Apple iPhone 5s vs LG G2

Introduction

Tired of being left in the shadows, LG came out of hiding very recently to unleash its most prized device in recent memory – the powerhouse of a smartphone in the LG G2. It’s a device that’s not to be messed with, seeing that it’s stuffed with some amazing hardware under the hood to give other flagship devices a good run for their money. As usual, Apple’s latest prodigy in the iPhone 5s is looking to establish itself as the premier smartphone to beat in the landscape. It might look exactly like its predecessor, but it packs all the necessary incremental upgrades to give even the mighty LG G2 some heated competition.

Design

Okay, so the iPhone 5s recycles its design, which means that there’s nothing really new with it, but despite that, it still proves to be the more attractive device between the two. Why’s that? It’s because it’s compact in size, solidly constructed, and employs premium materials – quality elements that help strengthen its stature of being a high end phone. On the flip side, the LG G2 is pretty amazing in its own right, especially how it decides to mix it up with the placement of its power and volume buttons. However, at the end of the day, it’s still a polycarbonate constructed smartphone that lacks the elegance and sturdiness of the iPhone 5s’ design.

And then there’s the matter of size! Comparatively, they’re pretty compact when you think of their respective screen sizes – albeit, the LG G2 is undoubtedly longer, wider, and thicker. Despite that, we appreciate how the curved edges of the LG G2 are more comforting than the sharp bezel around the iPhone 5s.
Quickly looking around their bodies, it’s evident that they share many common things, like their 3.5mm headset jacks and speaker grills, but they do feature their own unique things. For starters, there’s a biometric Touch ID finger print sensor incorporated into the home button of the iPhone 5s, which offers us a unique and hassle-free way of unlocking the phone. Meanwhile, the LG G2 packs an always useful IR blaster to double it as a universal remote – perfect for those occasions when the remote control goes missing!

Display

Size alone is staggering between these two flagships! One is small, the other is ginormous. Arguably the two best looking displays out there, there’s a lot to like about the two displays, but at the end of the day, we’re still more fascinated by the display on the LG G2. So what do we have here? Well, it’s a 4-inch 640 x 1136 Retina Display on the iPhone 5s, which is pleasant and all, but lacks the intimidating figure of the G2’s 5.2-inch 1080 x 1920 advanced IPS LCD display. Frankly, it’s the higher resolution of the G2’s display that makes it so much more prized over the iPhone 5s, but as we’ve detailed several times in other comparable reviews, the detail superiority of the 1080p resolution screen of the G2 is only apparent when we look at the two very closely. Viewing them from a normal distance, our eyes wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Putting them side-by-side, we do notice that the iPhone 5s’ screen is a smidgen brighter, which makes it more visible outdoors when the sun is present. It’s not bad with the G2’s display, honestly, seeing that we’re still able to make it out. When it comes to colors, we get more accuracy with the iPhone 5s – whereas the G2’s display emits colors that are cooler in tone. Worthy of being mentioned too, is the almost non-existent bezels around the sides of the G2’s display, which helps to minimize its overall size.

Interface and Functionality

LG has tweaked its updated Android Jelly Bean experience on the G2 enough to make its offering more diverse than last year, and with that, it still continues to offer more depth than what iOS 7 on the iPhone 5s brings to the table. Don’t get us wrong, we really appreciate the meticulous design changes with iOS 7, as it employs some nifty new visuals and features to freshen things up quite a bit, but when it comes to raw functionality, the G2 beats down the iPhone 5s in that department. Visually, the two offer some pleasant elements that complement the experience – though, we get more customization and personalization with the G2.



Notifications are handled in the same manner, as they have their dedicated hubs for accessing them in one place, so we have no qualms with either implementations. However, the G2 boasts some additional functionality with its notifications panel – like being able to archive emails and share screen shots.

On the surface, the multi-tasking experience is similar with these two, as we’re able to quickly switch between opened apps. Showing off its greater level of depth, the G2 provides us with an enhanced way of multi-tasking, which is brought to us in the form of its QSlide apps and Slide Aside feature.

Looking into their set of organizer apps, it’s the Android smartphone in the G2 that consistently delivers the variety with its portfolio. Naturally, we’re treated to the usual sorts with the iOS 7 experience, which sees its set of apps updated with some pleasing visuals, but for the most part, it doesn’t have the extensive functionality found with the G2’s organizer apps.



Due to its larger sized screen, the G2’s on-screen keyboard benefits by offering us with a more spacious layout than its rival. Sure, the iPhone 5s’ keyboard is smaller in footprint, but considering that it’s responsive, simple, and has an awesome auto-correct feature, it proves to be extremely useful. Then again, we also like how the G2’s keyboard provides us with quick access to numbers and punctuations directly from the main layout.

Indeed, the new Android Jelly Bean experience on the G2 has a ton of features over what iOS 7 has to offer, but some people might not want to be bothered by them. Rather, they might prefer having a simplified experience, which is exactly what the iPhone 5s caters to with its experience.

