Samsung Galaxy S6 vs LG G3

Introduction

Just a year ago, the LG G3 was a new smartphone that seemed mighty impressive with its hardware parameters and attractive design. And while the G3 is still a great phone, the new Samsung Galaxy S6 is in a league of its own, sporting a premium build and a unique combination of powerful internals that's far ahead of what LG could come up with in 2014. If you are interested in upgrading your LG G3 to the Galaxy S6, or have to choose between an expensive new GS6 and a discounted LG G3, look no further than this review. We'll compare the two devices in the important aspects of design, display, user experience, hardware, connectivity, camera, call quality, and battery life. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be able to make the right decision for you.

Design

The Samsung Galaxy S6 is a no-holds-barred premium device that combines the traditional Galaxy smartphone look with a top-notch glass and aluminum build. The LG G3 has just a simple plastic build that's of admirable quality, but certainly doesn't look and feel as impressive. Samsung poured a lot of attention in the S6's design, and made a reasonably sturdy smartphone, too, thanks to those Gorilla Glass 4 layers covering its front and back. Save for its semi-realistic metallic sheen, the LG G3 doesn't have anything to show in the way of luxury or damage protection, but its strong card is ergonomics. The big phone is easy to hold, thanks to its carefully chiseled back and sides.

Talking about ergonomics and sizes, the Samsung Galaxy S6 measures 5.65 x 2.78 x 0.27 inches (143.4 x 70.5 x 6.8 mm) at a weight of 4.87 oz (138 g), while the LG G3 is a bulkier 5.76 x 2.94 x 0.35 inches (146.3 x 74.6 x 8.9 mm) and a heftier 5.26 oz (149 g). The Galaxy S6 is more compact because its display has a lesser diagonal - 5.1 inches versus the LG G3's 5.5 inches, and it is lighter, although made of stronger materials.

Among the S6 and G3's most notable differences are the power and volume key placements. The GS6's hardware buttons are conventionally placed on the sides, while the latter's occupy its back panel. While there's nothing overly curious about the GS6's button placement - you most likely know it from other smartphones, getting used to the one on the LG G3 takes a while. And although it's comfortable for the most part, it's not always practical. Other important differences are the lack of microSD slot and interchangeable battery on the Galaxy S6. But the latter has a fingerprint sensor, which is useful for a fair bit of functionality that we'll have a quick look at later.

To sum it up, the Samsung Galaxy S6 is more compact, lighter, and of generally better design and build quality than the LG G3 – which is still quite an attractive smartphone that also comes with a larger 5.5-inch display, a microSD slot, and a removable battery.

Interface and Functionality

Running Android 5 Lollipop right off the bat, the Galaxy S6 continues Samsung's 'less is more' approach to streamlining its TouchWiz user interface. Compared to the dated looks and feature overload of its previous incarnations, the latest TouchWiz on the GS6 looks better and it's easier to get around, although phantom gestures launching random features and apps is still a 'fun' conversation topic. As for LG? Well, its software design used to be rather lackluster, but the company learned from its mistakes and did a good job with the LG G3's user interface. It streamlined it by exchanging imitations of real world objects for basic shapes colored in light, non-distracting shades.

Refined visuals aside, Samsung made one-handed usage easier, with appropriately sized icons and easy to reach user interface elements. Simple stuff like checking your email, or the weather, or calling a contact is right underneath your thumb. Meanwhile, the LG G3 tackles one-handed usage with options to tweak the navigation button layout, shrink the keyboard and move it left or right for one-thumb typing.



Taking a quick look at the smartphones' unique features, we end up with Samsung Pay and LG KnockOn/KnockCode. Facilitated by the smartphone's embedded fingerprint reader and KNOX security engine, Samsung's payment system has the potential to rule its homeland of Korea, and take on Apple Pay in the USA. While we're on the topic of finger scanning, the sensor can also authorize logins and purchases in supported websites, such as PayPal and eBay. As for LG's knock-knock-who's-there features, KnockOn lets you wake the phone with a double-tap on the screen, and LG Knock Code lets you unlock the device with a knock pattern or sequence. Both are simple, clever ideas that LG implemented with success.

Different as they are, TouchWiz and LG UX both succeed in bringing simple, meaningful functionality to the lucky user. But although we like LG UX for being so straightforward, we find it somewhat cartoony and underdeveloped compared to TouchWiz, which has grown into a more cohesive, streamlined, and feature-rich platform. Samsung's strive for better UX hasn't quite reached that HTC Sense level of polish yet, but each revision so far has been a visible step in a better direction.

