Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “LG Optimus G Pro Review!”.
Hey, what is up guys mkbhd here – and this is the optimus g pro from lg – it’s lg’s. First entry into the phablet game, or the five inch or larger smartphone form factor category, and they were smart and took a lot of cues from samsung’s. Very popular galaxy. Note 2 and then they took some design improvements and some spec bumps and some overall hardware upgrades and some software tweaks and basically turned into the most accurate thing that we’re going to see to the galaxy note 3, which isn’t out yet. But this is probably the closest thing we’re going to see to that for a while.
So without any further ado, let’s take a closer video look at the lg optimus g pro. So this is a big phone. No doubt just like the galaxy note. 2, it has a lot of similarities with its samsung counterpart, but then each aspect is slightly improved just slightly so you can start with the build.
Both phones are made of plastic, but the optimus g pro on one hand feels a little bit more compact in the hand it has a slightly narrower body while maintaining that 5.5 inch display and that’s because the bezel is twice as thin. As on the note 2., the optimus also has a removable back, of course, which reveals a slightly larger battery coming in at 3140 milliamp hours, a tiny bit larger than the one in the note 2, and this thing lasts just as long on a charge. I’M talking full weekend road trip companion. This is a road warrior, just like the note.
Also behind that back cover are, of course, the sim card tray. Any micro sd card slot for expandable storage and up top is the slightly unimpressive speaker, probably the most unimpressive part of the whole phone. It’S a bit small and it could easily be covered up with a single finger, but you also get the 13 megapixel camera up there, which we’ll get to in just a second other than that, though, just about everything about the optimus gpro’s build quality is nearly as Good as it gets on a phone of the size, i mean, we’ve never seen a phablet, that’s made of metal.
So obviously this is as well built as a phone that you can probably get from top to bottom in that form factor and also the home button. That doubles as a notification led is a nice touch. The led colors are great now flanking that home button are the menu and back buttons, but lg’s just flip them around so they’re the opposite of all those samsung devices out there.
So it took me a little while to get used to, but there’s the back button on the left and the menu button on the right. I guess, if you’re going to change something just for the sake of changing it, it might as well be something small like that. But all around this phone feels about the same as the galaxy note. 2, just slightly different in a lot of ways, and then you get to turning it on and the first thing you notice, even more than that display is lg’s. Weird lock screen totally blows my mind every time i use it, but there it is and yeah the biggest difference once you turn it on is lg’s display. Here we have a 5.5 inch, 1080p full hd super ips display. As we know, the galaxy note 2 has a 720p display, so this display has excellent color reproduction clarity, sharpness viewing angles, brightness everything about it. It’S a very good panel and i love the bezel. I love the fact that it’s so thin. It really makes this phone’s display stand out. It seems like that’s the highlight of this phone, and it should be it’s probably one of the best aspects of it. I was initially concerned about the panel’s impact on battery life. Thinking that a different display would have a very different battery life but, like i said before, this phone had no problem lasting two full days on a battery charge as normally used. So that’s just a breeze to handle anyway. The next biggest difference and the biggest thing you’ll notice about the optimus g pro is lg’s skin on top of android, 4.1.2 lg next to motorola, and maybe oppo have probably the most unconventional, far out stock android skin of any phone manufacturer.
Today. Obviously, the lock screen is one big change, but you’ll notice, just about everything about this phone outside of the lock screen has changed too. You can see where they took hints from the note 2.
The default time and weather widget is an obvious one, not too hard to see the similarities there, and also, instead of samsung’s multiple windows running next to each other. Lg has cue slide, which is one app that can be toggled transparent on top of the other lg. Also has a tabbed menu structure that lets you swipe through the menus, thank goodness, but they also let you switch between the tabbed and just a full list of all the settings. The default is the tab structure, but i kind of like that they give you the choice to just get that full list. If you don’t really want to drill down overall, though it’s android and you can customize it to look like basically whatever you want, you can make it look. However, you feel, but a lot of the elements of lg’s custom skin, like the credit notification panel, for example – are unavoidable.
Like every single time you pull down the notification panel, it’s half full of things like you know, toggles, and a slider for brightness and a whole bunch of different stuff. There are also a ton of pre-installed apps, like more than any other phone i’ve ever used. Now i’m using the 18-t version here, but obviously there’s not going to be tons of pre-installed apps on the international version, but there is definitely a lot of stuff that came on the phone.
But overall i like that this phone is such a great performer. It’S that’s to be expected, of course, with the qualcomm snapdragon 600 quad core processor inside obviously, one of the best processors you can put in a phone but yeah. This thing is a great performer, and it constantly surprised me with how snappy and smooth the experience was using it probably a little bit snappier than the galaxy note. 2. So that’s definitely a good sign, but overall this is definitely an lg phone. Lg really made it an lg experience and you can see how many cues they took from samsung both in the software and the hardware. Of course, the note 2 has one of the best 8 megapixel cameras in any smartphone, but the optimus g pro shooter is 13 megapixels, so it takes slightly more detailed shots thanks to that extra resolution, but nothing all that crazy. It’S also not very contrasty, so you lose a bit of that dynamic range and it’s not quite as vibrant as samsung’s color and photos and videos from this camera. You also don’t get the same interface or the same crazy features that samsung throws in there. But overall it’s not a bad camera at all and you won’t be disappointed with it.
Actually, the 1080p videos it takes are really quite good in any kind of light, and i found myself taking pretty much everything in full auto because auto does a great job on this phone, so props to lg for that so yeah. If i had to describe the optimus g pro in one word, it would be lg because this phone is so lg. It’S full of lg in every imaginable way everywhere that there’s room for an lg touch.
You can expect an lg touch, and these you know these lg touches are all shots, attempting to one-up the galaxy note 2., and i love that it’s the competition that drives us forward, and this is basically the galaxy note. 2.5. So, in the end, the optim’s g pro is an excellent phone, definitely lg’s best. Yet it’s great in all the same ways that the galaxy note 2 is great. You can consider it a small side step or even a slight upgrade from the galaxy note. 2.
again, we don’t know what the galaxy note 3 is going to look like, but this is probably your best bet for an upgrade from the note 2. If you want to stay in that phablet form factor and even get a slightly better phone, you know we have a bigger battery. You have a higher resolution. Camera you have a 1080p display. You have a whole bunch of improvements in here, so this is lg’s best phone, yet i would definitely recommend it if you’re into the lg skin. I personally wouldn’t go for it as my daily driver, just because some of the animations don’t quite feel right.
Some of the software i’m not a fan of – and i don’t happen to be – a huge fan of the looks of lg’s skin on top of android that could change soon. But for now it’s a good phone on the hardware front and it’s getting there with the software either way. That’S been it. Thank you for watching this review of the optimus gpro hope you enjoyed. If you want to see more videos like this definitely hit that subscribe button below and there’s also a thumbs up button, if you liked the video either way like, i said, thanks for watching and i’ll talk to you guys in the next article peace, you .