LG G Pad 7.0 review: Back at it

Camera

The camera app on the LG G Pad 7.0 also derives from the recent G3 but lacks some features due to its less-capable imaging hardware. That includes a 3.15 MP snapper on the back, complimented by a 1.3 MP snapper on the front.

Options are very scarce - you can say cheese to capture a photo, enable grid view, a timer and geo-tag your images but that's about it - there's no HDR, no filters, no other shooting modes - just a shutter and you're done.

Camera

The camera allows you to capture a selfie using the front-facing camera by placing your hand in front of the lens and making a fist. This will activate a 3 second timer and then capture a photo. The option is nice to have but it worked around 60% of the time and made us look a little idiotic to surrounding people.

Now for the actual quality of the images. The LG G Pad 7.0 is first and foremost a budget tablet. And the imaging department is one of those on which LG has cut costs. The 3.15 MP snapper isn't very impressive in resolution and produces the image quality you'd expect from a snapper like this.

The resolved detail is okay but not very good. Colors appear a little washed out and contrast isn't impressive all around the frame. On the plus side the G Pad 7.0 images come out sharp.

LG G Pad 7.0 camera samples

Exposure and white balance are also spot in every photo we took.

LG G Pad 7.0 camera samples

Focusing was fast and so was taking pictures. At around 1-1.5 MB images aren't going to take over the 8 GB on-board storage either.

We suppose the LG G Pad 7.0 is okay for the occasional snap here and there but we can't see it handling capturing a walk in the park or a concert very well. We would have preferred the back camera to be on the front so that you could enjoy better selfies and video chats.

Video recording

The camcorder doesn't have its own interface - it's just part of the camera app. Next to the photo shutter there's a video one as well. Videos max out at 720p, which isn't particularly impressive in this day and age. We guess the camera sensor has limitations as the chipset is more than capable of 1080p video.

Camcorder

Here's a sample from the LG G Pad 7. The detail isn't much and we'd even go out and say that it looks lower in resolution than it actually is. Dynamic range is very poor but at least the colors have a little more pop to them.

Framerate was constant at 30 fps, which helps get smooth, stutter-free videos. Bitrate is okay at around 11 Mbps. Despite recording only 1 audio channel (read mono) the recording is good quality and carries a high bitrate of 153 Kbps.

And here's an untouched 720p@30fps sample straight off the device.

And just for the sake of further comparison here's the LG G Tab 7.0 in our video quality comparison tool. It does okay but really deteriorates in the low-light test.

LG G Pad 7.0 in our video quality comparison tool