Gadgetory

hey this is Josh from Garmin Management Authority what's going on everybody and today we're going to be taking a look at two of the hottest phones in the market right now both of which are coincidentally made by LG the Nexus 4 which just came out no more than maybe a week or so ago right here we have the lg optimus G and this is a version that is found on Sprint which is also the international version not quite the one that is on 18 T but we'll get into that a little bit later and I've been spending some time with the Nexus 4 and I've spent quite a bit of time with the next with the lg optimus G together and I want to give you sort of my thoughts on these two powerhouse LG phones so let's go ahead and get started the interesting part about this comparison is that these two phones are really fraternal twins LG has really come out of the gate with two powerhouse phones that actually have a lot of in common the lg optimus G comes with an awesome quad-core Snapdragon s4 pro processor that packs the zero gap technology on its four point seven inch screen on the other hand the Nexus 4 packs a quad-core Snapdragon s4 pro processor with zero gap technology in its four point seven inch screen so you can see where the dilemma is I swear there are some differences between these phones for starters the Nexus 4 takes a much more rounded shape that is a lot like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus the rounded corners make it seem smaller than the Optimus G but really it's pretty much the same size I've said in my previous review that I love the look of the optimus G it has a black slate look with a flat front that just looks incredible the two Torx screws on the bottom are a nice touch and the back sports that really nice crystal reflection effect the Nexus 4 on the other hand doesn't have that black slate look and it looks a lot like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus it is a very clean look though and the Galaxy Nexus proved that this is a tried-and-true design the screen does look great and those trademark LG torque screws are found on the bottom to the Nexus on the back is surrounded by you guessed it a crystal reflection design as well honestly it really does come down to your personal preference while I really love the industrious look of the lg optimus G the Nexus design just feels familiar and it really helps its appeal both phones feel great in the hand too so I can't really give the edge to either phone in this maybe we'll find something in the screens both phones have a true HD IPS display that has zero gap technology that means the corning gorilla glass layer is the only thing between you and the display it really helps of the responsiveness of the screen and it really is nice in practice both screens are pleasing to the eyes and after I even brought both phones running the same game closer to my eyes I found no true differences between these sharp and crisp screens in reality all I really got were dry eyes and a headache so I guess it's a tie on this one to performance is great on both these phones because both of them have quad-core Snapdragon s4 pro CPUs and Adreno 320 graphics processors the lg optimus G is listed among the top Android devices and benchmark ratings and when it comes to the Nexus 4 and as you can see both of them are running this test right now the Nexus 4 pretty much ranks right beside it the experiences on both phones are buttery smooth fast responsive and with 2 gigabytes of RAM multitasking was no problem at all you're pretty much getting a great experience either way on both these phones and I'm starting to realize that there's a trend in this comparison let's take a look at the cameras I mentioned in my Optimus G review that I was excited at how it's camera shows the potential for smartphone cameras I actually found that with some good tools it was pretty much possible to get a good picture or some good video out of this phone and 13 megapixels is quite a number and LG packs a bunch of other nice features into his camera to time-lapse shot for example is a useful tool that gets a bunch of shots during your shutter press so you can pick the best one and being able to take a picture using just your voices honestly pretty cool too now while the Nexus 4's camera has less megapixels at 8 it does come with the new jelly bean 4.2 camera app and it has a really nice interface now instead of traditional menus you can press and you are in the viewfinder and then swipe around to the appropriate area for changing your settings aside from that it does come with the photosphere for 360 degrees Street View like photos in this comparison even though I found that that Optimus G came with some cool extra features I also found that it didn't really render color it's quite like the Nexus 4 pictures from the Nexus 4 were just a little more pleasing to my eye at least in my opinion the way that the Optimus G floods life washes out some of the detail in the color nonetheless both are capable cameras and if you want the sheer power and extra features you can go the optimus G but in this case I just found the image quality of the Nexus 4 to be a little bit better now here's where things do start to look a little different the Optimus G does compact with the dated version of Android and Ice Cream Sandwich see the reason for it not being with the time so to speak is because LG has to put together its own Optimus UI to put over Android operating systems and it does take time to put all of those things into the stock Android operating system so the devices can sometimes get left behind by official Google devices that are always updated and are on the cutting edge LG however did put some good thought into their UI as the Optimus G comes with one of the most customizable stock interfaces around it already does look nice and professional but as you can see here a lot of the things are customisable like the theme and in this case the lockscreen the Nexus 4 on the other hand comes with the latest and greatest that Google has to offer a jelly bean 4.2 this brings with it features like Google now which is a nice search and information center widgets for the lockscreen and updated camera that you saw earlier and an expanded drop down that shows most of you used settings behind your usual notices now having Google in your corner is definitely a nice thing to have as the Nexus line will always get the most updated operating systems before all other phones the Optimus G is a couple versions behind in the Android game by now and though it will get the jellybean update soon it is only a matter of time before Google releases yet the next version of Android and then all the other phones will have dated software again as an Android nut and a bit of a purist and I know there are a lot of you out there having the Nexus 4 means that you have the most updated software and that's really enticing for a lot of people and I have to say that's the same for me as well so in this department I have to give it to the Nexus 4 as well a final point of contention we'll use in this comparison is the connectivity one of the most publicized features missing in the Nexus 4 is its lack of connectivity to 4G LTE instead the phone is natively able to run on HSPA+ networks which is not quite as fast as LTE but it has been reported that speeds are definitely adequate enough for a majority of different tasks if 4G LTE is really important to you you might not get the speeds you want from the Nexus 4 so that would leave the Optimus G since it is able to do 4G LTE on top in this department however I do have to reiterate a point I made in my in-depth review of the Optimus G that Sprint coverage is not that widespread across the United States yet there is a definite lack of LTE in a long list of areas and if you don't live in a spot getting for Sprint's coverage then you're out of luck on speed 18 T does carry the Optimus G and has more coverage so you might be able to find it there and so there you have it the lg optimus G and the Google Nexus 4 by LG it's really tough to lean in one direction over the other especially with these two devices because they share so many similarities in reality it really does come down to your personal preferences and what carrier you happen to be on if I truly had to pick one device however I do think that I would have to go with the Nexus 4 with the latest Android OS a familiar feeling to its design and the promise of first dibs on all future updates it really is deserving of the Nexus name still though the lg optimus G is seriously a great phone I love it's black slate design and overall it's one of my favorite looking phones ever with the same performance as the Nexus 4 however I really feel like the dated OS is the only thing that holds it back as you can tell in this comparison it was really hard for me to come to that decision so for my full written comparison and my in-depth review of the Nexus 4 coming soon head on over to Android Authority 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