LG Optimus L9 review: Living large

Living large

GSMArena team, 04 January 2013.

Synthetic benchmarks: Two Cortex-A9 cores still gets the job done

LG Optimus L9 is powered by the TI OMAP 4430 chipset with two 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 CPU cores and the PowerVR SGX540. Sure, the L9 hardware is not the benchmark champion of every geek's dreams, but it's nowhere near the end of its lifecycle. In fact, it's more than adequate for the price range. Anyway, let's take a look how this one stacks among the competition.

Benchmark Pi is a simple single-threaded benchmark, so we know what we can expect from it. The Optimus L9 falls behind the Krait-powered and the latest quad-core smartphones, but comes close to its Cortex-A9 CPU siblings - the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Nexus.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

  • HTC One S
    306
  • Samsung Galaxy Premier
    372
  • Samsung Galaxy Nexus
    447
  • Samsung Galaxy S II
    452
  • LG Optimus L9
    480
  • Samsung Galaxy S III mini
    499
  • Samsung Galaxy S Advance
    530
  • HTC Sensation XE
    536
  • Sony Xperia S
    536
  • Sony Xperia sola
    551
  • HTC Desire X
    639

Linpack offers multithreaded benchmarking, making it essential for testing dual and quad-core beasts. The Optimus L9 stacks the same as its dual-core siblings - the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Nexus.

Linpack

Higher is better

  • HTC Desire X
    74.79
  • Sony Xperia sola
    68.1
  • LG Optimus L9
    65.9
  • Samsung Galaxy S Advance
    64.74
  • Sony Xperia J
    38.37
  • HTC Desire V
    34.4
  • HTC One V
    34.4

Quadrant is a composite benchmark (it tests CPU, GPU and I/O). The LG Optimus L9 scored almost the same as the Samsung Galaxy S II, beats the Galaxy Nexus but was outrun by the Galaxy Note, Xperia S and naturally, all the quad-core beasts.

Quadrant

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    5365
  • HTC One X (Snapdragon S4)
    5146
  • HTC One S
    5047
  • HTC One X (Tegra 3)
    4842
  • LG Optimus 4X
    4814
  • Samsung Galaxy Note
    3531
  • Sony Xperia S
    3173
  • Samsung Galaxy S II
    3053
  • LG Optimus L9
    3019
  • Samsung Galaxy S III mini
    2644
  • Samsung Galaxy Nexus
    2316

Another worthy composite benchmarks are AnTuTu and GeekBench. Here are the results.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    12288
  • HTC One X (Tegra 3)
    11633
  • LG Optimus L9
    7168
  • Motorola RARZ i XT890
    6150
  • Samsung Galaxy S III mini
    5823
  • HTC Desire X
    5177
  • Sony Xperia J
    3546
  • Sony Xperia miro
    2916

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

  • Nexus 4
    2100
  • Samsung Galaxy Note II
    2000
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    1845
  • LG Optimus G
    1723
  • HTC One X (Tegra 3)
    1634
  • Apple iPhone 5
    1601
  • LG Optimus L9
    908

The Optimus L9 uses the PowerVR SGX540 GPU and has a qHD screen to fill with pixels. Obviously that's a pretty tall order, which explains the rather poor showing in NenaMark 2. The L9 result is comparable with the Xperia S, but that one uses a 720p screen.

NenaMark 2

Higher is better

  • HTC One S
    60.5
  • Samsung Galaxy Premier
    55.3
  • Samsung Galaxy S II
    51.6
  • Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
    43.6
  • Samsung Galaxy S III mini
    38.9
  • Sony Xperia S
    37.5
  • HTC Desire X
    35.4
  • LG Optimus L9
    32.5
  • Samsung Galaxy Nexus
    28.7
  • Sony Xperia sola
    27.7

GLBenchmark isn't particularly kind to the Optimus L9, either, but the smartphone can take consolation in the fact that it matches the HTC One X result. We're using the Egypt test in offscreen 1080p mode so that results are directly comparable even though each device has a different screen resolution.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

  • LG Optimus G
    29
  • Apple iPhone 5
    27
  • Nexus 4
    26
  • Samsung Galaxy Note II
    17
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    15
  • HTC One X+
    12
  • LG Optimus L9
    9
  • HTC One X
    9

SunSpider is a JavaScript benchmark and as such isn't strongly affected by the number of CPU cores - it mostly reflects the raw performance of a single core and how optimized the JavaScript engine itself is. The Optimus L9 score is somewhere between the previous generation Galaxies and the iPhone 4S.

SunSpider

Lower is better

  • Samsung Galaxy Premier
    1171
  • Samsung Galaxy Nexus
    1626
  • HTC One S
    1708
  • Samsung Galaxy S II
    1849
  • Samsung Galaxy S III mini
    1888
  • LG Optimus L9
    2029
  • Apple iPhone 4S
    2217
  • HTC Desire X
    2259
  • Sony Xperia S
    2587
  • Samsung Galaxy S Advance
    2663
  • Sony Xperia sola
    2837

BrowserMark adds HTML to the equation - behind the scenes JavaScript computing won't do much if the web page can't update fast and smooth. Since BrowserMark got updated we don't have all the results from previous phones, but you can still get the idea. Interestingly, the Optimus L9 managed to beat the Galaxy S III here.

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

  • LG Optimus G
    2555
  • Acer CloudMobile S500
    1877
  • Nokia Lumia 820
    1760
  • Samsung Omnia W
    1632
  • LG Optimus L9
    1329
  • Samsung Galaxy S III (JB)
    1247
  • Samsung Galaxy S III mini
    714
  • Sony Xperia J
    587

The Vellamo score isn't too bad either. We only have the results of quad-core smartphones to compare the L9 performance to, but the difference isn't too huge, which bodes well for the LG mid-ranger.

Vellamo

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy Note II
    2418
  • HTC One X (Tegra 3)
    2078
  • Samsung Galaxy S III
    1641
  • LG Optimus 4X HD
    1568
  • LG Optimus G
    1522
  • Meizu MX 4-core
    1468
  • Nexus 4
    1310
  • LG Optimus L9
    1162

Overall, the LG Optimus L9 is hardly the most powerful smartphone around and there are certainly be plenty of devices out there to give you faster ride around Android. However, it's no slouch either and it's raw power will be more than enough for the vast majority of the users.

Reader comments

  • Harryblack
  • 24 Nov 2019
  • r4N

Its a great fone for its price.....

  • ashok kumar
  • 23 Jul 2015
  • 0Cn

Asus VivoWatch With 10 Day Battery Backup Is Awesome And Unbelievable

  • SA_Kids
  • 21 Oct 2013
  • N96

The screen of this phone is just pathetic. The brightness is so low which makes the outside visibilaty so poor, I can't even see what's on the screen. I wouldn't take this phone when there're beter phones for the same price, the huawei P6 is a far be...