LG G Pad 8.3 In Review

Discuss LG G Pad 8.3 review in the LG G Pad 8.3 Forum Forum in the Older LG Android Devices section; Shortly before the IFA 2013 in Berlin, the South Korean manufacturer LG presented its first tablet in what felt like an eternity: the G Pad 8.3… Shortly before the IFA 2013 in Berlin, the South Korean manufacturer LG presented its first tablet in what felt like an eternity: the G Pad 8.3.

In the meantime we have also gotten a copy and have tested it for you. LG is currently doing well. In addition to the current flagship smartphone, the LG G2, they also produce the Nexus 5 for Google. So it looks good in terms of smartphones, but what about tablets? It was quiet around the electronics manufacturer for a long time.

Towards the beginning of September, however, there was an impressive comeback. Shortly before the IFA 2013 in Berlin officially started, the G Pad 8.3 was presented to the public. And as the name suggests, this is an 8.3-inch tablet. The niche between 8 and 9 inches, which has been sparsely populated, is thus used. The current Nexus 7, the new iPad Mini 2 and iPad Mini Retina are likely strong competitors.

Packaging And Scope Of Delivery

The packaging of the G Pad 8.3 is nothing special. The box is white, shows the G Pad 8.3 and still fits in one hand. But the content is likely to be much more enjoyable. After opening, the actual tablet shines at you. You will find little underneath it, just the quick start guide, a travel adapter (power adapter) and the obligatory USB cable. However, you will look in vain for earphones or headphones in the packaging.

Design And Processing

So let’s move on to the design of the G Pad 8.3. LG has done a great job here. The design reminds, how could it be otherwise, of the LG G2. It looks like an enlarged G2. The design language has also been continued with the G Pad 8.3 and there are no buttons on the front.

Menu buttons and the like can be found on the screen, but no touch-sensitive controls exist. Only the LG lettering to the left of the front camera is noticeable on the front, as is the front camera and the opening for the various sensors.

Since we have a white G Pad 8.3, this naturally catches the eye more than the black version, for example. The lettering can also be seen there, but the camera and sensors are far less noticeable. The G Pad 8.3 isn’t really lightweight at just under 338 grams, but once you pick it up you hardly notice the weight.

The dimensions are 216.8 x 126.5 x 8.3 millimeters. The Gorilla Glass, which protects the G Pad 8.3, stretches across the entire front. The back of the G Pad 8.3 is also delightful. LG has opted for a reasonably high-quality material here, aluminum. To be more precise, it is even brushed aluminum. However, this does not cover the entire back.

White plastic is installed both at the bottom and at the top in the camera area. But there is also a good reason: The reception is improved (WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS, etc.) and not worsened by the aluminum. The camera lens is on the top left. It has been built slightly inwards to prevent any scratches. However, you will look in vain for a flash. If you hold the tablet in your hand, it feels valuable.

However, with the slightly lower temperatures, it quickly gets cold when you are out in the fresh air with the tablet. The aluminum material cools down very quickly. The G Pad 8.3 shouldn’t have any heat problems in autumn and winter. The processing itself is of high quality. The gaps fit, nothing wobbles, nothing creaks.

The volume rocker and the power button, with which the G Pad 8.3 can be switched on and off, are on the right side. Unlike the LG G2, these keys have not been moved to the back, but left in the usual place. On the underside there is a microUSB port and a microphone. If you go up, you will find three things there.

The first thing that catches the eye is the 3.5 mm jack. Then you discover the cover of the microSD slot and, last but not least, the infrared sensor, although you wouldn’t immediately guess it is an infrared sensor. As is usually the case with tablets, the battery in the G Pad 8.3 cannot be replaced.

The design and the processing can already convince. The tablet feels valuable and also fits well in the hand. Due to the relatively thin design, you can quickly grab it with one hand. However, people with smaller hands may experience slight difficulties.

Display

The display is part of a smartphone or tablet that immediately catches the eye. And here, LG has also done an excellent job. An IPS panel with a diagonal of 8.3 inches is used. For the resolution, LG opted for 1920 x 1200 pixels, but a small part of the 1200 pixels still has to be subtracted. This is because of the on-screen buttons (menu, back, home).

With this resolution and this size, the tablet has a pixel density of 273 ppi. If you compare that with the competition, you must admit without envy: the others won. But if you look at the switched-on display, this is hardly noticeable. Texts are pin-sharp here, too; the colors look natural and not too bright. The G Pad 8.3 is also convincing in terms of viewing angles.

Even at a very oblique angle, something can still be seen on display. In terms of brightness, however, it could have been more. The iPad Mini Retina and Nexus 7 have the edge here. If you turn the display brightness down, you will also notice that white gets a slight gray cast. The display is suitable for Full HD videos, mainly due to the comfortable size of 8.3 inches. The picture looks razor-sharp.

Hardware, CPU And Memory

LG also uses a relatively modern chipset for the G Pad 8.3, which is less potent than the G2. A Snapdragon 600 APQ8064T is used. The quad-core chip achieves a clock frequency of 1.7 GHz per core. An Adreno 320 GPU is used for graphics, which clocks at 400 MHz. Two gigabytes are available for sufficient RAM.

The tablet must reach its limits even with several applications and browser tabs. Nevertheless, LG only installed LPDDR2 RAM in its G Pad 8.3. Here it would have been nice to have the slightly faster LPDDR3 RAM. Overall, the operation is very smooth. What causes some problems is switching from portrait to landscape format.

The G Pad 8.3 takes a second to think about it here. Very slight lags occur with the stock browser. But if you work with the tablet for a certain amount of time, you hardly notice them, unlike the Chrome browser. Everything feels fluid and fast here. Gamers should also get their money from the chipset performance and the RAM.

