ocaholic - Notebooks / Tablets > LG G Pad 8.3 Review

[pagebreak]

Specifications

LG G Pad 8.3
Software	Android 4.2
Display	8.30 Zoll, 1920 x 1200 Pixel, 273 ppi, IPS, Gorilla Glass
Input	Touch Screen, Status LED
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 600, 1.70 GHz, Quad core, 28 nm
Graphics Unit	Adreno 320, 400 MHz
Memory	2048 MB
Camera	5 M, 1080p, AF
Front camera	1.3 MP, 720p
GSM / UMTS / LTE	No
WiFi	802.11 a/b/g/n, WiFi Direct, Miracast
Bluetooth	4.0
GPS	Yes
USB	Micro USB 2.0
Infrared	Yes
SIM card	No
SAR	0.72 W/kg
Battery	4600 mAh
Diemensions	126.5 x 216.8 x 8.30 mm
Weight	338 g

Page 2 - Specifications

[pagebreak]

Design

A first look at the LG G Pad 8.3 shows that it is rather similar to the LG G2. Overall it could even be the bigger brother of LG’s latest and greatest smartphone, at least when the screen is facing upwards. As soon as you flip the tablet around, you’ll notice, that the back cover has been made from aluminum almost entirely. This gives the tablet a high-end finish and a sense of quality you don’t get with the G2 smartphone. When it comes to the display, LG is using Gorilla Glass, which covers the 8.3 inch panel. Next to the LG Logo, there is a front-facing camera. The usual buttons can be found on the right edge. In this case, there is the volume control, power button, infrared receiver, 3.5 millimeter jack as well as a slot for microSD cards and a micro USB connector. On the back you’ll find the camera and stereo speakers. Regarding build quality LG really did a good job. When you’re holing this device in your hands it feels very sturdy and it also feels like it has been milled from one piece although that’s not the case. In fact, the main chassis is made from plastic and there is a big additional aluminum plate providing the thing with additional stiffness and causing a higher quality feel.

Display

Display size is no surprise, since it measures 8.3 inch, like the name suggests. Thanks to 1920 x 1200 resolution and 273 ppi pixel density everything is very sharp. Especially reading text is therefore a pleasure. Apart from that LG has been using an IPS panel, which offers a very wide viewing angle and life-like colors. They are strong and well also saturation is good. On another note, we had a closer look at brightness and it turns out that this appears to be the Achilles heel of this tablet. The maximum value we measured was at 309 candela per square meter and average brightness was no more than 262 candela per square meter. At least black level was good with 0.24 candela per square meter. This level of brightness makes it hard for read text, when there is sunlight shining directly on the display. This is really a pity, since contrast is well above 1000:1 and therefore by far above average.

Camera

Despite the fact, that tablets are usually not the most sophisticated devices to take pictures, LG decided to equip the LG G Pad 8.3 with two cameras. On the back there is a 5 megapixel model and on the front, there is a 1.3 megapixel camera. The camera on the backside is also able to capture videos with 1920 x 1080 resolution. Like with most other tablets, the camera you get with the G Pad 8.3 is no positive surprise. Unfortunately colors are washed-out and pale. Also sharpness could definitely be better. Nevertheless the camera is sufficient for snapshots. When shooting a video we were actually quite surprised to see, that in this case colors were richer. At 1920 x 1080 resolution and 30 fps the quality was actually decent. Still the quality could be improved and the camera in the G Pad is no match for today’s smartphones.

Page 3 - Design / Display / Camera

[pagebreak]

Performance / User Interface

Since this tablet is based on a 1.7 GHz Snapdragon 600 SoC with Adreno 320 graphics unit and 2 Gigabyte of memory, there is plenty of performance available for anything you might possibly do with it. Thanks to the fact, that there are 2 Gigabyte of memory the enhanced multitasking capabilities run smoothly. There is for example the possibility to stay on the home button for about two seconds and then you can switch tasks easily.

