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  • blanarahul - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    The first phone which deserves to be called a 2014 flagship. In my opinion anyway.
  • blanarahul - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    However, I still don't understand why LG (and HTC) cannot pull a Moto X and make the bottom bezel thin.
  • coburn_c - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    LG put the capacitive sensor controller down there to get the side bezels thin. That and their logo.
  • hughlle - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I like my bottom bezzel on my M7. Gives me a place to rest the base of my thumb. And also gives something to hold when in landscape.
  • bengildenstein - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Why? Outside of the faux-metal back and QHD resolution, what makes this so much more advanced than other handsets?
  • blanarahul - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    The right amount of software customization. Samsung does too much. Sony does too less. LG and HTC do it almost right. But HTC's camera is average.

    The lack of gimmicky features like artificial bokeh or fingerprint scanner etc.

    The inclusion of OIS and a (hopefully good) focussing system.

    The only cons I can think of are the lack of front firing speakers and the 5.5" screen (too big for my taste).
  • bengildenstein - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I respect that you have your own opinions, but have you used the device to comment on the level of software customization present?
  • blanarahul - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    No. But I hope LG's claims about simplicity are true.. *fingers crossed*
  • blanarahul - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I just realized something. LG is the first OEM to use on-screen buttons without wasted bezels above and below the screen. I mean that all phones that have been released with on-screen buttons have had relatively thick bezels either above or below the display. But with G3, the bezel below the screen is thick, yes, but the glass portion of the bezel is quite thin. This means that there is possibilty that we now have the technology to create a HTC M8 like phone but with thin bezels above and below the screen (the glass part of the bezels). This means that we can finally have smaller phones with good front facing speakers.
  • blanarahul - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I didn't mind the fact that front facing speakers require space. I did however mind that the extra space (occupied by speakers) was in addition to the already thick bottom bezels (think the glass portion of HTC M8's bottom bezel, where the HTC logo resides). I think we can finally get rid of that useless space.
  • blanarahul - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    What I mean by glass portion of bottom bezel being thin: http://c2.bgr.com/2014/02/htc-one-2-m8-display-lea...
  • Impulses - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Moto X and G2 both had relatively thin bezels, even top/bottom ones, certainly compared to something like the very tall HTC One (any of 'em)... Those two phones kinda convinced me on screen buttons was the way to go, you just end up making much better use of the space available. Much more so than the overall bezel space, they were not larger than phones with capacitive buttons while having larger screens, that was the crucial point for me. Up to that point phones with on screen buttons were just larger than an equivalent phone with a similar size and dedicated buttons.
  • pjcamp - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Samsung managed to find a way to violate my preference for function over form with their "band-aid on a hub cap" design aesthetic. This is the first device I've ever seen where I don't really care how good the rest of it is. I've also learned by installing Cyanogenmod on my S3 that Touchwiz is solely responsible for its hiccupy UI and tendency to crash.

    HTC's camera is just unacceptable. I understand that megapixels aren't everything but they aren't exactly nothing either. I will occasionally print a photo for hanging on the wall. Suppose I want to print an 8x10. A typical photo printer will output at 300dpi. That means to avoid pixelation in the print I need a camera whose resolution is: (8 in)x (300 dots/in) x (10 in) x (300 dots/in) = 7.2 MP. So an 8 MP shooter is the minimum acceptable for anything beyond Instagram, and even that allows no real room for any zoom.

    Sony has a high resolution camera that seems to be pretty good, but has coupled that with 16 MB internal storage. That doesn't leave much memory for photos or for anything else. There's also no real guarantee it ever shows up in the US.

    It baffles me why manufacturers want to cut these weird corners. No way it saves them more than $5 or $10 per phone. Do they really think anyone who would buy a $600 phone would run away from a $605 one?
  • coburn_c - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Their marketing guy is on the ball, it's like he actually reads the internet and is responding to it. Very refreshing.
  • bengildenstein - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I wonder if people will complain that the G3 is plastic? I bet most will argue (aggressively) that it is metal.
  • extide - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I am a bit upset by this, I mean, it was great to FINALLY get high-resolution displays, and they are finally making their way into laptops, but 2560 in 5.5" yeah, we have officially gone TOO FAR.
  • tipoo - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Yeah, 538ppi seems way overkill. I get that there are benefits beyond the 300PPI marketed as "retina", but going *so* high seems like you're just wasting GPU power pushing pixels you can't even notice.
  • RaistlinZ - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    It's all overkill until you get used to it, then it becomes standard. 1080p was called overkill, now any flagship phone less than 1080p would be bashed as "severely lacking".

    I'm sure 3 years from now 2560x1440 will be the minimum anyone will accept in a high end device. Just the way it goes.
  • phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Depending on screen size, of course.

    720p in a 4" screen is no different from 1080p in a 5" which won't be much different from 1440p in a 6" screen.

    Yes, 720p in a 6" screen (LG G Flex, or Samsung Galaxy Mega, for example) doesn't look that great. And 1440p in a 4" would be ludicrous.

