T-Mobile LG G3 Review

Our friends over at T-Mobile have sent us the LG G3 for T-Mobile for us to review and we have been testing it out. While the global rollout of LG’s latest flagship is pretty much complete and when it was first announced, I was quite impressed by the device. This device is coming to market, after the flagships from Samsung and HTC have been unveiled, so it does have some pretty heavy competition. With so many of these other devices on the market and more expected to be announced, how does the LG G3 look? Keep reading to see our full thoughts on the T-Mobile LG G3!

Design

The G3 continues and improves the design of the LG G2 and yes the rear buttons are back. They didn’t do anything crazy with the design of the device, but they did not make it metal or aluminum like the HTC One M8, but they also didn’t do an entirely plastic build like Samsung. In comparison to the very glossy and plastic design of the G2, it looks much better, it is truly a much more premium design. Instead of going with a real metal design, LG went off and decided to do a plastic build but make it look like metal with a unique brushed metal coating on the back. It gives it a nice feel in the hand and the glossy feeling is gone, it has been replaced with a smooth matte finish.

They incorporated something called the Floating Arc, which in essence is the slight curvature on the back of the phone, and this makes the device very comfortable to hold in one hand, which is true. Even in my hand, which are not the largest, it makes a 5.5-inch device quite manageable, while at the same time managing to still make the device comfortable, even if it is not an all metal design. One plus to the fact of it not being metal, but in fact being plastic is that the back of the device does come off. When you pop the back off you will find the 3000mAh removable battery, the SIM card slot, and the micro SD card slot. This is one feature that the HTC One M8 cannot match, although they did put the SIM card and micro SD card slot on the side of the device.

The T-Mobile LG G3 has less branding them some of the other carriers, but there is still some carrier branding. There is no logo above the display, but you will still find an ear piece, a LED flash, and a front facing camera. Below the display you will find an LG logo, but keep in mind all of the buttons are included in the operating system. The top of the device is home to the inferred port and this is what makes the QuickRemote application work. Your headphone jack and micro USB port are found on the bottom. On the back of the device you will find a 13 megapixel camera with Laser Focus and a LED flash, the rear buttons, a LG logo, a T-Mobile logo, and a speaker.

Display

The biggest feature that LG has been talking about has to be the display, or what some might call the next generation display. For starters, you get a 5.5-inch Quad HD display, it has a 2560 X 1440 resolution and this means you get 538 pixels per inch. When you compare this to the 1080pHD display equivalent, Quad HD is 4 times the resolution of HD. The display on the G3 is great, no doubt about it in any way you look at, but when you camper it to the display on the Galaxy S 5 or the One M8, it is at times hard to see a difference. What you will get with the G3’s display, is a gorgeous display that features great viewing angles, terrific colors accuracy, and outdoor viewing that will surprise you. One other thing, is that the display on the G3 has a very thin bezel, in that it is an edge to edge display. The display truly is gorgeous and LG did an excellent job on it.

Camera

LG mad some improvements to the camera section of the G3 as well, to be more exact they added Laser Focus. This new focus feature will help to improve the focus speed, by quite a bit, brining it in line with the other top smartphones on the market. Laser Focus should help especially in low light, but this is still an area were most smartphones do struggle. The G3 takes some decent shots, but they are not the best that we have seen. They did improve the camera application, by hiding most of the features when you open the application you just tap to take the photo. It gives the customer a much cleaner experience, something that LG did with the whole user interface. Of course the advanced and customized options are still available, you can choose recording and shooting formats. You can take a dual photo utilizing both the front and rear camera, use LG’s Magic Focus, Panorama, or the Auto mode. You can also choose a word to say to take the photo, like “cheese” or take selfie with a countdown by making a fist. The G3 can record video in 4K UHD at a resolution of 3840 X 2160 to be exact, it can do slow motion video as well. Sound quality is really good via the microphone on the G3 and you can see a test below of video recording in 4K UHD on the LG G3.

Software

LG is going the opposite direction of Samsung with their user interface, which is a good thing. It is a much more clean and toned down user interface running on top of Android 4.4.2 KitKat. It gets rid of the features that you don’t want and brings in new features that go with the new simple is the new smart concept. LG wants to provide you with features that the end-user will actually use and that will have a good impact on your experience with the device. The lock screen of course show you the date, time, and network, but also gives you quick access to phone, camera, notes, Chrome, and messages. Of course to get the home screen up you can either user KnockCode or the rear buttons.  The home screen will feature a nice widget, that provides quick access to Smart Notice.

