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We’re about ready to close out the first month of the new year and already looking ahead to the next round of Android devices lined up to launch later this year. While the Samsung Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9 are first round of flagships on the horizon, the upcoming LG G4 can’t be too far behind.
That being said, we’re now slowly starting to uncover hints and clues as to what the South Korean manufacturer could have in store for the LG G4, with the latest bit of news coming from a UA profile on Verizon Wireless’ website. According to the UA profile, a mysterious LG phone — going by the model LG VS999 — has shown up reporting a crazy 1620×2880 resolution display or what is also known as 3K. This would mean the LG G4 would trump last year’s model (LG VS985) by playing the numbers games and effectively upping the resolution to a PPI so high, the human eye likely wouldn’t be able to perceive any difference.
The odd part about this “leak” is that another LG device believed to be the LG G4 was recently spotted in a UA profile on AT&T’s website going by the model number LG H810, but had the same 2K of its predecessor. Then again, maybe it’s not that odd. LG giving one carrier exclusive hardware features isn’t entirely unheard of and if there’s any one of the Big 4 carriers willing to fork out extra money for a “better” flagship device, it’s Verizon.
We can’t help but voice concerns that with the move to 2K (and now 3K) displays, some of these manufacturers are turning a blind eye to the hit in battery life that will result from pushing all those pixels around onscreen. This sentiment was echoed officially by Huawei who chimed in on the issue. According to Huawei’s president of product Kevin Ho, he’s not entirely sure the trade-off in battery life is worth packing 4K into our smartphones.
“The power consumption would be so huge that your phone would last just half a day. Maybe we have to compromise. For huge screens, 4K is very good but for the smartphone, it is 5-inch or 6-inch at the very most. Maybe our eyes can’t tell the difference.”
As we being moving away from desktop and laptops for our computing needs, and primarily using our smartphones for business and pleasure, it’s time smartphone OEMs start looking to battery life as the new benchmark at which to compete, not needlessly high resolution displays.
It’s a lot less of a sacrifice if their next phone still has a removable battery.
People don’t seem to care about removeable batteries, or SD Card slots (I love them) or Samsung would be selling a lot more phones…..
I did not care about them until I got the G3….I loved that they listened and gave us that option. Made me appreciate that extra battery when I would have to be gone for an extended amount of time!
I care very much about both. What I DIDN’T care for was the S5’s paltry 16gb of internal storage, so I passed on it. And I’m not too keen on buying a whale like the Note 4. So I’m holding out hope for the S6 …
If you value the SD Card slot why is the internal storage an issue? I have an S5 and have had no storage issues with the SD Card. Not faulting your choice. It seems like another example that proves my original statement.
I have (or had) a Galaxy Tab 8.4, and every single time I attempted to transfer an app/game to the SD card, the option was disabled. Every. Single. Time. So until Google unfucks this situation (maybe they have in Lollipop, I’m not sure), I demand at least 32gb of storage.
They claimed to have fixed it in lollipop.
Fair enough….I am guessing you are a gamer…otherwise its hard to understand why someone has more than 12 GB in apps….I find that photos and videos take up the most space on my phone and storing them on the SD card works well.
Yes, I was playing games on it. People sometimes do that with their tablets :)
Sorry I thought we talking about Galaxy S5…my bad.
I loved my G2, and only liked my G3….got hot, and battery life was just EH! Here I am at the Nexus 6 now so I guess I did not really upgrade in that department ;) haha. I thought my G2’s screen was AWESOME and thought the G3’s screen was better, but it destroyed battery 1% at a time, very quickly when you utilized it. I think a 3k screen is overkill.
My g3 battery life is pretty good 24 hours standby most days, but I only get 3-4 hours screen on time in a normal day. I’d definitely rather 2k with even more battery life. I also wish the feature where it automatically turns brightness up when you play a video would apply to YouTube and other stuff and not just the stupid built in video player I never use, since the only time I turn off auto brightness is when I need to watch a video.
Frankly, I think 2k in a screen that size is overkill. I’d rather have more battery life than more pixels I can’t see anyway.
They should have stopped at 1080p. I’m using a droid maxx right now with 720p and there are only rare occasions I can tell. Beyond 1080p you’re kidding yourself 99% of the time that any difference has to do with screen resolution. Battery life should be a larger concern.
I went from the Droid Maxx to the Turbo, and honestly, I wished they’d gone with 1080 instead of 2k. Imagine the battery life with a 5.2″ screen, 1080p resolution, and a 3900mAh battery.