    You just need to use the right resolution for the screen size.
  • nevertell - Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - link

    I wish 2560x1440 in 3 years would be the standard for desktop monitors. That, or 2560x1600. Or UHD. I'm pretty tired of 1080p dominating the mainstream display market.
  • KoolAidMan1 - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Seems like a huge waste of GPU power for something that doesn't yield big enough returns over 300-400 PPI displays. Android is also laggy enough as it is, the hardware doesn't need to make things worse by being so demanding.

    This is bulletpoint marketing.
  • SpartanJet - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Agreed Adroid is laggy enough on its own, and mobile GPU's aren't strong enough to drive these resolutions as it is. I mean if it was Windows 8.1 phone I could see its UI is buttery smooth it could probably get away with driving that resolution.
  • SirPerro - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Oh yes... Android lags a lot. Does that happen in your fanboy dreams or in 2009? Because I have a Nexus 4 which is brutally responsive, and it could be considered an average phone right now. Even my iOS friends got surprised of how snappy the phone is. Can't even imagine a muuuuch faster G3.
  • invinciblegod - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Yeah, sorry, Android still lags somewhat in certain tasks. Of course, when people say lag they mean different things. For instance, one form of lag which definitely exists is that the movement of the screen is slightly behind the fingers' movement. The second sometimes is when the system gets bogged down, the phone becomes unresponsive. I noticed both in my Nexus 5. They don't happen often, but they are there. Also, that's not to say iOS is perfectly smooth as my ipad 3 drops frames when you drag the search bar down. But I haven't encountered an unresponsive system yet. When an app freezes or something in iOS, you can press the home button to exit. In Android, sometimes the system freezes.
  • tipoo - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I noticed the Moto X is better than a lot of flagships in this respect, but it rarely gets mentioned. Though I also find the Nexus 5 much improved too, so maybe you're more sensitive to touch lag. The HTC One M8 actually has a faster touchscreen response time than the iPhone 5S, as does the Note 3.
  • tipoo - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    And bogging down over time hasn't happened to me since they added TRIM in 4.3
  • akdj - Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - link

    I've got both the Note 3 and 5s. The N3 is definitely the fastest Android device I've owned, but the 5s is quicker, more fluent and definitely has a 'faster touchscreen response time'. Not that I don't love em both, but that's simply not true. One can easily disable parallax (which is by design not representative of 'delay' as seen by turning it 'off')
  • Impulses - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Can't say I've noticed screen responsiveness lagging on my Nexus 5, it'll get unresponsive once in a blue moon but that's usually when I've got over 100 tabs open in Chrome and I switch over to something else quickly, and even then it handles that better than many PCs (when you go over 99 tabs on Android Chrome the button changes from a # to a happy face btw). Frankly I continue to be amazed by it, feels so much better than any of the three HTCs I had before (not blaming Sense, there were aspects of it I liked, I'm sure it was the congealment of Android improvements, hardware, etc).
  • SirPerro - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Sorry i can't comment on Windows Phone as I've never met anyone who bought that, in case you wonder.
  • PrimaFizik1520 - Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - link

    Agreed over a short period of time users will begin to notice that android lag that plagues all their devices.
    This res would do well on the WP8.1 platform throughout its lifetime.
    I don't know what it is, Windows just seems to have gotten their OS to run super efficient.
  • PrimarchLion - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Could be, but I'll withhold judgement until I see it and see it's effect on battery life.
  • bengildenstein - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Not if you like VR.
  • BreezeDM - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I really can't get past the back buttons. I tried so hard with the G2. The knock feature doesn't work when you want it to and happens randomly sometimes. I really need the side buttons. The IR blaster on the G2 had terrible range, I hope they fixed it for the G3.
  • coburn_c - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Knock on is one of those features that once you get used to it, you'll never be able to live without it... and it works perfectly for me. That would be why HTC implemented it, and Samsung will no doubt.
  • PrimarchLion - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    ^ Agreed. I occasionally find myself tapping my tablet trying to get it to turn on. Also the latest update (to 4.4.2) made Knock On a lot more reliable for me. There was an issue with the sensitivity of the light sensor prior to that. To each their own but the back buttons didn't take much effort to get used to for me.
  • Impulses - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I wish they'd brought something like that to stock Android, that and Moto's always listening mode are some of the better OEM tweaks in recent memory IMO.
  • efficacyman - Friday, May 30, 2014 - link

    TouchControl is an app (requires root) for Nexus 4, Nexus 5, and Nexus 7 (2013) which allows you to double tap to wake. I consider it to be essential.
  • player911 - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    My knockon is flawless. I just do 3 quick taps (ba ba ba), every time. The IR blaster range was fine. I am able to sit on my couch and shoot the TV (55" that is pretty far away). I never use the back buttons. Honestly I forget they are back there. The Stock software on the G2 (and G3) is very intuitive and displays volume controls in the drop down notification shade whenever there is audio playing. Coupled with the Floating Text and Phone app notifications.