Processor and Memory

Samsung famously equipped the Galaxy S6 with a homemade SoC, the Exynos 7420. It's a 64-bit octa-core CPU built on a 14-nm process, and so far, we've been impressed by its performance. It employs four Cortex-A57 cores running at 2.0GHz, and four Cortex-A53 cores pushed to 1.5GHz, arranged in a true octa-core configuration (meaning all eight cores can operate simultaneously). This beast is paired with a very capable Mali-T760 graphics unit and 3 gigabytes of fast LPDDR4 RAM. This configuration has been slaying benchmarks left and right since the Galaxy S6's announcement, and thankfully, the excellent performance in general computing and 3D tasks translates to everyday usage just as well.

We certainly can't say all those niceties for the LG G3's Snapdragon 801 SoC, but that's only because it's a year-old unit at this point. In reality, Qualcomm's quad-core 32-bit chip, with its in-house designed Krait cores and Adreno 330 GPU, has aged well, offering decent performance even with today's demanding games and 4K resolution video content. On the memory side, the LG G3 is equipped with either 2GB (for the international model) or 3GB of LPDDR3 RAM (for the Korean model), and it is a solid performer overall, although the Quad-HD resolution puts the hardware under significant strain. It has to be said that both its benchmark performance and battery life are mediocre for a high-end smartphone.

The Samsung Galaxy S6 flaunts another trump card over the LG G3, as well as all mobile devices up to this point. What's that? Well, it's got crazy-fast UFS 2.0 flash memory, which is roughly 2.7 times faster than the LG G3's and other current devices' NAND flash storage. Thanks to that, the Galaxy S6's memory performance is a marvel, and this translates to short app load times, among other things.

To conclude the hardware comparison, the one year gap between the LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy S6 has resulted in a tremendous performance improvement in the latter. In short, those switching to the GS6 from the LG G3 will definitely appreciate the boost in speed and responsiveness owing to the superior chipset and faster memory.

Internet and Connectivity

Both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the LG G3 are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS, 3G, and LTE-connected, which means they cover all the necessary networking bases. Also, both have microUSB 2.0 connectors for data and charging. The Galaxy S6 supports Bluetooth 4.1 - it's 4.0 for the LG G3 - but both have Wi-Fi 802.11 a, b, g, n, n 5GHz, ac wireless internet. In addition, both offer DLNA amd Miracast for smartTV streaming, along with tethering for doubling as a USB Modem/Wi-Fi hotspot. Basically, you won't be missing out on anything if you get (or keep) the LG G3, and you won't get any benefits from purchasing a Galaxy S6 in the connection department. However, the latter's superior hardware will certainly result in even faster, smoother Internet browsing.

Camera

Samsung has built a solid reputation around its smartphones' camera capabilities, and the Galaxy S6 won't be one to diminish it with subpar performance. Its main camera resolution is 16 megapixels, and the sizeable Sony IMX240 cam sensor with 1/2.6" pixels and wide F1.9 aperture comes with extras such as optical image stabilization, real-time HDR, infrared white balance, and tracking auto-focus for the video camera. There's also a 5-megapixel front cam to please the selfie snappers.



In daylight, the Galaxy S6's sharp and nicely exposed photographs coming from its main camera have plenty of detail and don't suffer from much noise, even when closely examined. The color balance is warm, making for slightly more eye-pleasing images overall, that not only look great, but also very natural.

Indoors, the images lose some of their details but the handset keeps a good balance between sharpness and smoothness, staying away from introducing too much noise. The colors tend to remain mostly neutral, which is a good thing. As for night images, they are quite alright, although not on the same level as those extra nice daylight photos. Thankfully, there isn't too much noise, but don't expect to be wowed by the details.

The LG G3 may sound less impressive with a lower-res, 13MP main camera that comes with 1/3.06"-sized pixels and a smaller aperture (F2.4), while its front snapper is only a 2.1MP front cam. But in practice, both are no-nonsense performers that don't disappoint, even if they are not in the same league as the GS6. Notably, the LG G3's camera is very quick and accurate with its focusing duties, thanks to its laser-assisted auto-focus system. It also takes flat-out nice photos in good lighting conditions. However, we must acknowledge that the LG flagship often goes for an image that's pleasant, but a little too warm.

Still, details in the images are very good – photos are certainly not as sharp as those coming from the Galaxy S6's bigger 16MP camera, but their quality is sufficient. The results are above average in indoor and night-time shots as well, but don't even dream of cropping - the heavy-handed noise filtering gives a watercolor-like appearance to photos when zoomed in close.



As for video quality, both the Galaxy S6 and LG G3 offer up to 4K resolution video recording with frame rates of up to 30FPS and optical image stabilization, making for clear and stable sights from their main cameras. Image quality is very good in both, but the Galaxy S6 operates much faster thanks to its UFS 2.0 flash memory - the process, from opening the app to saving the video and viewing it on that high-res display, is a breeze! Moreover, the Samsung flagship can record 1080p video at 60FPS from the main cam if you are into that sort of thing. That's a feature the LG G3 lacks by default, although 3rd party apps offer a workaround for it.