2K is the exact reason why I dropped the Droid Turbo. Battery life and performance really suffered as a result. :/
You can say that about every Quad HD phone. Makes me a have a love/hate relationship with my nexus 6. If it were a 1080p IPS screen I think I’d be the best phone of all time.
And made by HTC
My wife was complaining about going from the Droid Maxx to the Droid Turbo. I thought she was imagining things. It’s a tradeoff because the Droid Turbo has a turbo charger.
Loved my G3 until I got my Nexus 6… I would like to see them perfect the battery life with a 1080P screen before getting higher res with such a small screen.
same boat as u! I wish my nexus just had a 1080P screen….i think the battery life would be AWESOME
If you’re rooted you can use Terminal Emulator for Android in combination with a few command lines to change the Nexus 6’s pushed resolution to 1080p. There are some simple videos explaining how – like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HREkRpPVa4. Though I haven’t yet tried it myself to see what the battery gains might be, it’s an option to consider if you think the slight reduction in GPU load would make enough of a difference.
gotta save this to check this out when I get home. Thanks so much for the help and time to help out!
No worries. I hope it gives you the results you’re looking for.
You sir are amazing. You just gave me a reason to root my Nexus. Thanks. I’m going to try this out.
Coming from the oneplus one battery life on the nexus 6 has been kinda disappointing. But it’s still better than most phones battery life.
Certainly a ceiling effect to the value of a super high res pixel dense screen on a phone that just sucks the battery like a hizzzoe on 5th avenue.
Nobody needs 2K in a screen that small. It is a complete waste of money and resources. 1080p is more than enough for a small screen. For God’s sake, we need better battery life. Why aren’t companies focusing on the things that consumers actually want instead of trying to best screen displays?
Because making transistors smaller is easier than coming up with better batteries.
I agree with huawie or whatever. Id rather just have a 1080p 5″ screen, leave the high res for the 10″ devices. Im not using it 2 inches away from my eyes.
I agree with Huawei a high resolution screen is not worth it to sacrifice precious battery life. What’s the point in owning a high end device of you can’t use it cause you run out of juice?
Typo in the second sentence in the first paragraph, I’m sure you meant M9 instead of M8 of course.
Thank ya, sir!
How about, “Thanks for a choice LG”! You want primo screen specs, here’s a G4…want something else, look around. I really wish we could have some bendable screen action going on…can’t wait!
I also like that they are giving me choice with the OLED tv’s…can’t go wrong with dat deep black! xD
Exactly! People are crying over awesome specs, it’s the “unessessary full HD on a phone” debate all over again. I have the g3 with 2k. Great battery and fantastic screen!
Wouldn’t a bendable screen be difficult to use? I mean if you hold it up one handed wouldn’t a bendable screen just flop around?
#TooMuch
I have said it before, and will say it again. I don’t care about screen resolution races. Give me a screen that is easy to see outside over 2K/3K/4K bullsqueeze any day. If I have to turn my back to the sun and/or cup my hand(s) over the screen to see what’s on it, even at max brightness, then your screen is garbage.
Have you looked into the yotaphone 2 at all? ;)
E-ink screens have terrible resolution and refresh rate. It’s great for reading ebooks and email, but not so much for other stuff.
That’s why I’ve always enjoyed AMOLED displays. So much more easier to view outdoors than the LCD’s I see on Sony and the LG G3 IPS.
What’s the point. 2K really isn’t even worth it IMO.
Considering we have seen benchmark reports of a 2k G4, is it possible this test is the high end full size tablet they are working on?
Now that would actually be….. not 100% stupid. Let’s hope for that.
3K display lmao…LG needs to stop smoking crack, we don’t need that crap
Lg already ruined the G3 with its Quad HD display ruining performance and the G2’s excellent battery life. Looks like they’re going for a repeat.
2K Hasn’t ruined my experience (rooted and running a custom ROM). Trust me, its not the 2k screen. It’s just LG’s G ui. Though this might definitely ruin the performance even if the phone runs stock. 3k…why?
My nexus 6 suffers from it’s fair share of stutters. Even with the beefed up 805. And after I disabled the forced encryption. I’m sure the G ui contributes to how poorly the G3 performed but the Snapdragon 801’s adreno 330 wasn’t meant to push Quad HD even the 420 has some trouble with it at times. At 1080p Quad HD on phones is a gimmick that kills battery life and causes all performance gain from new silicon to be wasted on useless pixels.
