LGG3 a few thoughts

So I bought an LGG3, WHY?? Well I am a bit of a phone geek, I follow similar people on Twitter and one of them was selling one , a guy I have actually as well as virtually met, Mark Peters, apart from thinking the handset was good value, in fact with the three cases Mark also included and the exceptionally neat way everything was packaged, it was excellent value :) I occasionally get accused of being a Windows Fanboy, which maybe I am , but also uninformed or inexperienced with other operating systems/phones, which I'm not. Because I don't choose to use an Android Phone instead of a Lumia on a daily basis , doesn't mean I don't regularly help friends , family & work colleagues with issues on various types of phone , even , wash my mouth out, Apple :-D

So, although almost a year old when I got it and with rumour and rumbles of the replacement LGG4 arriving on the market imminently, on March 26^th I received the LGG3 to play with. I know lots of people who own, love and rave about the LGG3 , in fact I know very few who would criticise it, however, maybe my expectations had been unrealistically raised by things I'd read and heard. Don't get me wrong, the handset is well designed ,well mainly, and it looks and feels nice, but I would say it had three market leading or unique selling points above all else. A super high resolution screen, a laser beam to give super quick focus for the camera and the unique placement of the power and volume buttons being placed on the rear of the handset, which everyone seemed to think became very intuitive to use. Unfortunately I found all these features to be a massive dissappointment, the screen is OK, but it's high resolution was lost on my eyes and frankly I found it a bit washed out and almost unuseable in bright daylight, in fact my Lumia 1520 screen , to me looked better in almost any situation, particularly when taking photographs, as being able to see what your tring to photograph is kind of important to me !The camera itself, despite it's instant laser focus, was a little disappointing, it did produce some nice pics and in all fairness worked really well for close up photos, but in anything except very good light it struggled to produce anything other than 'reasonable' photos. Finally my BIGGEST gripe, those rear placed physical buttons what the actual f**k ?? Try as I might I found them at best akward, particularly to take screenshots, maybe I'm just clumsy and fat fingered, but without tap to awake and close the screen the buttons would have made me abandon the G3 within 24 hrs, and are almost enough to stop me ever considering an LG handset ever again ! Trying to use them would result in putting my finger on the camera lens, I had to flip the handset over to try take screen captures, which could take 3-4 attempts as if you don't don't catch it first time or apply any pressure on the touch screen you lose the screen you want to capture, I am obviously in a very small minority of clumsy oafs, but these buttons are an abortion of an idea.

Full Specs for LGG3 HERE (From GSMArena)

Now if you're still reading, you will remember I got the handset at the end of March and we are now approaching the end of May and I only just got rid of it ? Well apart from the dissapointments , I quite enjoyed the LGG3, Lollipop works well, the fast processor and more than adequate RAM make the phones apps and whole OS spin along quickly and smoothly, an occasional stutter and one or two freezes on Fenix (a twitter app I've used on my Android Tablet without issue) being my only issues. All the applications I use were available and I used there widgets as I like widgets on Android phones, I was also able to use familiar apps from the world of Windows phone that I am familiar with, MixRadio has a beta running for Android at the moment and Dean Patrick was kind enough to get me an invite, so throughout ownership of the G3 I have been streaming Mix Radio for Android through the stereo system in my company car, Here Maps and navigation also is available and official on Android now and works as you'd expect and finally I have used One Drive to backup and sync photos on the LG as I do on my Windows Phones.

Initially I found battery life to be poor on the G3, but I think is may have been 'new phone syndrome' and after a few days it settled down and easily lasted a full day plus. Daily use was fine and everything worked as it should. I mentioned earlier that the phone buttons could have completely put me off the phone, well one of the highlights of the phone was tap to awake or sleep //aved the situation as it works perfectly on the G3and so I could almost completely ignore them, which I did apart from having to use them for Screenshots. Another highlight was the Quick

Circle Case that Mark included. I'm not a lover of cases on phones, but the functionality of the Quick Circle Case and 'Coolness' of the clock poping up when you flip it closed was absolutely great, also being able to check notifications ,control music and even take a photograph with the case is great and I absolutely loved it, in fact it actually replaces the back of the phone and becomes part of it, the other two cases I wasn't over keen on , although the Black Leather flip case was well made, fitted fine and the card slots were a good idea, but I really found the Black Quick Circle Case one of the best things of the whole LGG3 experience, in fact the clock peeping through the hole in the case was the thing that attracted a colleague at work to the phone, and he now owns it :-D

Another couple of things I really liked on the LG were the fact you could add shortcuts to the Home Button Tray, not having a physical bamera button on th G3 and long holding the volume button to open the camera both being a bit naff, putting the camera icon on the bottom of the screen and it always being there whichever screen you were on is great and the fact you can move the stock keyboard to the right or left hand side of the screen is pretty cool for one handed use also

I mentioned earlier that the replacement for the LGG3 was released whilst I've been using the phone and it would appear that two of my biggest bugbears have been resolved, the camera and screen on the LGG4 are reportedly vastly improved, maybe I'll be able to check myself some time, and hopefully someone at LG will rethink the button situation, then I could consider leaving my sim in an LG a little longer. The Android experience has been a pretty good one for me, but for now it offers me nothing I need or prefer over Windows Phone, I could happily live with it and may have to, but for now and hopefully for the future I'll stick with my Lumias for now ;)

Not exactly a review, just thoughts and biased opinions, but hope you at least found this vaguely interesting and a big thanks to Mark Peters who is a gent and made it possible.

Cheers

Stephen Quin

19/05/2015