LG G3 Smartphone Delivers Big Screen, Wireless Charging

By Don Reisinger

The LG G3 comes with a 5.5-inch display, making it one of the larger options on the market and on par with the phablet some reports suggest Apple is working on. What’s more, the display is a quad-HD display, meaning its resolution clocks in at 2,560 pixels by 1,440 pixels.

The camera is a key component in the LG G3. The device comes with a 2.1-megapixel camera on the front to make it easy to take clear selfies. The rear-facing camera has 13 megapixels, optical image stabilization and “laser auto focus” to ensure pictures don’t get blurry. There’s also a dual flash for low-light environments.

Here’s one that might make Apple cringe: The LG G3 does not require a cable to be connected to it when charging. The device features full wireless charging, making it the latest flagship handset to support that technology. Expect many more companies to jump on the wireless-charging bandwagon in the coming years.

Although its competition comes with built-in batteries that can’t be removed, the LG G3 actually has a removable battery. For enterprise users who often need to keep a charge on long flights, that’s an important feature. The fact that the LG G3 comes with a removable battery, unlike Apple’s iPhone, could be a key selling point for the device.

The LG G3 comes with a new take on security: the “knock” approach. What that means is users will be able to knock on the device in 80,000 patterns to unlock the handset. LG calls the feature “fun,” but the very fact that there are 80,000 permutations of the knock suggests it might also be an enhancement to security.

Here’s something not often seen in the mobile space: The LG G3 will ship with a 1-watt speaker and feature a built-in “Boost Amp” to deliver higher-quality sound. It’s not clear yet how much of a sound bump it will deliver over competing devices, but it should be interesting to see how it fares against the Galaxy S5.

The G3 comes in the customer’s choice of 16GB or 32GB of storage. In addition, the device allows for a microSD card with a maximum capacity of 128GB to be inserted. With that feature, LG is able to provide more storage than competing devices, like the iPhone 5S, which doesn’t support microSD or add-on storage. That’s a key feature for many users.

There’s no debating that the LG G3 comes with a great design. The device is just 8.9mm thick and comes with a metallic body that’s enough to rival anything other companies, including HTC and Samsung, have so far brought to the market. The G3 combines mobility and high-quality design to create an all-around great-looking device.

Although the G3 comes with Android 4.4.2 (KitKat), LG has put its own user interface atop the operating system. The user interface, LG argues, removes “unnecessary” elements commonly found in KitKat and makes the options built into the software a different color to make it easier to choose them. The result is a better software experience.

No surprise here, but LG has joined the health parade. Like Samsung and Apple and countless other mobile companies, LG has baked in several health features into its G3, including a full-featured “Health” app aimed at analyzing how many steps users have taken, how far they’ve traveled and how many calories they have burned. Health tracking is a major focus of mobile device makers in 2014.