Welcome to the dogfight of the LG G3 and the brand new iPhone 6 Plus—two phablet devices with two totally different approaches about making a phone big with LG staying a little bit smaller and the iPhone 6 Plus, which is just way too massive. So it’s the LG G3 and iPhone 6 Plus dogfight right here on PhoneDog.com.
If you can remember when the LG G3 was the latest device, you saw a lot of content about it here on PhoneDog.com. We loved its great design, display, and we loved its new features like OIS and laser autofocus. And not too far back, the iPhone 6 Plus hit store shelves and while we sort of love it, we also sort of don’t. While the iPhone 6 Plus may seem like a fantastic idea for Apple, it’s already been done before by many others like Samsung, HTC, LG, and a lot more. But the way Apple did it is unlike the rest of the pack; using their engineer to construct yet another beautiful iPhone with great materials. But as I said both of these devices take completely different approaches to making a phablet.
So let’s start with the LG G3. The G3 is a beautiful device in its own right. The device spans 5.76 inches tall, 2.94 inches wide and 8.9mm thick. Its display is a full 5.5 inches so you can see how much work has gone into keeping the bezels a bare minimum. Also, its display has more pixels than usual. It houses a panel of 2560x1440. In more literal terms, it’s Quad HD or sometimes referred to as 2K. PPI is well over 500 at 538 and the panel itself (while it’s dimmer than I like it to be), is an IPS LCD with great color accuracy and great viewing angles.
On the iPhone 6 Plus, it’s a beautiful device too. Apple mixed aluminum and ionized glass hugging the edges make for a beautiful to hold. The iPhone 6 Plus spans 6.22 inches tall, 3.06 inches wide and 7.1mm thick. It definitely wins on the thickness scale but size-wise, it’s a complete monster. Then you also find out that the display panel is exactly the same size as the LG G3 at 5.5 inches. Its resolution is a more standard 1920x1080 and its PPI (while a little bit lower) is still pretty impressive at 401. Unlike iPhones in the past, its IPS LCD is superb with colors and viewing angles.
On the side of design and size, the iPhone wins on design and materials while the LG G3 completely wipes the floor with its new compact design.
Next up is hardware and specs. Let’s start with the iPhone 6 Plus. It’s packed rather loosely with a 1.4GHz dual-core A8 processor next to its M8 motion co-processor and 1GB of RAM. It’s not winning any awards for the most advanced amount of processing power but Apple knows how to optimize the hardware and software so it’s adequate power and nothing more.
The LG G3 is on a completely different and opposite approach. Its 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon processor, 3GB of RAM and the Adreno 330 GPU are all flagship-class chips. And even if LG isn’t as sleek as Apple’s software optimization team, with that much power, everything should be relatively smooth. So winner—LG.
Next is software and I’ll make this relatively quick. The iPhone 6 Plus runs the latest iteration of iOS called iOS 8. It adds new features like mini widgets and few applications like Health and sadly, Tips. It’s the best version of iOS we’ve seen and that’s exactly what I expected. The LG G3 runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat with LG’s custom skin. The difference between iOS and Android is night and day so I won’t go into that much detail.
Next up is the cameras. The LG G3 has a 13MP camera with Optical Image Stabilization plus it’s able to record 4K UHD video and has a neat autofocusing feature called laser autofocus. The iPhone 6 Plus has an 8MP camera with Optical Image Stabilization, it only records 1080p video and has one autofocusing feature called Focus Pixels and those are embedded in the brand new sensor.
The last feature up is battery life. The LG G3 has a 3000mAh battery which is good for around 5-6 hours of on-screen time and a bit over a day of usage. The iPhone 6 Plus has a 2915mAh battery which is good for around 6 or even 7 hours of on-screen time and almost a day and a half of usage. I am flat out impressed by the iPhone 6 Plus battery. It’s topnotch.
So to wrap it all up, the LG G3 and the Apple iPhone 6 Plus are two great competitors. Software-side, the LG G3 has the more attractive design in my opinion and the iPhone 6 Plus has the most attractive build quality. Camera goes to the iPhone 6 Plus but hardware goes to the LG G3 for its quad-core 801 chip. And surprisingly, battery-life goes to the iPhone 6 Plus.
If you want a winner from me, it’s going to be the iPhone 6 Plus. Its display is more content-friendly, its battery life is more substantial; even though its hardware is still disappointing. The LG G3 is a great pick if you want to stay in the Android ecosystem. Make sure to leave your pick below.
