camera on the LG G3 is one of its strongest features. The camera is fantastic. It is a 13 Megapixels camera with Optical Image Stabilization. This year LG has included a new IR laser auto focus that allows the camera to lock in on its target on a fraction of a second. I am thoroughly impressed by this feature. It is really fast. The laser tends to focus slower in darker environments though. The user interface in the camera has been simplified considerably. When you turn on the camera app you don't see anything on either side of the screen. If you want to take a picture the only thing you have to do is tap the screen with your finger. It is that simple. When you combine the new auto focus with the image stabilization you get a picture that is rarely blurry. Like most premium cameras it takes fantastic pictures during daylight but average pictures at night. When it comes to picture quality the LG G3 is in the same league to the S5. It is much better than the HTC One in daylight pictures. The HTC One takes better night pictures though. When it comes time to take videos the LG G3 is fantastic thanks to the image stabilization. If you have ever taken videos with a smartphone you know that the videos come out shaky no matter how still you are. The LG G3 provides a less shaky experience. It is in a league of its own in this aspect. If you like taking nice pictures and videos this phone does not disappoint. BATTERY LIFE The LG G3 comes with a removable 3000 mah battery. If you ever run out of battery in the middle of the day you have the chance to remove the plastic cover on the back and change it with another one. The battery life on the G3 is on par with the Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One. It is enough for an entire day. It is a step back from the battery life found on the G2. I would say the G2 had 25% more battery life. The battery life on the G3 is great for web browsing, listening to music, and making calls. The standby time is fantastic. It went down 5% after letting it sit overnight. The Achilles heel is when you are watching videos. If you crank up the brightness at 100% and watch videos for an hour the battery life will drop about 25%. Over the last few days I have experienced a screen on time between 3 and half to 4 hours. Most of it is doing light stuff like web browsing, text messaging and a couple of calls. It is not bad, but I was getting between 5-6 hours of screen on time consistently on my old G2. This is while keeping the brightness at around 60%. I will be updating this review if I notice any change in the future. I am hoping that maybe with future android updates we might see an improvement. STORAGE The current model I am using has 32 GB of internal storage. LG decided to include a slot for a MicroSD card with a capacity of up to 128 GB. This MicroSD slot allows you to put music, videos, and picture without having to use the internal storage of the device. That way you can use the internal memory to download all the apps and games you want. Apps can take quite a bit of space and most of them can only be installed on the internal storage of the phone. The G3 came with about 24 GB of free storage out of the box. CONCLUSION The LG G3 is a marginal improvement on its very good predecessor the LG G2. It has a big beautiful 5.5 inch display with great resolution. It packs a top of the class processor and plenty of RAM memory. The performance is top of the line. The camera is great and very simple to use. The LG G3 now has a removable battery and a slot for a MicroSD slot. There are some things missing like a fingerprint scanner and water proofing. There are phones that have a more premium construction like the HTC One and the Windows Lumia phones. There are many phones right now on the market. All of them have their pros and their cons. The G3 is a solid improvement but not a necessary upgrade if you own the G2 at the moment. In fact, I think right now at the moment the G2 offers a better value for your money. I have seen some retailers offering it for free with a two year contract. As far as performance is concerned they are pretty much identical. On paper, the resolution on the G3 is superior but in real life the difference in resolution is negligible. The battery life on the G2 is superior and the price is very attractive. With all that said the G3 is an awesome phone but just not my favorite right now. I feel there are better options. I give it a 4 out of 5. Before you make your purchasing decision I really suggest you go to a store and take a look at ALL of the handsets available. You will be surprised how many good options there are. Everybody has a different taste and I feel there is a right phone for everyone. I hope this review has helped you be more informed and prepared to buy your new phone.