LG G2 vs Samsung Galaxy S4

Introduction

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the reigning king, the champion of Android sales, and it’s been so for nearly half a year with almost no competition. Now, LG has come up with a competitor - the LG G2, a device with a larger display, better ergonomics, faster chips and camera with optical image stabilization.

Can the Galaxy S4 still hold its ground? Or has time finally taken its toll? And is the LG G2 the new Android hero device? Let’s find out.

Design

Two polycarbonate handsets, the Samsung Galaxy S4 and LG G2 are both similar yet very different in terms of design and actual feel. The Galaxy S4 is flat, with no curves on its back, so when you hold it the palm of your hand kind of bumps into its edges. The slightly thicker LG G2 on the other hand follows the curves of your palm and nestles in it so very comfortably that it’d fool you for being the slimmer one (it’s not).

A usually boring subject like the buttons becomes interesting with the LG G2. The G2 simply lacks buttons on the sides as all of them have fled to the back. That’s right, the volume and lock keys are all on the back of the G2, right below its main camera and our initial feedback is extremely positive. This new positioning makes a lot of sense - your fingers are always there and you don’t have to reach out far and adjust the phone in your hand when trying to press a button. The Galaxy S4 on the other hand uses traditionally placed buttons on the sides.



We ought to mention LG’s amazing work on making the G2 so compact. The handset comes with extremely slim bezels and manages to be of virtually the same size as the S4, but still have a 0.2” larger display. Nicely done. The screen size on both devices however takes its toll and you’d find it hard using each of the devices single-handedly.

Last but not least, the actual build quality is solid on both devices - there are no screaking parts and everything is well put together.

Display

LG’s great work on thinning down bezels allowed it to include a 5.2-inch display in the G2, slightly bigger than the 5-inch one on the Galaxy S4.

The screen technology the two use, however, differs and so does the image quality. LG has gone with traditional IPS LCD (full RGB matrix) while Samsung uses an AMOLED panel (PenTile with Diamond Pixels). Both are extremely sharp and detailed, featuring a 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution, but the G2 is one step ahead with the slightly crisper image (but the difference is barely noticeable).

There is one thing, though, that will make you tell the two apart easily. That is the colors. The G2 has very lively, true to life tones for the most part, while colors on the S4 are clearly overblown. Whites on both are a bit colder than we'd like, and you can see a slight blueish undertone.

LG also has a much brighter, vivid display against a comparatively dim screen on the Galaxy S4. The higher luminance of the LG display gives it the edge in terms of outdoor use, and we appreciate that!.

All in all, we’d give the display honors to the more accurate and brighter screen of the G2.

Interface and Functionality

Both devices run on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with LG and Samsung’s custom skins on top. The two skins are somewhat similar in their looks with a slightly cartoonish, a bit childish appeal with bright and vivid colors everywhere. Samsung uses rounded icons and nature sounds throughout, and allows you to change the font and wallpapers, while LG allows you to completely overhaul the look (icons, fonts, and so on) using themes. There are two themes on board right now, but we expect LG to bring more in the near future.

The two handsets are stuffed with a bunch of custom pre-loaded applications like an organizer, built-in file manager and so on. The G2 however raises the stakes with its QSlide apps, a selection of applications that run on top of the main window. You can fire up all basic apps like the phonebook, messaging, calendar, mail, memo and so on, as you are doing something else, without having to quit your current app and that’s neat. The Galaxy S4 has a similar feature but instead of displaying apps on top, it splits the screen in two and allows you to run two applications simultaneously.

Basic functionality is well covered in both handsets. The phonebooks are rich in input options on both devices, but we like the G2 for its slightly faster loading times. Samsung allows you to swipe left or right on a contact to call or text them, and the G2 is also conveniently quick as you can call a contact right from the phonebook without opening it.

Both devices are great for messaging. The G2’s buttons are large and well spaced, and found ourselves typing very accurately. Letters on the SGS4 are a bit smaller but also well spaced so you won’t accidentally hit the wrong character. The Galaxy S4 keyboard also felt a bit snappier to us, but overall both handsets are great for texting.

Processor and Memory

The G2is launching nearly half a year after the Galaxy S4 and this difference in time has allowed LG to include a faster and more powerful chip than Samsung. What interests most users though is that performance is smooth almost throughout on both devices.

In technical terms, we have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 in the G2 versus the previous-gen Snapdragon 600 in most Galaxy S4s (some S4s ship with a slightly faster Exynos 5 Octa chip). Both the S800 and S600 are quad-core chips, but digging further into the details you’d find that the actual processor cores are different. The Snapdragon 800 on the G2 uses the newer and faster Krait 400 clocked at up to 2.2GHz, while the Snapdragon 600 on the S4 is based on the Krait 300 processor clocked at the slower up to 1.9GHz.

RAM is 2GB dual-channel on both devices, but the G2 has the faster 800MHz bandwidth.

The LG G2 also has the upper hand in gaming. You might not be able to notice the difference right away on many games, but the G2 is definitely more future-proof. It comes with again the latest Adreno 330 graphics chip against Adreno 320 on the S4.



Internal storage is another area where the LG G2 has the upper hand with double the storage allocation against the S4 - 32GB against 16 gigs on the S4. However, the S4 still keeps one hugely important feature and that’s expandable memory. The LG G2 does not support microSD cards and cannot expand over its 32GB internal storage, while in the S4 you could put as much as a 64GB microSD cards for tons of additional storage.

