LG Optimus G Pro Review

Introduction

The Optimus G Pro is LG's first handset with the trendy Full HD 1920 x 1080 screen resolution. It is available in both 5” for Japan, and 5.5” versions for Korea. It is scheduled for a global rollout in Q2 and is expected to also come in North America in unknown yet version.

The Korean model we nabbed for a review here eschews the typical 5” size of its direct competitors to go big, and set itself apart from the barrage of 5-inchers about to hit the market. Not only that, but the phone is also loaded with a powerful Snapdragon 600 quad-core chipset, and sports something you don't see often these days – both a memory expansion slot, and a swappable battery.

Everything about the phone sounds great on paper, but has LG managed to make the Optimus G Pro a compelling enough proposition to consider at this size? Read on our review of the original Korean version of this handset to find out....

Design

When you grab the G Pro, it immediately becomes apparent that the handset is more compact than the Note II, despite the equal screen diagonals. LG has managed to achieve an incredibly thin side bezel, and has bet on a more narrow form, thus making it much more palm-friendly than Samsung's rather wide contraption. It is also refreshingly light for a phone of this size, at 5.6oz (160g), achieved by the use of plastic all around the phone, including the patterned removable back cover, which feels very sturdy, and has the NFC antenna integrated. Underneath it you can find the huge 3140 mAh battery, as well as microSD and micro SIM card slots for the ultimate flexibility. The only shot at “premium material” looks in the G Pro are the faux brushed metal rim around the sides, and the metal ring around the camera lens on the back.

You can compare the LG Optimus G Pro with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

We won't go as far as to say that you can easily use it with one hand, but it is certainly the most manageable device of these XXL screen sizes out there. The only boon is the capacitive back key under the display, which LG has placed on the left as usual, requiring impossible thumb stretching that almost precludes the phone from being operated safely with one hand. LG has had the brilliant idea to put a so-called QButton on the right side, above the volume rocker, which can be mapped to quickly launch any application of your choosing. If we could program it to be a “back” button, too, all of our prayers about controlling big screen smartphones with one hand would have been answered, as that's the most-used navigational button in Android, but alas, you can't map the back key to the QButton. Get to work, XDA-Devs!


The Q key, along with the volume rocker underneath, and the power/lock key on the right, are easy to find and press, with decent tactile click, and the same goes for the rather thin home button underneath the display. That same home key has a notification light around it, that can ooze six different colors to notify you of a missed call, message or email, to alert you on a calendar event or the charging status, or simply flash in all colors of the rainbow when the alarm goes off in the morning. In addition, there is a color that can be lit up by third party apps that support the LED notification function, like the Facebook app, for example.

Another good idea by LG is to equip the G Pro with an infrared sensor at the top, and a Q Remote app to it, that lets you just pick the make and model of your TV, home stereo, set top box, AC unit and the like, then start using the phone as a remote control with a touchscreen. We wish every phone came with this instead of fumbling for the remote in the couch cushions every day, and lately the manufacturers are hearing us, as the HTC One and the Xperia ZL also have one. The brand choice in the app is somewhat limited when it comes to set top boxes, as it didn't have our Huawei one listed, or AC units, where only LG and Samsung are present, but hopefully more makes and models will be loaded down the road.


Display

LG has supplied a brilliant 5.5” Full HD 1080 x 1920 pixels screen on the Optimus G Pro, and the screen's pixel density of 401ppi, while not as high as the 441ppi of the Full HD 5-inchers, is one of the best you can currently get.

The colors are vibrant, viewing angles are excellent, and the display is sufficiently bright for comfortable use outside under direct sunlight. The only gripe we have is with the light sensor, namely the software that adjusts the brightness level in automatic mode, as it takes a while to light up the screen outside and dim it inside.

Moreover, the adjustment travels in a range, so if you have set the phone at half-brightness in manual mode, it will go +/- a preset percentage from there in auto mode, instead of blasting to full 100% outside, as it would do if you have it at 80%, for instance. Hopefully a software fix will be released as it happened with the 4X HD last year.




Interface and functionality

LG has introduced a few new features in its homebrew Optimus UI, and, as usual, lets you choose whether the launcher will switch along with the screen orientation to landscape mode, and is the only name brand Android overlay that has a dedicated landscape mode.


