Gadgetory

I'm Andrew coil for cnet and I'm here checking out the latest flagship super phone from LG the g3 this phone has had a significant design overhaul from its predecessor set the g2 although you can spot various family resemblances most obviously are the volume and power buttons which are found on the back of the phone rather than on the edge like any other phone LG argues that it's much more comfortable as this is where your finger will naturally stitch when you're holding it while that's true it takes a lot of getting used to and I'm really not sure that button location was a big issue that needed fixing to begin with it's a 5.5 inch phone which is bigger than the g2 but it does have narrow bezels so its body hasn't had to balloon out too much to accommodate the largest screen back panel looks a lot like metal or thanks to the brush defects in fact it's plastic with a metallic coating but it is a convincing effect and arguably a decent compromise between the lightness of plastic and the luxury look of metal that 5.5 inch display has a whopping 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution which far outstrips in 1920 x 1080 pixel screen on the galaxy s5 Sony Xperia z2 or the HTC One m8 sounds impressive well don't get too excited the fact is that above a certain point there's no real benefit in having higher resolutions your eyes just can't detect it indeed I myself could find no discernable difference in clarity between the g3 and s5 nor could almost anyone I gave it to it still pin-sharp though and has great natural colors so I don't have any complaints inside it's running a powerful quad-core processor with android 4.4 point2 KitKat software LG has chucked in various interface tweaks including its own icons and color schemes and a reminder to all who gives info about the weather or tips on how to save battery it's an attractive interface and it's quite easy to use as well on the back is a 13 megapixel camera which took some great shots in my tests and did particularly well in low light situations more excitingly though is the autofocus which uses a laser to detect subjects and speed up focusing time I certainly found it was able to focus extremely quickly which will be handy when you have a sudden burst of photography inspiration in general the LG g3 packs everything you'd expect from a top end smartphone and doesn't look too bad doing it the 2k display might be more of the marketing boats than a real benefit but rest assured the screen the processor the camera and the software are all top notch I'm Andrew Hoyle for cnet and this is the LG g3