Processor and Memory

No doubt, these are beasts in the mobile landscape, especially after taking a look at what they’re packing under their hoods. Specifically, the iPhone 5s carries along a one-of-a-kind dual-core 1.3GHz Apple A7 processor that’s based on 64-bit architecture. It’s fast, like really fast – with very few instances of lag or slowdown with its overall performance. However, it’s not being pushed to its limits, yet. That’s because most apps and games have yet to be optimized to take advantage of it. Equally as compelling is the powerful quad-core 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB of RAM and the Adreno 330 GPU stuffed inside of the G2. Arguably, it’s the snappiest Android smartphone out right now, which shows in its relentless performance. Heck, these two smartphones rival one another similarly in this department!

When it comes to storage, we’re left to meddle with their internal capacities, seeing there’s no expandable storage with either. Both are available in 16GB and 32GB versions, but it’s only the iPhone 5s that’s offered in 64GB.

Internet and Connectivity

By now, we’ve come to expect nothing than near perfection when it comes to the web browsing experience. Luckily for these two, they get the job done – almost flawless in fact! Donning 4G LTE connectivity for speedy page loads, instant rendering, and fluid navigational controls, these two titans really exemplify what it means to excel in this category. Nevertheless, the larger and higher resolution display of the G2 makes it more ideal.



When you’re made to sell in all corners of the world, it’s only natural for us to find both of these devices in CDMA and GSM flavors. In addition, they’re packing all of the most up-to-date connectivity features as well – like aGPS, Bluetooth 4.0, and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. However, the G2 manages to tack along NFC and an IR blaster to its arsenal. Although it’s lacking NFC, the iPhone 5s has something similar in the form of its AirDrop feature.

Camera

When it comes to cameras, these bad boys are outfitted with some impressive gear! Specifically, it’s an 8-megapixel iSight camera on the iPhone 5s that features an f2.2 aperture lens, amber & white LED flashes, and 1080p video recording. Crunching the numbers even more, the G2 is packing along a beefier sized 13-megapixel auto-focus camera that’s notable for its built-in optical image stabilization, 9-point multi-focus, anti-fingerprint coated sapphire glass, and 1080p video recording at 60 FPS.



Not a surprise to tell you the truth, seeing that the iPhone 5s continues to glorify simplicity over diversity, but the G2 is armed with an arsenal of shooting modes and manual controls to appease hardcore shutterbugs. Sure, the iPhone 5s brings forth some new things with its updated iOS 7 experience, but it continues to pale in comparison.

Before diving into the qualities of their respective cameras, we have to break this department into two specific categories – outdoor and low lighting performances. With the former, the G2’s 13-megapixel camera shows its sliver of superiority as it produces more detail in its shots than what the 8-megapixel iSight camera of the iPhone 5s conjures up. However, dynamic range is handled better by the iPhone 5s, as it compensates enough with its exposure to give the shot a good balanced tone.

Under low lighting situations, though, the roles are reversed, seeing that it’s the iPhone 5s that’s proving to us that it’s better than the G2. In fact, details take quite a dip with the G2, to the point that its tone is considerably softened – thus, making fine details non-existent. On top of that, it’s more prone to some blurring as well. As for its rival, the iPhone 5s manages to maintain its crisper looks, which makes it the ideal device for nighttime shots.


Likewise, the same results with their still image qualities persist with their 1080p video recording qualities. When there’s plenty of lighting, the two shoot some amazing looking videos – more so with the G2 because of its unique 60 FPS capture rate. Using the two for low lighting videos, it’s the iPhone 5s that’s catching our attention more, as it’s able to deliver some pleasant details combined with a smooth 29 FPS capture rate. Unfortunately, the G2’s shooting rate drops to a molasses slow 14 FPS.

Multimedia

We’re not totally enamored by their music players, since they’re rather conventional looking, but we do like how LG’s music player allows us to view lyrics within the player – and access to pertinent YouTube videos that’s related to the song being played. Surprisingly, it’s the iPhone 5s’ speaker that’s the more powerful between the two. In comparison, the LG G2’s speaker sounds super weak.



Even though the two are more than equipped to play back high definition videos with no issues at all, we prefer the G2 for the occasion because it offers a wide support of codecs out of the box, has a larger & higher resolution display, and it features a very useful multi-tasking aspect that enables us to layer videos on top of anything we’re doing.

Call Quality

Actually, we’re quite pleased by the call quality on both smartphones, since voices are both natural and distinct in tone through the earpiece – plus, it helps that their noise cancellation features kick in right away to mute any unwanted background noises. However, at the loudest volume setting, the earpiece of the G2 crackles a little bit.

Battery

It could be a combination of things, but whatever it is, battery life is superior with the LG G2. To be exact, a full charge provides us with two days of normal usage – whereas it’s the normal single day of usage with the iPhone 5s.

Conclusion

In being high-end flagship smartphones, these two behemoths in the space bear base price point of $200 – something that’s all too predictable of course. Apple’s newest pride and joy might not be seem as feature rich as the G2, but as a general smartphone, it has enough of a well-balanced performance in various key areas to continue making it an outstanding option. Best of all, it’s a phone that’s simple to use and operate, thanks to its refreshing iOS 7 experience adhering to Apple’s strict foundation of providing users with an intuitive experience.

On the flip side of the spectrum, the LG G2 is bigger and more feature rich than the iPhone 5s – especially in the software side, as its experience is diverse with its functions. Additionally, it’s just one specs beast of a phone that can put the iPhone 5s into its place. Indeed, its design might not be a luxurious or elegant than the iPhone 5s, but some will still appreciate its looks.