Internet and Connectivity

You have a choice of two pre-loaded browsers on the LG G2 and the SGS4. One is Chrome with its great cross-device syncing capabilities and solid, snappy performance. The other one differs. LG uses its custom-made browser that allows tweaking nearly every aspect of the experience. You can select default font sizes, change zooming behaviour and so on. The SGS4 also has a very feature-rich browser that lacks those customization options, but does feature offline saving, sharing and incognito mode.


In terms of connectivity, both devices feature 4G LTE support and dual-channel Wi-Fi (802.11 a, b, g, n, n 5GHz, ac). Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, A-GPS and Glonass are also on board on both.

Camera

Here is where the battle gets really heated. The Samsung Galaxy S4 proved to have one of the best cameras on an Android smartphone (if not the best), and now the LG G2 comes with huge ambitions to offer even better picture quality. While both handsets feature 13-megapixel main cameras, the LG G2 brings optical image stabilization (OIS), multiple focus points (9), and manual focus.

First, let’s take a look at the camera interfaces on the LG G2 and the Galaxy S4. At first look they are very similar - both are very quick to start and have similarly focused on introducing a lot of clearly explained shooting modes.

The two camera apps also have a lot of adjustable settings for more experienced photographers - exposure, ISO, white balance, timer and color effects are all there on both. However LG’s interface is much more convenient to use with large, easy to press and intuitive to find buttons.


What’s great is that all of that translates into some amazing images. The LG G2 captures very detailed pictures - sharp and clear - almost always better than the Galaxy S4. The difference in color reproduction is negligible (the G2 picks more true to life tones while the SGS4 prefers warmer than real colors), but the big difference in image quality comes from the Galaxy S4 washing out darker parts of the image. This results in less dynamic images on the Galaxy S4. The G2 on the other hand handles has none of these issues, and captures images that are rich in dynamics and pleasing to the eye.

Indoors where light gets scarce the G2 does extremely well. Again, we liked its images better than the S4 - they were less noisy (noise becomes a real issue in the S4) and colors looked livelier on it. The presence of OIS allows the G2 to abstain from firing the LED flash. Without the flash, images even in lower light have pleasantly warm tonality whereas in the same conditions, the Galaxy S4 automatically fires the flash that makes the whole image blueish. The LED flash on the G2 however is not as strong as the one on the Galaxy S4 that contributes to more evenly lit scenes.


Video recording is good on the Galaxy S4, but it’s simply great on the LG G2. Both support 1080p for extremely sharp footage. There is a skipped frame here and there, but overall we prefer the recordings from the G2. The Galaxy S4 again tends to wash out darker areas of the footage and the recordings do not look that lively. Transitions are more or less smooth on both, but moving the camera faster introduces a rolling shutter jello-like effect.

The G2 ups the stakes with support for 60 frames per second while the SGS4 maxes out at 30fps. This comes with one huge benefit - you can get smooth 2.5x slow motion effect at full 1080p if you convert LG’s footage to 24fps. Both devices record video using the MPEG codec.

A neat new feature on the G2 is Audio Zooming, which lets you tap on an object while recording video so the device will try to focus on sounds coming from its direction.

Multimedia

Both handsets are great for enjoying media. You’d be able to watch movies, check out images and listen to music on both indoors, but the LG G2’s brighter display makes it more suitable for outdoor use.

For video, both devices come with a pre-loaded video player that plays all formats we threw at it, at even 1080p without a hitch.

For music, the two devices offer one custom app and the stock Google music application. LG’s solution breaks down your collection by songs, albums, artists, genres, playlists and folders, and navigation is easy as you can just swipe between tabs. The SGS4 has the same tabs plus an option to automatically play back music depending on your mood. However it lacks swipe support and that’s a bit inconvenient.

Sound output is very loud and sufficiently good for casual use on both devices, but it does not even come close to the stereo sound of say the HTC One.

Call Quality

Call quality is great on both the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the LG G2. The G2 can get very loud on our end of the line and that comes with a slight distortion in sound quality. We recommend you set the volume level three or four bars below the maximum for near perfect voice clarity, but the volume boost is definitely welcome for very noisy environments. The Galaxy S4 on the other hand is noticeably quieter, but still brings very clear and natural voices in the earpiece.

On the other side of the line, our callers reported great sound quality out of the G2’s microphone as they were able to easily make out our voice and considered it sounding clear and natural. Almost the same can be said about the SGS4. Its microphone output yields sufficiently loud and natural sound but with a slight occasional crackle, and overall just a bit less clear than the G2.

Both devices come with noise cancellation technology that works good on both. Technically, the SGS4 has dual mics, while the LG G2 has a whopping three microphones.

Battery

The LG G2 has a 3000mAh battery that is not user-replaceable, while the Samsung Galaxy S4 relies on a 2600mAh battery that one can access and replace. This gives the G2 a slight edge in longevity as it’d be able to last you through a single day of even heavier use, and even two days at average use.

Conclusion

LG has used the extra time fully to its advantage with the G2 and comes up with an extremely well made device that impresses us in almost every way possible. The great ergonomics with very conveniently placed buttons on the back, the bright and vivid 5.2 inch display with almost no bezel, the newest powerful Snapdragon 800 chip, the impressive 13-megapixel OIS camera: those are huge advantages over the Samsung Galaxy S4.

After nearly half a year, Samsung’s flagship has finally found its match. Ignoring price for a second, we see no reason why you’d get the Galaxy S4 over the LG G2. The latter is faster and better.

The biggest question is which device should you buy right now, in a time when the Galaxy S4 has dropped in price? Good news is that LG is very aggressive with its pricing and has already announced pre-launch price cuts in some markets that put the G2 head-to-head with SGS4. If you’re in one of those markets, save your pennies for the G2. Even if not, though, the LG G2 is still worth the slight premium even without a replaceable battery and expandable storage.