The display plays along. Of course, the G Pad 8.3 doesn’t dominate this area. There are simply tablets with a better chipset, such as the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 with a Snapdragon 800 chipset. Regarding the battery, the G Pad 8.3 can also draw on the full. A strong SiO+ Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 4600 mAh is installed. The tablet lasted one day in our test with minimal display lighting and sporadic use.

Towards the end, however, the battery was still not empty. With a display illumination of 70 per cent and heavy use (YouTube videos, browsing, miniature games, Bluetooth switched on), it was still enough for around six hours of use. So if you typically use the G Pad 8.3 (everyone has a different usage behavior), a day’s runtime is possible.

The internal memory of the G Pad 8.3 is 16 gigabytes. However, only 11 gigabytes are freely available to the user. Although this is still a relatively large memory, don’t worry, you can use your microSD card. There is a microSD slot on the top, which is also covered by a protective cap. Dust and dirt don’t stand a chance.

MicroSD cards up to 64 gigabytes are supported. So there shouldn’t be a memory problem. The stereo speakers are on the back of the tablet. The speakers are at the bottom if you turn the tablet and hold it in landscape mode. At first impression, I still criticized the rather tinny sound, especially at high volume. However, the loudspeaker has been covered. At this point, I would like to revise this impression.

The speakers sound acceptable, even if you don’t expect miracles. Anyone who wants to listen to high-quality music and videos should use good headphones. Regarding connectivity, there is also a relatively wide range available. For example, the G Pad 8.3 connects to the Internet via WLAN (a/b/g/n). Bluetooth version 4.0 is also available.

What you have to do without, however, is NFC. LG has saved on short-range radio. The same applies to the mobile radio module. The Snapdragon 600 chipset would not be able to do this either. Whether and when LG will release a G Pad 8.3 with LTE or a mobile phone module.

Software And Operation

The manufacturer uses Android version 4.2.2 Jelly Bean as the operating system for the G Pad 8.3. Many should be familiar with this Android version. However, via the operating system, another surface from LG can already be found in the G2. It looks good. The settings are also quite bright and friendly. At first glance, this seems a bit strange, but after a short time, you have familiarized yourself well and found your way around.

But more interesting is the extensive package that LG put together. The first thing you notice, however, is the notification bar: packed. And indeed, she is. You can find many applications from LG, such as QSlide. With QSlide, specific apps (video, browser, notes, email, calendar, etc.) can be multi-tasked. For example, you can reduce the video size to create a message simultaneously or to surf in the browser.

However, you can make the bar in the notification bar disappear with a tap on the QSlide button, which then slims it down a bit again. LG’s Slide-Aside is also quite interesting. This allows up to three applications to be pushed to the left. This function is performed with a three-finger swipe gesture. You can also use three fingers to repeat the three applications with a swipe to the right.

These are closed with a small X in the upper right corner of the application. As mentioned, there are no soft keys on the G Pad 8.3. On-screen keys are used for this. And these can also be configured. You can choose between three or five buttons (Menu, Home, Back). Either the power button can be used to wake the tablet from standby, or you can use the well-known KnockOn feature, already known from the LG G2.

The tablet is woken up by tapping the display twice. In this way, you can also send the tablet to standby. However, with the G Pad 8.3, you must hit the center relatively accurately. Otherwise, KnockOn will not react. Anyone who has already asked themselves at the beginning what the infrared sensor is all about, this is required for the QuickRemote application.

This allows the G Pad 8. 3 into a remote control. Both the TV and DVD and BluRay players can be controlled. Unfortunately, maintaining the home cinema system or the receiver is impossible. LG may improve this with an update and then offer several devices. The connection to the TV is straightforward; the control works perfectly.

However, there are fewer manufacturers than initially thought. As is well known, the G Pad 8.3 is currently only available in a WLAN version. And this is where only QPair comes in. This allows the tablet to be connected to your smartphone (an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is required).

This means the smartphone’s mobile Internet can also be used on tablets. You also get an incoming call displayed, as well as notifications. The messages can even be answered quite comfortably with the tablet. To use QPair, you must download the corresponding QPair application from the Play Store.

Camera

The G Pad 8.3 also has a camera on board. The 5-megapixel camera is sufficient for the inclined snapshot photographer. Here, LG probably saw the camera as a fulfillment of duty because the pictures were not convincing. No image stabilizer is on board, so you must still hold the camera to avoid blurred photos. The missing flash is also particularly noticeable in darker light conditions. Autofocus likes to focus a lot, which I sometimes find annoying.

But there is still a 4x zoom. The camera’s colors could be more convincing too. Despite all the criticism, one should remember that it is a tablet. There are numerous smartphones with correspondingly good lenses available for good photos. A 1.3-megapixel camera is available on the front for video chats. This is almost standard nowadays and should also be sufficient for video chats.

Conclusion

LG has succeeded in re-entering the tablet market. The G Pad 8.3 offers a lot of technology for the money. And the price is beautiful. The 8.3-inch tablet costs 299 euros, and you can choose between black and white. You position yourself between the two main competitors Apple with the iPad Mini Retina and the Nexus 7 (2013) from Google.

You don’t need to fear the competition in terms of design and operation. Only the missing mobile phone variant clouds the overall picture a bit. So if you are looking for a new tablet that offers performance and can also convince with its display, the LG G Pad 8.3 should be a good choice. The software features and the infrared sensor are entertaining.

In contrast to Google and Apple, they also offer a microSD card slot, so storage worries are a thing of the past. I also like the form factor. Some are 7 inches too small and 10 inches too big. Thus, the G Pad 8.3 fits perfectly into this niche. The camera could be more convincing and have better sound, but it’s still acceptable. However, the LG G Pad 8.3 mostly conveys good impressions.