I’m only telling you what I currently experience. Custom ROM based on AOSP and no lag and hours of battery life and over four hours of screen on time. You also mentioned that your Nexus 6 stutters, that really is a shame considering how powerful it is. However, it should be noted that Google doesn’t use vanilla Android and makes some changes for whatever device they have for whatever reason. I had the m8 before and I can tell you that my g3 is just as smooth as the m8. The only thing I liked better with my experience on the m8 was sound quality both from the speakers and headphone. I don’t know what the problem is with these larger corporations not being able to out do developers over at XDA. The guys over at XDA are great but they do these things in their spare time, not for a living. I play intensive enough games (dead trigger 2, injustice, modern combat and so on) on it and experience no lag. What you’re stating is what you think should happen, which is understandable, but I’m talking from what i experience on a day to day basis. The only place I’ve seen benefits from having 1080p is on benchmarking apps. What I’m saying is that the G UI is the sole reason for slow downs. I’ve seen the performance increase and I doubt that I will return to stock if it’s not as smooth as the ROM I’m using now (guess I might never go back). Quad HD is not necessary but I wouldn’t say that it is completely useless since I also change DPI settings and am able to see a little more on the screen at a time than I would on a 1080p screen.
Fair enough. I’m probably just jaded from my time with the nexus 6. It all comes down to optimization and lollipop just doesn’t appear to be optimized. My old nexus 5 on lollipop has slowed to a crawl and my moto x 2014 I use for running slowed down a bit too. I personally haven’t used the G3 as a daily driver so I’ll take your word over mine there. My experience with the G3 has been limited to playing with a friend’s and several store units and feeling like it was lagging. But to get to know a phone you need to use it as a daily driver. Glad you like your G3 man it’s a great phone I just feel like Lg could have made it a lot better. Really looking forward to the G4 and G flex 2. Lg has come a long way.
Nope, you were spot on. I agreed with you about how the phone functions on it’s stock ROM. If it wasn’t for custom ROMs or a few tweaks that I was forced to make before the ROMs were developed I wouldn’t have this phone at all. I wouldn’t say that lollipop isn’t optimized, what I would say is that Google made some changes to AOSP for their line of devices. AOSP that hasn’t been messed with functions fine from my experience. Nexus devices don’t run stock or vanilla. If they did, you probably wouldn’t have GAPPS and instead of chrome you’d still have browser. Google does a lot of other under the hood changes that they see fit to AOSP but only nexus devices get this treatment. I’m not advanced enough to know what they did but all I can say is I don’t see the benefits as of yet.
Maybe it’s because I don’t play games on my phone, but I’ve never had a stutter on my stock g3, YouTube 1440p videos work fine too once YouTube finally fixed their mess of an app for high quality. I actually really like most if the LG ui elements like the notification pull down button is key
Batter life, no matter the device, has always been subjective. It all depends on a user’s set up of the device. Also, in the case of the LG G3 and others, it’s great to have the option to swap out batteries at will rather then be at the mercy of the built in non-removable option.
My stock lollipop g3 has very good battery life, is lighting fast and the LG ui has been a very pleasant surprise, especially when combined with Nova. No stutter, no lag, great battery life etc. I also think the resolution is noticeably better next to full HD phones… Don’t see the issue here… I doubt LG is stupid enough to kill their battery life in g4. Rather than crying over new and better technology we should be excited to see how LG will overcome the challenge of battery life with the g4 if it does have 3k.
My wife had the Droid Maxx, then the Droid Turbo. The Droid Turbo has a massive battery and it is still noticeably worse than the Maxx. I don’t mind 720p or 1080p. I will not buy a 4k screen unless I have no choice. Please think of speed and battery life.
Customers want longer battery life. Manufacturers offer higher screen resolution and shorter battery life. Results: Samsung had seen dramatic reduction in sale in 2014. It is possible to replace overpaid CEO of those companies by a rudimentary Artificial Intelligence for making important decisions. The saving in compensation of these useless CEO could be passed on to customers with less expensive phones. Of course, AI cannot do everything. Humans are still necessary to decide where to put the logo and the color of the case.
