Samsung Galaxy S5 vs LG G2: Life in the fast lane

Video quality

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is an excellent camcorder and easily beats LG's flagship here. As you can see in the 100% crop we've made below the level of detail in both 1080p@30 fps and 60 fps on the Galaxy S5 is clearly superior. The addition of UHD recording at 30 fps bumps up the resolution and also detail more than twice, making the quality gap even wider.

The optical image stabilization of the LG G2 could potentially bring back some of the lost ground but as we've seen with devices like the iPhone 5s sometimes digital stabilization can be just as good as optical one. In the video below you can clearly see how the two phones perform. While the Galaxy S5 offers really good software stabilization the LG G2 has the advantage with cleaner, smoother movement. There's also the added bonus of a wider field of view - with digital stabilization the sensor crops some of the frame in order to stabilize.

As with still imaging the LG G2 chooses to go for a much more balanced exposure, whereas the Galaxy S5 leaves the sky darker in comparison.

The fine detail on the Galaxy S5 videos is superior - you can read the signs and view textures better. Looking at the fences in the scene, the Galaxy S5 tries to display them and succeeds while the LG G2 struggles to make them out.

The Samsung Galaxy S5's 1080p@30 fps videos carry a bitrate of around 17 Mbps with 2 channel (stereo) audio recording with a bitrate of 123 Kbps and a 48 kHz sampling rate. FullHD videos at 60 fps carry a bitrate of 26 Mbps with 59 frames per second, an audio bitrate of 119 Kbps with two channels and a sampling rate of 48 kHz. Ultra High Definition videos (4K or 2160p) have a much higher 46 Mbps bitrate, 29 frames per second, an audio bitrate of 120 Kbps with stereo recording at 48 kHz.

The LG G2's standard FullHD 30 fps videos have the same bitrate of around 17 Mbps with a solid framerate of 30. Audio bitrate stands higher compared to the Samsung at 145 Kbps with two channels (stereo) with a sampling rate of 48 kHz. While carrying lower detail the smooth FullHD 60fps videos have a higher bitrate of almost 30 Mbps and a solid framerate of 58 fps. Audio is sampled in the 48 kHz with stereo channels but with a higher bitrate of 157 Kbps.

So the LG G2 has the same bitrate in 1080p@30 fps and higher in 1080p@60 fps recording and carries a higher audio recording bitrate. However the G2 lacks the incredibly-detailed UHD video capture mode and even with the advantage in bitrate it doesn't offer better-detailed videos.

You can check out the videos below. First batch is of the Galaxy S5.

And the LG G2.

And if you want to do some additional pixel-peeping you can refer to our in-depth video comparison tool.

Samsung Galaxy S5 vs LG G2

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S5.