Anyway, it goes without saying that the GS6 makes more detailed and color-correct videos overall, thanks to employing larger sensors and finer algorithms. But there's something to be desired from its 60FPS video output – sharp details become soft, and the picture looks watercolor all of a sudden.



Wrapping up the camera comparison, the LG G3 takes really decent daytime photos and videos, and its low-light performance is okay most of the time. But the Galaxy S6 does everything better – it takes larger, more detailed photos across different light situations, and videos look better, too. In addition, the smartphone is very fast to launch its camera app, and offers a much better degree of control over the final result. In comparison, the LG G3's camera app is completely automatic, and therefore very limited – it's the one aspect where LG's strive for simplicity made the end product worse.

Multimedia

When it comes to multimedia playback, the Galaxy S6's hardware superiority doesn't give it much of an edge over the LG G3, as both smartphones support the latest HEVC 2.5 multimedia encoding and decoding standards. This means rich format support out of the box, and with both devices touting big, crisp displays, it goes without saying you'll be enjoying every minute of high-resolution video. As for loudspeaker performance, the G3 manages a decent 81db out of its mono speaker, which trumps the GS6's 73.7dB output. With the LG G3, you can totally listen to some music in your car, for example, but the sound quality is tinny and hollow – you know, typical tiny speaker affair. The GS6 also sounds a bit subdued and thin, which is normal.


Overall, both smartphones are multimedia powerhouses with their high-resolution displays and nice, loud output, although the LG G3 fairs better as a portable boombox due to its speaker's extra 7.3dB of loudness.

Call quality

We wouldn't call the Galaxy S6's call quality great, as average is more appropriate. Voices are audible for the most part through the earpiece, but there’s a subtle amount of hiss that accompanies them. On the other end of the line, our callers are able to comprehend us, but we got complaints of thin voices. Maybe it's the noise cancellation at play here, but regardless, the LG G3 fares better in this regard. Loudness is pretty decent on the incoming side, and voices tend to sound clear. On the other end of the line, things sound just as good – your contacts will hear your voice rather clear and natural.

Moving over to the speakerphone, the one on the GS6 is powerful enough to use in noisy environments without having us to ask our callers to repeat themselves. The same goes for the LG G3.

We'd say the Galaxy S6 & LG G3 fare equally well in the call quality department. While you won't be wowed by any of the two, you won't have problems with either.

Battery

The Samsung Galaxy S6 carries only a 2550mAh battery. This may not sound very reassuring on paper, and frankly, with a 14nm-made SoC in play, we expected better energy efficiency from Sammy's hot-shot flagship. The Galaxy S6 pulls off 7 hours and 14 minutes of constant on-screen usage, which is decent. This is a full hour more than what the LG G3 manages. Although the LG flagship houses a sizeable 3000 mAh juice pack, it delivers a mediocre battery performance of 6 hours and 14 min of constant on-screen use in our specialized battery life test. While disappointing, this means the LG G3 will pull through a day of moderate use, so things aren't all bad.

Both the Galaxy S6 and the LG G3 have wireless charging, but G3 owners have to purchase a special case or optional back panel replacement to enjoy the functionality. Wireless charging comes native on the Galaxy S6, although Samsung doesn't bundle a wireless charging pad with the smartphone. Additionally, the GS6 features special fast charging technology that renders its battery eager for “up to 4 hours of usage” in just 10 minutes of wired charging. But it's not yet clear what kind of usage Samsung really refers to, so your mileage may vary greatly here. The LG G3 offers no such benefits, but it theoretically makes up for this with its easily swappable battery. Just get used to carrying a fully charged unit on the go, if you are tackling the G3's middling battery life this way.

Reaching for a conclusion here, it's obvious the Galaxy S6 is more reliable when it comes to battery life and charging speed. It also helps that it comes enabled with wireless charging.

Conclusion

With a much nicer design, a smaller but superior display, faster hardware, a better camera, and lightning-quick charging, the Samsung Galaxy S6 is a genuine superphone that's a worthy upgrade over the LG G3. It is also quite the challenge for LG, whose upcoming LG G4 will have to face a formidable adversary. However, the LG G3 remains more attractive from a price-oriented perspective. Being a year old and nicely discounted, it is one of the cheapest Quad-HD resolution smartphones you can buy new and unlocked. It's also a very nice smartphone overall, and while its looks and performance, admittedly, can't hold a candle to Samsung's latest and greatest, this doesn't make it anything less than a bargain!