It’s not just that there is plenty of performance, we do also like that the user interface is clean and the logic behind it is easy to understand. As an example we can take the settings tab: on the left hand side, there are the different topics and should tap one, you see the associated content on the right hand side. Arranging a navigation this way, makes it very tidy and you won’t forget what was in the menu before. There are other approaches to this where you tap something and a new page opens. We actually prefer LG’s approach in this case.

Something else that is rather nifty is the way you can lock and unlock the LG G Pad 8.3. You can do that by double tapping the screen. Although it’s not working perfectly all the time, it’s a great way to lock/unlock your device, since clicking the lock/unlock button on the right hand side of the devices, can be more circumstantial.

One thing you might be missing with the G Pad 8.3 is that there is just no version of this tablet that features a 3G/4G module. This way you either have to rely on wireless connectivity or you hook the tablet up to your phone. In our opinion it’s really a pity, LG doesn’t provide more different versions. It wouldn’t have been a big issue to make yet another device with an additional 3G/4G module.

Battery life

LG equipped the G Pad 8.3 with a 4’600 mAh battery pack, which should basically be enough to power a high resolution display as well as the Snapdragon 600 SoC. When we were testing battery life, while constantly playing movies, we notice that after 5 hours and 31 minutes the battery was finally empty. In everyday use, which includes browsing, writing e-mails, playing games, using apps and watching a few videos the battery went empty after almost 7 hours. Compared to other tablets like the Nexus 7 or the iPad, the LG G Pad 8.3 is really lacking behind.

Page 4 - Performance / User Interface

[pagebreak]

Benchmarks

AnTuTu Benchmark

Total
Samsung Galaxy S4	23'901
LG G Pad 8.3	22'621

Multitask
LG G Pad 8.3	4'696
Samsung Galaxy S4	4'184

Dalvik
LG G Pad 8.3	2'620
Samsung Galaxy S4	2'188

CPU integer
LG G Pad 8.3	2'609
Samsung Galaxy S4	2'010

CPU floating point
Samsung Galaxy S4	2'582
LG G Pad 8.3	2'257

RAM Operation
Samsung Galaxy S4	1'007
LG G Pad 8.3	697

RAM Speed
LG G Pad 8.3	1'466
Samsung Galaxy S4	1'441

2D Graphics
Samsung Galaxy S4	1'623
LG G Pad 8.3	1'348

3D Graphics
Samsung Galaxy S4	7'119
LG G Pad 8.3	5'078

Storage I/O
LG G Pad 8.3	1'210
Samsung Galaxy S4	1'107

Database I/O
Samsung Galaxy S4	640
LG G Pad 8.3	640

3DMark Ice Storm Extreme

Total
Samsung Galaxy S4	7'096
LG G Pad 8.3	6'422

Graphics Score
Samsung Galaxy S4	6'514
LG G Pad 8.3	5'695

Physics Score
LG G Pad 8.3	11'614
Samsung Galaxy S4	10'326

Page 5 - Benchmarks

[pagebreak]

Conclusion

Overall the LG G Pad 8.3 is definitely a decent tablet, but we somehow get the impression that LG didn’t know what they actually wanted to achieve with this device. The G Pad 8.3 is somewhere inbetween a high-end tablet and a low-end tablet. This story already starts with the materials used. Although the back has been made largely from aluminum, there is still basically a chassis made from plastic. The story then goes on with the display. There is a great IPS panel with 1920 x 1200 resolution but the brightness just doesn’t cut it. Then there is the next point which concerns the different models available. From today’s tablets, which are priced at 250 Euro and upwards we expect models with 3G/4G module onboard. Hooking the tablet up to a phone can be quite annoying since tethering still is a batter killer.

Bottom line we can say, we do like the looks of this tablet and we also like the user Interface as well as the fact that there is a decent display. But honestly if we were to spend CHF 300.- (est EUR 250.-) on a tablet we would much rather consider an iPad or if it really had to be an Android device, we would have a closer look at the new Nexus 7.