Smart Notice is your built-in personal assistant which analyses your phone status and other information, while at the same time it learns about your habits. It will push reminders and tips to you, at certain times, when it feels it can be the most helpful. For instance, if you use Memo Reminders and have a shopping list for your local grocery and clothing store, when you get to those stores, it will pop up and suggest those lists for you. It currently provides notifications on health, reminders, tips, birthday reminders, weather alerts, battery savers, and a few others. While at first it seems similar to Google Now, LG is definitely taking their own unique stance on the personal assistant. But keep in mind that Google Now is just swipe away, as when you hold and swipe from the home button it will launch it.

Unlike several other manufactures that might be trying to hide the Google features, LG leaves them front and center. Chrome is the standard browser on the device, the Google application suite is pre-loaded and kept in a folder on your desktop. Plus, as we already mentioned there is full Google Now integration, along with LG Smart Notice.

LG also did an overall redesign of the operating system and it comes off as much cleaner and more approachable user interface. The pulldown notifications and setting menu, is much cleaner. You still have direct access to control brightness and the volume elves of the smartphone. As well as the ability to turn on and off WiFi, location, Bluetooth, oration lock, QSlide, Quick Remote, Voice Mate, and several other software features. They also made some new customizations to the keyboard, the end goal with these is to make it easier for you, the end-user, to type. You can split the keyboard down the middle, resize the individual keys, and all of this is to meet the different hand sizes and habits of each user.

If you think the United States carriers pre-load a lot of applications on your smartphones, you have no idea. On the Korean version there is quite a bit of pre-loaded applications, but the T-Mobile G3 has very little applications pre-loaded. On this variant of the G3 you will find the Google app suite, Amazon, Box, ThinkFree Viewer, Lookout Security, Mobile HotSpot, T-Mobile My Account, T-Mobile Name ID, T-Mobile TV, Visual Voicemail, and a few others. Most of the applications on the device are found on all of the G3’s and were most likely selected by LG, plus all of the T-Mobile apps are found in a folder.

The software experience on the LG G3 is a very good one, the overall usability of it is very smooth and fast, this is thanks to the 2.5GHz Quad Core processor with 3GB of RAM. I did not experience any lag on the device at all, and gaming was great, especially when you choose titles that take advantage of the Quad HD display. LG did a really good job of making sure that Android and their user interface would run smoothly and without lag on the G3. Plus, they have a built-in battery saver, which will let you get the most our of the 3000mAh battery, which is removable. This is another advantage of the removable back, easy access to the battery and expandable storage. With normal use of checking email, using applications, streaming video, and more, the LG G3 should last you the whole day, as long as you charge every night.

Network

All models of the LG G3 feature 4G LTE support and it does run on AT&T’s, Verizon’s, Sprint’s, and T-Mobile’s network. While we didn’t always have 4G LTE on T-Mobile’s network, the speeds were not as fast as Verizon or AT&T. However, they were much faster than the Sprint network, which for the most part was 3G. We got an average of about 8Mbps on the download and only 2.5Mbps on the upload, while it said we were on 4G, these appear to be more HSPA+ speeds. But keep in mind that as they continue to rollout, expand, and upgrade their network, speeds will get better. We tested out the T-Mobile LG G3 in New Jersey, but keep in mind that service in your area might differ from what we experience.

Bottom Line

If you waited through all of the other flagship announcement this year so far, the LG G3 is now tough competition for the other flagships as it is an all around awesome phone. I would defiantly recommend it over the Galaxy S 5, but this is of course my preference. I think the way that LG is going about their software, is a better way than what we currently have on the market. They really have toned their user interface back a few notches and are trying to provider unique features that customers will enjoy. While you really can’t always tell a difference between the Quad HD display and a regular HD display, at times color do appear sharper and the waterfall aspect of the display is a unique feature. It is a really fast experience as well, thanks to the 2.5GHz Quad Core processor with the 3GBs of RAM and battery life is nice thanks to the 3000mAh battery. While the camera isn’t light years better than anything else on the market, it does take some nice shots. Lastly, it is not the all metal design that some of us have been craving, it doesn’t feel as nice as the all aluminum HTC One M8, but it is the nicest plastic built phone currently on the market. If you are currently looking for a new smartphone on T-Mobile, definitely check out the LG G3, you might just make it your next smartphone. The T-Mobile LG G3 retails for $598 with no contract or for $0 down with 24 monthly payments of $24.95, Click Here To Get Your T-Mobile LG G3! We would like to thank T-Mobile for providing us with a copy of the “T-Mobile LG G3”!