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.