Some new features are tied up with an added hardware component, like the QRemote app and notification bar toggle, which makes us of the IR blaster, or the physical QButton, which has a separate setting option for mapping apps to it. Not only that, but when you set it to launch the camera app, the QButton also serves as a shutter key afterwards, for instance.

We also like very much that LG has expanded on the connectivity toggles slider idea it pioneered with the Optimus UI. In the pull-down notification bar you now have a second QSlide apps row, which this time is dedicated to launching the LG version of Sony's Small Apps, or Samsung's Mini Apps – resizable pop-up windows that can pin your calculator, video player, browser, etc., on the home screen, while you are doing something else underneath. You can have two QSlide apps at once, and there are seven apps in total that have pop-up window modes.

There is a one-handed mode, too, as every self-respecting big-screen Android phone should have, which lets you shrink the dialer or keyboard left or right, depending on the hand used. This way you can key in a phone number or a message reply quickly with your thumb only, without having to resort to both hands.


The default keyboard can be used with different skins, and has a handwriting recognition mode, as well as the Path mode, which intros Swype-like functionality in different languages. Besides the one-handed mode, there is also a split-screen regime you can check, that divides the keyboard in two in landscape orientation, so it is easier to type across the huge display.



Processor and memory

There is no need to sell Qualcomm's quad-core Snapdragon 600 – it is currently the most powerful chipset you can find in an Android handset, and LG has clocked it at the respectable 1.7 GHz to boot. You can rest assured that the interface just flies without lag or stuttering, and no matter how many apps you pile on, they all run without a hitch, aided also by the 2 GB of DDR3 RAM amount on the Optimus G Pro. You can see the benchmarks for yourself below – the G Pro is record-setter despite the large Full HD display.

	Quadrant Standard	AnTuTu	NenaMark 2
LG Optimus G Pro	12239	18798	59,2
Samsung Galaxy Note II	5806	13515	58
Samsung Galaxy S III	5335	12016	58,6

LG has also generously put 32 GB of internal storage in the G Pro, of which 23 GB are user-available, along with a microSD card slot for further storage expansion on the cheap.

Internet and connectivity

With this screen size, processor and pixel density, we don't expect anything else but excellent browser performance, and the G Pro delivers. The browser just flies while zooming, scrolling or panning, and even the fully zoomed-out text is discernible. LG provides a handy transparent toolbar at the bottom for a back, forward and home keys, which can be hidden if you want the full screen canvas. There is, naturally, no Flash Player support from the box, so you'd have to install it from Adobe's archives if you need it..


The Optimus G Pro is loaded with radios – 4G LTE and 42 Mbps HSPA+ baseband modems made the cut with the Snapdragon chipset, but we also have Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS with GLONASS support, Miracast, DLNA and NFC. You can also use LG's own SmartShare Beam that will send pics, videos, music and Polaris Office files wirelessly to another LG handset with the option.

Wired connectivity is produced by the MHL port at the bottom, which lets you mirror your phone's display on a big-screen TV with the respective adapter.

Camera

A 13 MP camera with LED flash is hosted on the back of the Optimus G Pro, and a 2.1 MP one is at the front for video chat.

The camera interface is pretty cleaned up and functional, with an editable quick menu, which lets you house shortcuts to five of your most used camera options. There are a few shooting modes like HDR, Panorama and the new Virtual Panorama, which lets you snap photos in all directions, which then get assembled in a 360 degrees overview for the real estate agent in you.


There is also the usual array of scene modes and color effects, as well as LG's Time Machine functionality, that precaptures frames before you hit the shutter button so you don't miss that special moment with your fidgeting dog.

The pictures were alright in daylight scenarios, with accurate color representation, sharp details, and pretty low amount of noise. There is not much of a difference between using the normal, Intelligent Auto, or the HDR modes, and the pics turned out pretty close, as you can see from the samples below. The Intelligent Auto overexposes the scenery a bit, and the HDR mode introduces ghosting if you don't hold the phone steady, so we'd recommend the normal auto mode most of the times.

Indoors pictures come out a bit soft, and colors get colder with each dimming of the ambient light to reach a rather cold cast even when the LED flash activates. The flash barely illuminates from a five feet distance, too.