    I am currently loving my G2 and the G3 would be a sweet addition. Personally 5.5" is just too big. The 5.2" screen already walks on my comfort line for 1 hand used. And the extra bump in resolution doesn't phase me. At 480 DPI, the G2 is just fine.
  • Laxaa - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Looks nice. The G2 had a very good screen to body ratio, but it felt kind of cheaply built. I hope it feels better this time around.
  • kpkp - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    2x Krait in the table, should be 4x ;)
  • Brandon Chester - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    I'm sorry about that, I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote that. Thanks for pointing it out.
  • UltraWide - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    What about some pics next to Galaxy S4/S5, HTC One M7/M8? Galaxy Note 3?

    Thanks!
  • Simon42 - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    So, HTC and LG back to including SD slots on their flagships in 2014. So who's left making top-tier smartphones without micro SD compatibility?

    Also, it seems like this website's (annoying) stance on SD cards and why they should go away was wrong.
  • kpkp - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Yeah, even Motorola started adding them, will be interesting to see what happens with the 2nd X. 2014 the year of the return of the SD cards.
  • uhuznaa - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Google has changed the way a SD can be used though. No more free for all access anymore...
  • Impulses - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Well, it's more secure now (might've been a hurdle for some enterprise certification/adoption?), and it's also one of the few things they could still do to differentiate. I wouldn't read that much into it tbh, the majority of people still don't care and those that do just have more choices now, yay.
  • londedoganet - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Dear phone makers:

    So, SD and SIM card slots only accessible by pulling out the battery.

    WHAT POSSIBLE FUNCTION COULD THIS DESIGN CHOICE SERVE, OTHER THAN TO ANNOY THE USER?

    This isn't 1996, mobile phones are capable of being used without a SIM card, and SD cards are called 'removable storage' for a reason. So, WHY?
  • uhuznaa - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    149g for a 5.5" smartphone is nothing but impressive, but the battery looks awfully small in relation to the size of the thing.
  • Impulses - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Capacity is right up there with any other current flagship tho, Samsung's batteries look the same... It's not like you can build it up into the camera... It'd be interesting if now that everyone's going removable again someone came out with a model that had a sealed 4000mAh battery, ball is in your court Moto! Moto were the ones that started the trend towards significantly larger battery capacities anyway...
  • GregoryWE - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    Is the rear sensor being IMX135 correct? That's awfully disappointing -- still using the same sensor as the G2 and the Galaxy S4?
  • Hrel - Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - link

    5.2” 1920x1080 IPS LCD 5.5” 2560x1440 IPS LCD w/ 100% sRGB

    Larger? They made the screen larger? Really? It's already borderline too big, I have the G2 and I love the phone but I do wish it was slightly smaller. 5" would probably be perfect. That being said I'm 6'4" with hands that can one-hand a basketball. So if I'm saying this I simply cannot IMAGINE the market this phone is designed for... NBA giants exclusively?

    Haven't gotten to the rest of the review yet, just reading that puts it out of my zone of interest. Hopefully they release one that is the exact same, in every single way, except 4.5-5".

    Though I'd also be fine with it if they dropped the resolution back down to 1080p. Even that is over-kill on a phone, so going beyond what makes sense for a home theatre in a phone is even dumber.

    Just noticed this isn't an article, but a 1 page blog. So guess I'm done.
  • SydneyBlue120d - Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - link

    Does it support Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0 and 1080p60 video acquisition with IOS+ enabled?
  • bhtalia1 - Wednesday, May 28, 2014 - link

    Look for G3 Pro with the SD 805 processor to be released in the fall to compete with the Galaxy Note 4...worth waiting for.
  • Chaser - Thursday, May 29, 2014 - link

    Regarding the LG back buttons: its funny how on older phones groping for the little power button sliver on a side or bottom along a phone is a norm and takes a bit of adoption to get it right in the pocket, on a table etc. The G2's back buttons make that so easy and natural especially when makeing minute volume adjustments during calls. Once you go to the LG's back button layout, for such a simple change, is very effective.
  • Chrispy_ - Monday, June 2, 2014 - link

    Seriously, what's with the QHD?

    I have pretty good (better than 20/20) vision and I have to use a magnifying glass to see any kind of pixelation on my Nexus 5's 1080p screen. Even with the magnifying glass the pixels are *REALLY* hard to make out, unless there's a high contrast edge without AA being applied, and KitKat seems to add AA to everything because the whole UI is rendered in 3D.

    2560x1440 is just a waste of battery, requires a brighter backlight to deliver the same visible screen brightness and increases the cost of the phone for no sensible benefit. The Adreno330 is clocked 27% faster, but the resolution is 78% higher, meaning that this phone will be SLOWER at native resolutions than its predecessors.

    QHD on a 5" screen - Benefits, none; Disadvantages, cost, battery-drain, maximum brightness, GPU performance at native resolution.

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