I was one that said 1080p is the maximum I’d ever want or see worthwhile in a smartphone, that was until I got my Note 4 and seen a video in 1440p and my mind was blown it’s freaking beautiful. Since the Note 4 has a removable battery then I don’t find it an issue that the higher resolution display is taking more power and I feel as long as the manufacturer gives the device a removable battery and one that’s large enough to get the same screen on time as the Note 4 or more then bring on as many pixels as you can pack into it. 1080p is truly all we need but why stop there if we don’t need to right, it’s like having a car that is an easy day economy car or having a 1000 horsepower race car it’s going to take much more gas to power the race car but wow what a feeling driving that race car
What was your previous phone though? The one with a 1080 display. Because unless if it was using the same screen technology, you can’t really say the improvement was caused by the increased PPI.
switching from 960 to 1920 i’ve found rather pointless since everything is still the same size and it just wastes battery life. if my screen res went up 4x i would like to have 4x to room, not have massive 4x the size icons. so i see no point in having a 3k or 4k screen on something so small. what’s the point of having 500+ pixel icons?
“it’s time smartphone OEMs start looking to battery life as the new benchmark at which to compete, not needlessly high resolution displays.”
Ding ding ding! We have a winner! If anything it’s more important to have a higher quality screen vs higher resolution. Just look at Apple, sub par resolution, crisp look.
That’s why I’m all about that Yota. I NEED battery life. From experience my OPO has been the best so far, and apparently only the Note matches it due to the big batteries.
Removable batteries and quick charging is not the answer. These are MOBILE devices which should work on their own uninterrupted use.
I have a Z3 and Sony said same thing at time about how they currently chose 1080P so battery life wouldn’t suffer. And this phone has amazing battery.
That being said my friend has a G3 and seems to generally get good life as well so Idk.
I have a G3 and find the battery life to be mediocre. If I am honest, I’d rather have a 1080P screen and another 5 hours of juice.
i have the g3 and it gets great standby time, but the screen on time is only OK. I think ive maxed out at 4.5 hours screen on time, i used to get that on my old Evo LTE.
Completely agree. I don’t need anything above 1080P. I desperately do need better battery life on my phone.
I could barely tell the difference between the resolution of the HP Touchpad (iPad 1/2 screen) and the iPad 4 screen. I think if you handed them to me at different times in a double blind test, I would be unable to reliably tell them apart. The same goes for the Galaxy S5 vs. the Galaxy Stratosphere (4″ 480×800). Going after more resolution is an exercise in futility from my perspective.
I do still want acceptable performance (S5 or even S4) with 5 day battery life. That’s when smartphones have really arrived.
I actually could tell my G3 screen is better than OnePlus though… but not like I would “care” about it.
I’m not trolling, you should seriously see an eye doctor
Thanks for the suggestion. I have up to date contacts and prescription glasses.
It is worthless UNLESS they are going to release a VR add on like Samsung did with he Note 4. I think Phones really need to get to 8K resolution to max out that feature…Its also a feature I really happen to like!
I think so too. PPI is about more these days than just making things appear sharper in normal use. Gear VR suffers from pretty bad screen door effect with 2560×1440. Hoping the Note 5 is going to sport a 4K display.
Give me the same resolution as my Nexus 5, but with better battery life.
5″ 1080 is best, Nexus 5 still runs fast, but not on Verizon
The G3 is a lag fest because of the S801 paired with the 2k display and LG poor optimization. They gonna mess up again. I skipped the G3 cause of the lag and was looking forward the G4….too bad
If true, I’ll keep enjoying my G3. I find it funny about all of the complaints about a 2k display and not needing it. The G3 battery lasts a lot longer than my last two Android phones, with a much more detailed screen. Most people complaining don’t have a G3 so take it with a grain of salt. Minor lag here but nothing that is a deal breaker. I actually USE my phone for photo editing, picture taking and games and have yet to come home with a dead battery. That said, I also keep spares because, you know, removable batteries aren’t expensive.
I keep reading that people can’t tell the difference in screen resolution yet the first thing people comment on when I show them photos from our night out are just how crisp they are. Go figure. Yes, dropping the resolution to 1080P would increase battery life. So would dropping your current phone to 720p… but not many people are doing that.
Enjoy the phone. Use it. Replace battery or plug in if you need to be topped off all of the time. It takes a whopping 10 seconds to swap out a battery and it’s not like the phone takes long to charge anyway.
3k… unless there is some black magic going on would drop the battery life to Galaxy Nexus territory and as an owner of one of those, it sucked.
They like many other oems today are trying to cater to 2 crowds. They may be offering 2 different kinds. One with higher than 2k. Its not like one carrier gets one better. Not in my opinion.
However i think though its getting close..they may be dipping the feet in the water spreading rumors and such to see what most people will bite on. Sounds like a win win…lol