Gadgetory

it's been a while since LG has made a tablet however after a couple great smartphone offerings the time seems to be ripe for a return to the tablet game age Josh Vergara from Android thority what's going on everybody and this is the LG G pad it's not too hard to understand where LG was coming from with the design choices in the G pad in a presentation at fo we were told that LG wanted to provide as big a screen as possible before extending too far from a comfortable size and up front this tablet certainly looks like it could be a little too big but once you put in your hand it's possible to grip this tablet that is almost 5 inches wide indeed this tablet is set up almost like a very large phone as the button layout is very classical with power and volume on the right in portrait a welcome nuance of these buttons is that they protrude just far enough for easy access even when the tablet is laying on a table whereas on other tablets they might be tough to reach because those are curved towards the back a headphone jack is up top next to a covered slot for microSD cards and in aesthetics the white design wraps around the top and bottom meant by a slab of aluminum in the back this aluminum material is a very welcome addition as it gives this tablet a more premium feel than most other Android tablets underneath the rather simple looking camera optics up top the bounds of the aluminum slab house the 2 speaker grilles overall this is a pretty attractive tablet seemingly taking elements from different sources to create one final product in the hand it definitely is about as big as it can get it stretches my one hand during a grip but not so much that I would dismiss that kind of usage a nice touch is that the bezels of the top and bottom of the screen are large enough to rest a thumb on making landscape usage a very comfortable alternative to the portrait mode that the G pad seems to keep getting marketed with 8.3 inches was the size LG went with for the screen and it is capable of 1920 by 1200 resolution at 273 PPI now this is a very good spec for a screen of this size making the G pad able to handle HD and high quality content quite easily this capacitive screen does handle colors quite well as they might not be too vibrant but are definitely very far from dull deep blacks give it a good level of contrast and when it comes to text sharpness is definitely no issue one thing worth noting is that there is a small black bezel around the rendered user interface that somewhat adds to the total bezel size it doesn't kill the experience by any means but it is noticeable ultimately this is a good screen to use for movies or reading or gaming in a size that actually does feel just right so the spike hungry might lament the G pad for not coming with the fastest processing package as it comes with the Snapdragon 600 clocked in at 1.7 gigahertz and is backed by the audrina 320 and two gigabytes of RAM as the optimist UI has grown to accommodate a lot of multitasking these specs definitely do the job I found no real noticeable instances of lag in the UI and putting apps aside for later usage in either of the G pads ways of doing so wasn't difficult at all if we use gaming as a gauge my current obsession in dead trigger 2 provides a good measuring stick even when at high quality the game still trucked along just fine without much lag keeping me from killing all the zombies effectively this might not be the fastest package to be fair but the G pad is definitely one of the fastest tablets currently available aside from the welcome aluminum material encasing it all the G pad does come with some nice extras 16 gigabytes of storage are included bolstered by the micro SD card slot available up top connectivity sees the usual bevy of bells and whistles though NFC is not included an infrared transmitter allows for the tablet to control televisions and set-top boxes and for those of you who want to use this tablet on your carrier network and LTE version of this tablet has popped up but currently it is only available in Europe two speakers on the back do make up a stereo setup but since they're still on the back it doesn't quite get across the sound is good though but the best part is definitely the loudness because this thing can absolutely blast as far as the battery goes you get a forty six hundred million Bauer unit within the G pad which is supposed to provide up to nine hours of usage but in my testing a typical task of watching Netflix for two hours took the battery from 85% all the way down to 50 percent so in reality heavy usage might end up getting you around seven hours which is still respectable but definitely is not exceptional on paper it's already tough to get excited about this tablets camera it doesn't come with a flash unit and as a five megapixel shooter the camera app is very similar to the g2 though it doesn't come with intelligent auto a few extra modes are available but ultimately it comes down to the picture quality and it's not great colors don't have any real punch and sharpness is pretty low routinely replaced by a level of grain even in well-lit situations honestly it's just hard to recommend this camera for anything substantial unless it really was the last one available and finally in software the G pad stands to benefit from the evolution of the Optimus UI since the original Optimus G all the way to the current g2 and in that regard the tablet gets all of the different cue functions listed pretty squarely in the notification drop-down you get a lot here qslide is the classic function that gives you a good selection of small overlay apps for quick multitasking making memos is pretty easy with either the small memo app or cue memo which makes an editable screenshot the main addition coming from the g2 is the slight aside which is a way for you to put aside whole apps for later usage slide with three fingers over to the left and it will slide the entire thing away stack them up and then slide back to the right and you'll be able to select from the ones you've stacked it's not the fastest multitasking we've ever seen but it works fine just remember you have to slide your app back into its stack or you're going to have to do it all over again in the G pad the newest function is the cue pair which allows you to join your smartphone and G pad together via bluetooth while you can do this with basically any smartphone it obviously works best with the g2 set up is incredibly simple just press the buttons on either device and then get them connected from here you are able to use your tablet without needing to get to your phone for every little thing you can respond to texts decline calls and even open the app you are using on one device over on the other one it's a nice way to consolidate your experience between the smartphone you always have on you and the tablet that you often use overall the optimist UI grows up pretty well it might be a little too in-your-face with everything that it can do but I personally still like its utilitarian take on Android at $349 the G pad sits pretty squarely in the middle with the price that isn't too low but with the feature set that is pretty high quality and so there you have it All Things Considered it's a worthy return to the tablet game for LG it doesn't pack the fastest processor it has an expected ly lackluster camera and it doesn't have the most refined user interface but in a parallel with its design philosophy what you do get in the G pad can definitely fit perfectly with just what the general user may need enough speed to game a pretty damn good screen for watching your movies or reading books and just enough tools baked in to make the G pad and assistance you may be proud to have as always thank you guys very much for watching and I hope you enjoyed this review of the LG G pad if you liked the video drop us a like down below and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already stay tuned to android 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