LG V10 review: Screen play

Performance

The LG V10 is an upgrade over the LG G4, though even with recent revisions to the Snapdragon 810 chipset, which promise to reduce the heat, LG still went with the Snapdragon 808. It did load it with 4GB of RAM, though we worry about the GPU - it's not up to the QHD task.

The processor does fairly well - two Cortex-A57 cores at 1.82GHz and four A53s at 1.44GHz come close to the Snapdragon 810 setup (which has two extra A57s). Both single and dual-core performance stays close to the S810-powered G Flex 2.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  5158
• OnePlus 2
  4429
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  4413
• LG V10
  3607
• LG G Flex2
  3604
• LG G4
  3509
• Moto X Pure Edition
  3433

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  6498
• LG G4
  5871
• LG G Flex2
  5597
• OnePlus 2
  5301
• LG V10
  4261

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  27511
• LG G Flex2
  18856
• LG G4
  17739
• LG V10
  17127
• OnePlus 2
  16798

Full system performance is very competitive too, at least according to AnTuTu 5. Basemark OS II 2.0 found it lacking, though we never experienced any slowdowns.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  68324
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  58582
• LG V10
  52713
• Moto X Pure Edition
  50629
• LG G4
  49295
• LG G Flex2
  47680
• OnePlus 2
  47207

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  2261
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  1789
• LG G Flex2
  1726
• OnePlus 2
  1622
• LG G4
  1584
• LG V10
  1383

For 3D, things are much less impressive though. The Adreno 418 GPU just doesn't have a lot of oomph and the Adreno 430 in S810 smokes it with a nearly 50% lead. The Mali-T760 in Samsung's top Exynos is even further in front.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  38.6
• OnePlus 2
  22
• LG G Flex2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  15
• LG V10
  9.5
• LG G4
  9.4
• Moto X Pure Edition
  9.3

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 2
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  6.6
• LG V10
  5.7
• Moto X Pure Edition
  5.6

Even if you don't use the full QHD resolution of the screen and settle for 1080p, the frame rate is still well below the 30fps threshold. If you use the new Open GL ES 3.1, the frame rate drops even further. For a flagship, the LG V10 just isn't great at playing premium 3D games.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  39.5
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  25
• OnePlus 2
  22
• LG G Flex2
  22
• LG V10
  15
• Moto X Pure Edition
  15
• LG G4
  14.9

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 2
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  15
• LG V10
  10
• Moto X Pure Edition
  10

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  916
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  348
• LG V10
  297

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  26333
• OnePlus 2
  21937
• LG G Flex2
  19360
• LG V10
  15161
• LG G4
  15090
• Moto X Pure Edition
  14598

Web browsing also puts a strain on the chipset, but it handles it much better. We used Chrome for testing and the LG V10 easily beat the S808-powered Moto X Pure Edition (aka Style) and even staid close to the more powerful Galaxy S6 edge+ for JavaScript performance.

The Samsung showed a bigger advantage is general web browsing, but a S810 doesn't do much better than the S808 either.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  1731
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  3767
• LG G4
  4085
• LG G Flex2
  4621
• LG V10
  4666
• OnePlus 2
  6808
• Moto X Pure Edition
  6910

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  2591
• Moto X Pure Edition
  2132
• LG V10
  2119
• LG G Flex2
  2086
• OnePlus 2
  2055
• LG G4
  1990

LG had plenty of time to work out heating issues since the LG G4 and Qualcomm has revised its troubled chipset to turn down the heat. Even then, Microsoft managed to create a liquid cooling solution for its Lumia 950 phones.

Snapdragon 808 is fine for general use, the processor in handles the loss of two of its big cores particularly well. It's the GPU that doesn't quite work at the flagship level. Maybe if Qualcomm had a version of the S808 with Adreno 430 things would be different.