LG G2 review: Beautiful monster

Synthetic benchmarks

LG G2 flagship is one of the few high-end phones to use the latest (and greatest) Snapdragon 800 chipset. However, at 2.26GHz, its four Krait 400 cores are clocked 100 MHz higher than those of the Sony's Xperia Z Ultra.

Other than the higher CPU clock, the LG G2 packs the same Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM. We noticed the LG G2 has 1.81 GB of RAM available, while the Xperia Z Ultra offers 1.76 GB RAM to the Android OS. Because the smartphones share the RAM with the GPU, this means Sony has made 50MB more RAM available to the Adreno 330 than LG.

Enough technicalities though, let's put those beasts through the benchmarks and see who wins.

We test the single-core performance with the BenchmarkPi. The LG G2 managed to beat the Xperia Z Ultra score, helped by its higher CPU clock.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• LG G2
  99
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  115
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  130
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  132
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  132
• HTC Butterfly S
  135
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  166
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• HTC One mini
  293
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Nexus 4
  431

Linpack is using all four Krait 400 cores. The LG G2 once again did better than the Xperia Z Ultra by a hair.

Linpack

Higher is better

• LG G2
  1054
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1034
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  818
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  791
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC Butterfly S
  669
• HTC One
  646
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Oppo Find 5
  593
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  413
• HTC One mini
  320
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Nexus 4
  213.5
• HTC One X+
  177.7
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175.5
• HTC One X
  160.9
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141.5

The next benchmark we run is the newly released GeekBench 3. It combines CPU and memory performance but the LG G2 streak came to an end here as it failed to beat the Sony Xperia Z Ultra.

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2670
• LG G2
  2243
• HTC One
  1972
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1869
• LG Optimus G
  1623
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1315
• LG Nexus 4
  1288
• HTC Butterfly
  1257
• Oppo R819
  1047
• HTC One mini
  887

Quadrant evaluates the overall device performance and here LG G2 topped the Xperia Z Ultra by a whisker.

Quadrant

Higher is better

• LG G2
  19815
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  18177
• HTC Butterfly S
  13130
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One
  11746
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  11346
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• HTC One X+
  7632
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  7153
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• HTC One mini
  6048
• HTC One X
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5450
• Nexus 4
  4567

It's time to test the GPU performance. As we mentioned above, the Xperia Z Ultra offers 50MB more RAM to its Adreno 330 than the G2 and the benchmarks scores confirm Sony's gadget has greater graphic performance. You will hardly ever notice the difference in real life usage though.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  60
• LG G2
  54
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  43
• HTC Butterfly S
  42
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  41
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Oppo Find 5
  32
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• LG Optimus G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  17
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  17
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• HTC One mini
  15
• HTC One X
  11

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  23
• LG G2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  17.1
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• HTC Butterfly S
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  16
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  6.4
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  6.3
• HTC One mini
  5.6
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  54.9
• LG G2
  51
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  37.2
• HTC One
  35.6
• HTC Butterfly
  29.6

The Adreno 330 GPU on both Xperia Z Ultra and LG G2 supports OpenGL ES 3.0, which was recently added to Android (with 4.3) and that promised improved graphics. It's reasonable to expect even better graphics performance once Android 4.3 makes its way to this device.

The JavaScript performance of the LG G2 browser is excellent though the Xperia Z Ultra did an even better job. Since SunSpider has recently released a new v1.0.1 we used that for our tests.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  750
• LG G2
  902
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1046
• HTC One
  1174
• LG Optimus G
  1293
• HTC One mini
  1375
• LG Nexus 4
  1379
• HTC Butterfly
  1397
• Oppo R819
  1423
• Huawei Ascend P6
  3858

The combined BrowserMark 2 benchmark was an easy job for the LG G2 and it easily topped our test chart.

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG G2
  2718
• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2438
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2419
• HTC Butterfly S
  2378
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  2338
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2314
• HTC One
  2262
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• HTC One mini
  2164
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Google Nexus 10
  1773
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

We put the LG G2 through Vellamo as well and it turned on par with the Sony's Xperia Z Ultra’s score.

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2944
• LG G2
  2908
• HTC Butterfly S
  2592
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• HTC One mini
  2252
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2060
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  2056
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2019
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  1936
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Oppo Find 5
  1658
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Nexus 4
  1310

Just like the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, the LG G2 offers blazing fast performance and user interface experience. There has never been as fast and fluid Android devices as those two beasts.

LG did a great move waiting for Qualcomm to start the mass production of the Snapdragon 800 chipset before outing its flagship. The G2 is definitely faster than the most common version of the Galaxy S4 that is running on the previous generation Snapdragon 600 SoC. You can feel it throughout the whole Android OS, when playing games, even when you are browsing the web. And since the Xperia Z Ultra is a phablet, then the LG G2 is currently the fastest smartphone available on the market to date.