LG G2 Smartphone Review: Snapdragon 800 Powered

Name: LG G2 Smartphone Review: Snapdragon 800 Powered
Brand: LG

by Ray Willington — Thursday, October 17, 2013, 11:20 AM EDT

Battery Life Testing and Camera Samples

Page 4: Battery Life Testing and Camera Samples

Battery life is an important part of any smartphone review; earlier phones would chew through batteries in rapid fashion, but the 3,000mAh cell sealed up in the G2 is formidable. In daily use, tapping into the Web, social, e-mail, calls, etc., we were easily able to use the G2 for a full day. From an early rise to an early curtain call, we squeezed 18 hours of solid use while still having 20% of the battery remaining. It's safe to say that this phone will last you an entire work day off of the charger unless you're tethering for hours on end or using the display as a movie screen all day long.

Under the pressures of the AnTuTu Battery Benchmark, the G2 managed to display a fairly stout score compared to its closest (albeit less powerful) rivals. This test attempts to max out the processor, and essentially run the phone full-tilt until it's exhausted. There's so much horsepower to be tapped in the G2, however, that "full-tilt" led to a slightly lower-than-average score. Still, this test shows an "extreme" use metric; real-world testing proved that the battery life is indeed better than most Android phones on the market.

The 13MP rear-facing camera is worthy of praise. We've generally found Android cameras to be inferior to whatever the latest iPhone camera offers. Apple's tight vertical integration enables it to squeeze maximum performance out of its camera sensor and camera software, and no matter how hard they try, most Android OEMs have a hard time matching noise levels, and overall fidelity in resulting images. That's changing gradually though, and the G2 is living proof.

Just look at our test shots from our iPhone 5s review, and compare them to the shots below from the G2. The iPhone 5s has a world-class camera that emits truly impressive results for a phone camera. But, the G2 holds its own. Colors are vibrant for the most part, though occasionally over-exposed at default settings. However, noise is almost nonexistent in late-evening captures, and the camera is able to snap these with next to no shutter lag. All of the samples here are unedited, and delivered straight out of the camera.