LG and Qualcomm jointly unveiled the LG Optimus G, the first smartphone on the Snapdragon S4 Pro

Today, the South Korean corporation LG, together with the American company Qualcomm, presented the first smartphone based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro system-on-chip with a quad-core Krait architecture processor and the Adreno 320 video accelerator. In addition to the new SoC, LG introduced several other technology chips (new LG ) camera, new battery and several software innovations). In the sale of the smartphone will be available next week, though only in South Korea. Entry into global markets will begin in October 2012.
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The article uses photographs and impressions of Brian Klug (Brian Klug) from AnandTech and the editors of GSMArena

Design

The body of the device is made in the already standard style for LG - a “bar” of rectangular shape with slightly rounded corners. The front and rear of the smartphone cover different types of glass, while the sides use plastic, manufactured according to a new technology, which increases its resistance to external factors. According to the journalists who were at the event, the assembly is excellent, although the surface of the device looks like a brand, but it is not.


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The assembly of this smartphone editors GSMArena generally consider the best for LG.

Hardware

As mentioned above, the new flagship of the company is based on Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ 8064 with a quad-core Qualcomm Krait processor at 1.5 GHz and an Adreno 320 video accelerator. In addition, the model comes with 2 GB of RAM, 32 GB of internal storage (there is no memory card slot ), 4.7 "WXGA TrueHD IPS Plus (1280x768) with In-Cell sensor, Bluetooth 4.0, microUSB (MHL) 2.0, accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor and compass.
Separate attention, according to LG, two things deserve: the camera and the battery, selected from the laboratories of LG. In the battery used some new technology that increases the charge cycles as much as 800 times.
As for the camera, this is a 13 megapixel module (for some markets there will only be an 8 megapixel version), including a 5P (5 elements) optical system with 1.1µm pixels and an f / 2.4 aperture. There is autofocus and optional use of HDR. In addition, there is a noise reduction technology in low light and SmartShutter technology, which, judging by the description, is the marketing name for optical stabilization.

Photo examples

Videography

Synthetic performance tests

AnandTech has already measured the performance of the new chip, and they, naturally, turn the iron of all previously announced Android smartphones into pumpkins.
Processor performance in a single-threaded problem :


Performance in a multithreaded task :


GPU performance :


Thus, the SoC of this smartphone is interrupted by all other chips from other manufacturers, including NVIDIA Tegra 3, Samsung Exynos 4412 and others.

Software

The LG smartphone uses the slightly outdated Android 4.0.x Ice Cream Sandwich with the updated Optimus UI shell, although company executives swear and swear that they will release an update to Jelly Bean soon, but given the inglorious history of device updates, they have no faith. Nevertheless, GSMArena states that despite the lack of such optimizations of Jelly Bean as vertical synchronization, triple buffering, and others included in Project Butter, the interface works perfectly without any slowdowns and slideshows that aggressively pursue 99% of official firmware manufacturers who then corrects the community, getting rid of shit. I doubt that LG has dramatically increased the quality of the code and the optimizations, most likely the hardware has reached the level that the misunderstandings of Korean coding are no longer able to load either the processor, or the memory bandwidth, or the video core.
Among the Optimus UI chips, I can’t help but note the cool QSlide chip, which allows, for example, while watching a video, to simultaneously write SMS. The interface becomes translucent, and the video appears to be under UI. Not so important thing, but not giving credit to engineers for a good idea would be too biased.

Summary table

In the summary table, I will compare the new LG smartphone with the most trending innovations of the fall: iPhone 5 and Nokia Lumia.


So, apparently, LG has the most powerful processor on the market, but the iPhone 5 certainly boasts a more powerful GPU. Lumia 920 is working on an already outdated chip, so it is very likely to lose to both new products. RAM is incorrect to compare, as smartphones have different multitasking models, so putting an iPhone and Lumia 1 GB of memory in a minus is not fair. So I think that there is parity.

The screen technology is more advanced with LG, but Nokia has the highest ppi among smartphones other than Sony Xperia S, so Nokia and LG are the first to reach the finish line. Nevertheless, it is impossible to say that the iPhone screen is worse, rather LG and Nokia are the first among equals. The human eye does not distinguish pixels already at a density of more than 300 ppi, so all three screens are of the highest quality.

Both LG and Nokia have NFC, but this is clearly not a killertic, which should be measured, although for some reason suddenly everyone needed it.

I don’t judge explicitly with the camera, as I am not an expert. But according to the characteristics of the camera, LG and Nokia bypass the iPhone camera, but what’s better among them is probably the subject of more than one page of future srachs on thematic forums.

As for the software, this is not the best position for LG. Android 4.0 is still good in itself, but the shell on top of it is debatable. Some like them, some do not, but the fact remains that all the software of the manufacturer significantly slows down the update process. Even if LG Jelly Bean masters by the end of the year, then the next version of Kie Lime Pie is a big question. So here I will give the advantage to the iPhone and Lumia 920. As for applications, then the leadership is in iOS, to which Android is on the heels, and Windows Phone is on the heels.

LG has more battery capacity, but considering the multitasking model and the display diagonal, I doubt that this will give any advantage to Nokia and iPhone. We need to wait for real tests, because how Windows Phone 8 behaves with the new kernel and the multitasking model is not yet known.

Dimensions and weight bypass side - taste.

The absolute plus of Apple is price and logistics. LG in the United States will be available only in October at an unknown price, and Nokia will not even know when, although it’s obvious before winter, otherwise it’s not clear why the presentation was held in September.

Thus, on average, smartphones turned out to be comparable. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and each user will have to identify the flagship here. Who needs the powerful characteristics of iron and a huge screen, then their choice is clearly on the side of LG.

Conclusion

LG succeeded in a stunningly smart smartphone, with a decent design and controversial software. By the presentation, I had a delight from the piece of iron as such, but I would probably advise Android fans to wait for the November Nexus, one of which will probably be performed by LG. And if they make a Nexus on such hardware, then the phone will obviously work without flaws (if not to take, of course, Android a disadvantage).