Gadgetory

the mid-range and low-end Android space is becoming an increasingly competitive market and LG wants to capitalize on that question is can it I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is our four of you of the LG blue supreme on Verizon Wireless not everyone wants the best of the best whether it's due to a tight budget fewer needs or smartphones simply being low priority not everyone drools over the expensive high-end flagship smartphones like we here at pocket now do that's why low-end and mid-range er still exist in mass however 2013 taught us low-end budget smartphones are not necessarily all bad the question is can LG's 2014 mid-range err live up to the high standards its competitors entry-level smartphone set let's take a look at LG's lucid 3 on Verizon to find out hardware and especially appearance are not strong suits for the Lucid 3 by LG as an entry-level smartphone that's understood and expected but where devices like the g2 and galaxy s4 were unmoving and felt cheap the lucid 3 takes that to a new level the casing of the lucid 3 is made almost entirely of a slick slimy plastic not unlike the g2 the dark patterned backside fades into the silver trim along the edges and on the front you'll find a combination of capacitive back and menu buttons flanking a fiscal home button the home button like on the G pro doubles as a multicolored notification LED but it lacks proper tactile feedback and the casing is like a never-ending ad with Verizon and LG implement on both the front and back of the phone at a quick glance the lucid 3 sort of resembles the g2 from LG but upon closer inspection of the power of volume buttons navigation buttons and the finer details it's clear these two are not so closely related the story inside the casing is much of the same it's powered by 1.2 gigahertz quad-core CPU one gigabyte of RAM and it comes with 8 gigabytes of fixed storage for the microSD card slot for up to 64 gigabytes of additional storage it has a 5 megapixel primary camera VGA front camera and a removable 24/40 milliamp hour battery it also comes with a few standard connectivity options NFC Bluetooth 4.0 Wi-Fi b/g/n and LTE on Verizon's network the IPS display is like something straight out of 2012 diagonally it measures 4 point seven inches but it bears a quarter HD resolution 960 by 540 pixels at times color seemed faded and other times they pop contrast is decent but the black levels are fairly milky side visibility is hit or miss and the edges of text and icons are noticeably jagged we've seen worse displays before but it's definitely been a while the lucid 3 when you consider the price free on contract or 1249 per month for 24 months isn't a terrible deal at best the hardware will squeeze a few Yuans out of you then again if you're worried about hardware and specifications this isn't likely the phone for you anyway with this phone you're going to get much of the same experience you would expect of LG's more high-end devices becomes running KitKat Android version 4.4.2 beneath LG's heavily customized software you could LG's qslide apps quick memo knock-on and some not all of the deep-seated customization options such as LG steam engine the ability to change fonts and the ability to rearrange quick setting toggles in the notification shade however you don't get slide aside with the g2 s more granular features of course geared towards first-time smartphone buyers the easy home mode is also available which puts the dialer and other important apps and services front and center on the device if you've used an lg phone recently you'll be very familiar with a software on the Lucid 3 it's missing a few of LG's core features but the most important and useful features remain intact the lucidity wasn't exactly built for performance so it's fortunate to be running KitKat which significantly brought down the minimum system requirements of Android and supposedly boosted the performance on lower end hardware the Luther 3 is unnamed 1.2 gigahertz quad-core CPU manages to power through most everyday tasks with relative ease though we didn't have to put the phone through too much stress to experience lag and hiccups the application drawer sometimes takes a few seconds to load the phone sometimes pauses before returning home and task switching is noticeably slower on this phone than others of roughly the same caliber its performance and synthetic benchmarks only corroborate our findings it's passable but nothing impressive we also experienced framerate drops in some lighter games like roid-rage which made the game nearly unplayable on a lighter note the network speeds have been great here in the Charlotte metro area averaging downlink speeds around 15 megabits second and uplink speeds consistently around five megabits call quality on the other hand wasn't quite as noteworthy colors were loud and crisp on our end but we were told our audio was choppy and muffled battery life appears to be one of the few redeeming features of the Lucid three who are testing it managed to hold a charge pretty well even through heavy usage gaming social updates syncing to gmail accounts snapping pictures and downloading apps most will have no trouble mustering a full day on a single charge and if you do LG has thrown in a power saver mode which kicks in at 30 percent the camera continues the draft story however after the one in mate we're not so quick to judge resolution alone but the lucid 3 simply doesn't take compelling images colors are true to life but images like sufficient detail and show a lot of noise even in bright outdoor photos low light is also subpar it will suffice for basic camera needs but don't expect to frame any of the pictures you take to the Lucid 3 in all we can't say we're terribly moved by the Lucid three not necessarily because it's a bad phone or a poor choice but rather because there are better deals available cheaper phones with better specs and performance a better overall user experience two years ago this phone would have been par for the course today it feels out of place the Lucid 3 is a great choice for first-time smartphone buyers who won't be turned off by things like a low res display all plastic build and slight stutters and performance the phone is far from gorgeous and even further from being the best bargain around it's lost somewhere between the nexus 5 and moto G a middle ground we're not certain even needs to exist for a more in-depth look at the Lucid 3 in our final score be sure to check out the written component from this review on the pocket now site folks that's gonna do it if you enjoyed this video be sure to click thumbs up button below and of course subscribe to the channel to see more videos like this within the future be sure to follow us at all beautiful places Twitter Facebook and Google+ and Park it now I'm Kayla barb you can find me on Twitter and protected