The G Pro records Full HD 1080 video with smooth 30 fps, and LG also throws in the modern HDR video mode that debuted with the Xperia Z and Oppo Find 5, then spread to the HTC One, and now we have it in an LG flagship, but named the WDR mode, from “wide dynamic range”. There is one other new mode during video capture on the Optimus G Pro – Dual recording lets you shoot picture-in-picture with both the rear and the front camera, and you can place the second cam footage window anywhere you like, and resize it, too.

LG Optimus G Pro Sample Video:



LG Optimus G Pro HDR Sample Video:



LG Optimus G Pro Indoor Sample Video:



Videos look good, with accurate colors, no skipped frames or sizable artifacts, and the sound quality captured by the two microphones on the handset is rather strong and clean, too. LG has also provided a handy Audio Zoom feature, which lets you use the display to zoom in the area where you want the sound to be recorded from predominantly (e.g. your baby's face), and the phone's mics should set up to capture from there, ignoring noise from the rest of the sound sources around. It is rather hit or miss though, especially when it is noisy around.

Multimedia

The pictures and video gallery sports a pretty standard grid look with your media neatly arranged in tiled folders. You can choose the thumb size by zooming in/out, for that matter, and also do basic photo editing directly from the gallery, and light video editing with the dedicated VideoWiz app that comes preinstalled.

The music player sports brushed metal looks, and has a handy YouTube button that takes you directly into a video playlist of the song currently played. There is Dolby Mobile surround sound in headset mode, but no direct equalizer access from the music player interface. The loudspeaker sounds clean, and quite strong, too.

Video playback is excellent, as you can expect from such a huge high-res display, and the phone plays any popular format you throw at it to boot, up to Full HD definition. The video player can be zoomed-in during playback by pinching with your finger, and has subtitle support, loop mode, and pop-up play support, so you don't even need to resort to the Play Store for 3rd party video playback apps with it.Call quality

There are two microphones for active noise-cancellation on the Optimus G Pro, which worked like a charm weeding out the background noise while we were talking. Voice quality in the earpiece is not outstanding in terms of clarity, as there is some echo, but the strength is enough, and there are no over the top distortions, even at the highest volume.

Battery

LG graced the Optimus G Pro with a large 3140 mAh battery, meaning more time between charges, though official talk and standby times aren't given yet. With such a large battery unit we've no doubt you can manage a full day of heavy use with the G Pro, and even two or three if you keep the screen off most of the time. In fact, we managed to pull a full weekend with average workload after breaking in the battery.

On top of that, the 3140 mAh unit is easily swappable, so you can grab an extra one to replace the exhausted juicer if needed while on a trip, or a place without easy outlet access. A quick charging functions seems to be present as well, since we managed to top off the battery from critically low to a hundred percent in less than one and a half hours.

Conclusion

LG is taking a sizeable risk by putting stellar specs in a 5.5-incher – despite that the phone is surprisingly compact and light for such a screen size, thanks to the minimum bezel, it still feels a bit unwieldy for anything but a Shaq-sized hand, though less so than the Note II with the same screen size, for instance.

Other than the size which won't appeal to everybody, the phone has most everything else nailed great, save for an average call quality in the earpiece, and the sluggish auto-brightness. We loved the programmable QButton and the IR blaster, which should be a staple for every flagship out there.

A direct competitor to the LG Optimus G Pro is the Galaxy Note II, which is less compact and with HD 720p resolution at the same screen size (265ppi vs G Pro's 401ppi), but features a stylus. If you want something more manageable, you can opt for the 5” Sony Xperia Z, which is no slouch, and sports a water-tight chassis, or go even more compact and nab a 4.7” HTC One with its amplified stereo speakers and large-pixel camera.

Besides the version for Korea we reviewed, the Optimus G Pro will be arriving globally in Q2, and LG specifically notes Japan and North America. The Japanese version sports a 5” Full HD display, whereas the Korean one here is with a 5.5” one, but which one will hit the rest of the world remains to be heard. For now you can only import the G Pro north of $800 SIM-free, but when the US or EU carrier versions get specified, we'll check them out for you, too.

Software version: JZ054K/F240L10k

LG Optimus G Pro Review: