Gadgetory

hey what is up guys I'm Kay PhD here and this is the Optimus G pro from LG it's LG's first entry into the phablet game or the 5 inch or larger smartphone form factor category and they were smart and took a lot of cues from Samsung's very popular Galaxy Note 2 and then they took some design improvements and some spec bumps and some overall hardware upgrades and some software tweaks and basically turn it into the most accurate thing that we're going to see to the galaxy note 3 which isn't out yet but this is probably the closest thing we're going to see to that for a while so without any further ado let's take a closer video look at the lg optimus G pro so this is a big phone no doubt just like the Galaxy Note 2 and has a lot of similarities with its Samsung counterpart but then each aspect is slightly improved just slightly so you can start with the build both phones are made of plastic but the Optimus G pro on one hand feels a little bit more compact in the hand it has a slightly narrower body while maintaining that 5.5 inch display and that's because the bezel is twice as thin as on the note 2 the Optimus also has a removable back of course which reveals a slightly larger battery coming in at 3,140 milliamp hours a tiny bit larger than the one in the note 2 and this thing lasts just as long on a charge I'm talking full weekend roadtrip companion this is a road warrior just like the note also behind that back cover are of course the SIM card tray any microSD card slot for expandable storage and up top is the slightly unimpressive speaker probably the most unimpressive part of the whole phone it's a bit small and it could easily be covered up with a single finger but you also get the 13 megapixel camera up there which we'll get to in just a second other than that though just about everything about the Optimus G pros build quality as nearly as good as it gets on a phone of this size I mean we've never seen a phablet that's made of metal so obviously this is as well-built as a phone that you can probably get from top to bottom in that form factor and also the home button that doubles as a notification LED is a nice touch the LED colors are great now flanking that home button are the menu and back buttons but LG's just flip them around so they're the opposite of all those Samsung devices out there so it took me a little while to get used to but there's the back button on the left and the Menu button on the right I guess if you're going to change something just for the sake of changing it it might as well be something small like that but all around this phone feels about the same as the Galaxy Note 2 just slightly different in a lot of ways and then you get to turning it on and the first thing you notice even more than that display is LG's weird lockscreen totally blows my mind every time I use it but there it is and that the biggest difference once you turn it on is LG's display here we have a 5.5 inch 1080p full-hd super IPS display as we know the galaxy note 2 has a 720p display so this display has excellent color reproduction clarity sharpness viewing angles brightness everything about it it's a very good panel and I love the bezel I love the fact that it's so thin it really makes this phone's display stand out it seems like that's the highlight of this phone and it should be it's probably one of the best aspects of it I was initially concerned about the panel's impact on battery life thinking that a different display would have a very different battery life but like I said before this one had no problem lasting two full days on a battery charge with normal use so that's just a breeze to handle anyway the next biggest difference and the biggest thing you'll notice about the Optimus G pro is LG's skin on top of Android 4.1.2 LG next to Motorola and maybe Oppo have probably the most unconventional far out stock Android skin of any phone manufacturer today obviously the lockscreen is one big change but you'll notice just about everything about this phone outside of the lockscreen has changed too you can see where they took kids from the note 2 the default time and weather widget is an obvious one not too hard to see the similarities there and also instead of Samsung's multiple windows running next to each other LG has qslide which is one app that can be toggled transparent on top of the other LG also has a tabbed menu structure that lets you swipe through the menus thank goodness but they also let you switch between the tabbed and just a full list of all the settings the default is the tab structure but I kind of like that they give you the choice to just get that full list if you don't really want to drill down over although it's Android and you can customize it to look like basically whatever you want you make it look however you feel but a lot of the elements of LG's custom skin like the credit notification panel for example are unavoidable every single time you pull down the notification panel it's half-full of things like you know toggles and a slider for brightness and whole bunch of different stuff there are also a ton of pre-installed apps like more than any other phone I've ever used now I'm using the 18 T version here but obviously there's not going to be tons of pre-installed apps on the international version but there is definitely a lot of stuff that came on the phone but overall I like that this phone is such a great performer it's that's to be expected of course with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad core processor inside obviously one of the best processors you can put in a phone but yeah this thing is a great performer and constantly surprise me with how snappy and smooth the experience was using it probably a little bit snappier than the galaxy note 2 so that's definitely a good sign but overall this is definitely an lg phone LG really made it an LG experience and you can see how many cues they took from Samsung both in the software and the hardware of course the note 2 has one of the best eight megapixel cameras in any smartphone but the Optimus G pro shooter is 13 megapixels so it takes slightly more detailed shots thanks to that extra resolution but nothing all that crazy it's also not very contrasting so you lose a bit of that dynamic range and it's not quite as vibrant as Samsung's color in photos and videos from this camera you also don't get the same interface or the same crazy features that Samsung throws in there but overall it's not a bad camera at all and you won't be disappointed with it actually the 1080p videos it takes are really quite good in any kind of light and I found myself taking pretty much everything in full auto because auto does a great job on this phone so props to LG for that so yeah if I had to describe the Optimus G pro in one word it would be LG because this phone is so LG it's full of LG in every imaginable way everywhere that there is room for an LG touch you can expect an LG touch and these you know these LG touches are all shots attempting to one-up the Galaxy Note 2 and I love that it's the competition that drives us forward and this is basically the Galaxy Note 2.5 so in the end the Optimus G pro is an on phone definitely LG's best yet it's great in all the same ways that the Galaxy Note 2 is great you consider it a small sidestep or even a slight upgrade from the galaxy note 2 again we don't know what the Galaxy Note 3 is going to look like but this is probably your best bet for an upgrade from the note 2 if you want to stay in that phablet form factor and even get a slightly better phone you know we have a bigger battery of a higher resolution camera you have a 1080p display you have a whole bunch of improvements in here so this is LG's best phone yet I would definitely recommend it if you're into the LG skin I personally wouldn't go for it as my daily driver just because some of the animations don't quite feel right some of the software I'm not a fan of and I don't happen to be a huge fan of the looks of LG's skin on top of Android that could change soon but for now it's a good phone on the hardware front and it's getting there with the software either way that's been it thank you for watching this review of the Optimus G pro hope you enjoyed if you want to see more videos like this definitely hit that subscribe button below and there's also a thumbs up button if you liked the video either way like I said thanks for watching and I'll talk to you guys in the next video you