LG G2 mini review: Big mini

Modest quad-core performance

The G2 mini comes with a Snapdragon 400 chipset with four Krait 200, Cortex-A7, cores clocked at 1.2 GHz and the Adreno 305 graphics processing unit. The phone makes use of 1 GB of RAM.

The Cortex-A7 processor clocked at 1.2GHz delivers a reasonable mid-range performance very close to the Cortex-A9 CPUs of old, with the added benefit of having lower power consumption.

Jumping to the benchmark tests, BenchmarkPi focuses on the per-core performance. It evaluates how fast the processing core is and the G2 mini scored just under its siblings by processor - the Moto G and Xperia C - and not far behind Cortex-A9 competition.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• LG G2
  99
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  132
• LG Nexus 5
  146
• HTC One
  151
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  166
• Motorola Moto X
  192
• HTC One mini
  293
• Huawei Ascend P6
  348
• Sony Xperia C
  374
• Motorola Moto G
  392
• LG G2 mini
  407
• LG Nexus 4
  431
• Nokia X
  676

Linpack is a single or multi-threaded oriented benchmark. Here the G2 mini scored just lower than the more powerful HTC One mini (boasting a Snapdragon 400 with better Krait 300 cores) and didn't manage to overpower the Moto G either.

Linpack

Higher is better

• LG G2
  1054
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  788
• HTC One
  646
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  413
• LG Nexus 5
  393
• Motorola Moto X
  391
• HTC One mini
  320
• Motorola Moto G
  259
• LG G2 mini
  217
• LG Nexus 4
  213.5
• Huawei Ascend P6
  161.4
• Sony Xperia C
  132.3

Geekbench 3 is a cross-platform CPU benchmark. In it the G2 mini bested the Moto G and came close to the LG Nexus 4 - not a bad score.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• LG Nexus 5
  2453
• LG G2
  2243
• Motorola Moto X
  2123
• HTC One
  1972
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  1937
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  1869
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1315
• LG Nexus 4
  1288
• LG G2 mini
  1123
• Motorola Moto G
  1120
• Sony Xperia C
  1079
• Oppo R819
  1047
• HTC One mini
  887
• Nokia X
  421

AnTuTu 4 gauges the overall device performance instead of just the CPU. Here the G2 mini came close to the way more powerful Moto X and again beat the Moto G, if only by a hair. In Quadrant the G2 mini scored almost double the points of the similarly-spec'd Xperia C.

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• LG G2
  35444
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  27613
• HTC One
  26389
• LG Nexus 5
  25097
• Motorola Moto X
  19031
• LG G2 mini
  17362
• Motorola Moto G
  17214
• LG Nexus 4
  17006
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  14518
• Sony Xperia C
  13948
• Huawei Ascend P6
  13776
• HTC One mini
  11434
• Nokia X
  7514

Quadrant

Higher is better

• LG G2
  19815
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  12376
• HTC One
  11746
• Motorola Moto X
  9018
• LG G2 mini
  8918
• LG Nexus 5
  8844
• Motorola Moto G
  8508
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  7153
• HTC One mini
  6048
• Huawei Ascend P6
  5287
• Sony Xperia C
  4941
• LG Nexus 4
  4567
• Nokia X
  2880

Heading into GPU-intensive test territory it's time to see how the Adreno 305 inside the G2 mini performs against the similarly spec'd Moto G and the PowerVR SGX544 inside the Xperia C. At GLBenchrmak's 2.5 Egypt 1080p offscreen test the Adreno 305 rounded up 5.8 frames per second. GLBenchmark's offscreen test shows what the GPU inside the phone can do in raw performance - not pushing the native qHD resolution, but instead a fixed 1080p one. Naturally, the G2 mini was outperformed by Snapdragon 600 and 800-yellding foes as their Adreno 320 and 330 are much more potent.

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex offscreen also gave the nod to the Adreno 305 over the PowerVR SGX544 - the Adreno got twice the framerates.

Finally, the Epic Citadel, which generates a beautiful and rich medieval scene, was the place where the the Adreno 305's managed to push the LG G2 mini to a score of 57.4 fps. That's mostly thanks to the low resolution as the GPU didn't had to do as much work as the one in the 720p Moto G.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• LG Nexus 5
  23
• LG G2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  17.1
• Motorola Moto X
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  6.4
• LG G2 mini
  5.8
• Motorola Moto G
  5.6
• HTC One mini
  5.6
• Huawei Ascend P6
  4.4
• Sony Xperia C
  2.8

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto X
  59.6
• LG G2 mini
  57.4
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  54.7
• LG G2
  51
• LG Nexus 5
  49.1
• LG Nexus 4
  48
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  37.2
• Sony Xperia C
  36.3
• HTC One
  35.6
• Motorola Moto G
  34
• HTC One mini
  30.7
• Huawei Ascend P6
  29.6
• Oppo R819
  23.1

And for the final installment of our synthetic round comes the browsing experience, which is comprised of the JavaScript-focused and HTML 5-oriented SunSpider and BrowserMark 2. Finally, Vellamo does a little of everything for an all-round score.

JavaScript performance deemed the G2 mini slightly better than the Moto G and better overall than most of its more expensive rivals, which can be attributed to them running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.

In Browsermark the Android 4.4 and G2 mini duo scored a very high result leaving others, like the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini in the dust.

Vellamo wasn't as generous as the other two and left the G2 mini sob in the bottom place.

SunSpider 1.0.2

Lower is better

• LG Nexus 5
  734
• Motorola Moto X
  1050
• LG G2 mini
  1082
• Motorola Moto G
  1308
• Sony Xperia C
  1322.3
• Nokia X
  2363.3

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG Nexus 5
  2745
• LG G2
  2718
• LG G2 mini
  2600
• Motorola Moto G
  2562
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  2438
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2314
• HTC One
  2262
• HTC One mini
  2164
• Sony Xperia C
  1984
• LG Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia X
  1729
• Huawei Ascend P6
  974

Vellamo

Higher is better

• LG G2
  2908
• Motorola Moto X
  2446
• HTC One
  2382
• HTC One mini
  2252
• Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
  2060
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2019
• Motorola Moto G
  1928
• Sony Xperia C
  1582
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1434
• LG Nexus 5
  1340
• LG Nexus 4
  1310
• LG G2 mini
  1179

All in all, we saw the LG G2 mini perform decently In the synthetic benchmarks we threw at it. In most cases it performed spectacularly for its low-powered quad-core CPU. However, synthetic benchmarks are one thing, and overall performance (user interface, apps) is another. There, the G2 mini didn't disappoint either. Everything is snappy and fluid, even when opening a bunch of applications at the same time. We're definitely pleased with it.