LG G3 Goes Official with 5.5-Inch QHD Display, 13MP Camera and Metallic Skin

LG's new flagship smartphone has just been officially unveiled during a 1-hour launch event held in London, UK. Dubbed LG G3, the sequel to one of the best Android smartphones launched last year, the G2, will be available on the market beginning tomorrow, May 28.

However, according to LG, the G3 will only be available for purchase in South Korea, but the phone will be launched worldwide in over 170 soon afterwards. The smartphone will go on sale in four color options: Metallic Black, Silk White, Shine Gold, Moon Violet and Burgundy Red. No word on the price tag yet, but we expect more details on the matter to emerge in the coming days, so stay tuned for more on this one. LG's officials speaking at the launch event focused their speeches on three core technologies that make the G3 unique among Android smartphones, Display, Camera and Design, and three key user experience The G3 was created with simplicity in mind and ironically this isn't that easy to achieve. “Simple is the new smart” is the G3 logo and is meant to emphasize that while smartphones usually rely on complex technologies, LG managed to reach a certain level of simplicity that consumers want. LG claimed it turned back to the basics in order to get more with less effort and make everything easier. Ultimately, it's consumers that will decide whether or not LG managed to achieve what they wanted in the first place.

LG G3 includes industry leading display technology

Contrary to what other handset makers claim, the human eye can distinguish quality differences above 300ppi (pixel per inch). This is a common fact in the printing industry where art books and other such high-quality materials are printed at around 300lpi (lines per inch). With the introduction of the G3, LG managed to achieve what the printing industry is now referring to as art book quality printing. The 5.5-inch display included in the LG G3 features quad-HD resolution (2560 x 1440 pixels) and 538ppi (pixel per inch). Thanks to the new technology incorporated in the LG G3 display, users will be able to see images that are sharper, crisper and clearer than any other smartphone available in the market. Most of all, the phone's display offers impressive color reproduction. But what about power consumption? It's a common fact that larger display drain the battery much faster, not to mention that the higher the resolution the faster the energy is consumed.

A full HD display would consume up to 20% more battery than a smartphone that sports an HD (720p) screen, so naturally the LG G3's quad HD display should drain even more energy. However, LG optimized the G3's display to consume less energy than normal by using three innovative technologies: Adaptive frame rate, Adaptive clocking and Adaptive timing control. Basically there are three way to reduce the battery consumption of the LG G3, according to how you use the phone's display. Given these improvements, the battery of the G3 about 20% more efficient. By using Adaptive frame rate unnecessary battery consumption can be minimized. For example, when you are looking at still image, the display uses less energy than a standard quad HD display would. Adaptive clocking reduces battery consumption through CPU clock optimization. 

Now let's talk about the display's size and ergonomics. Due to its thin bezels, the G3 is closer in terms of form factor to a 5-inch smartphone than to a 5.7-inch phablet.  This means the G3 is more comfortable to use with one hand, while at the same time offering the benefits of a large 5.5-inch display. According to LG, at 5.5-inch, the G3 has a screen ration of 76%, which means more of the phone's front side is dedicated to the display. 

Camera is faster than the blink of an eye, literally

Not long ago handset makers were focusing on the number of megapixels in their cameras, instead of finding ways to improve the quality of the pictures taken. More recently though all major players in the smartphone market developed their own imaging technologies that would focus on quality instead of just the number of megapixels. But what about LG? Well, it appears that G3's camera has been designed with two goals in mind: high-quality pictures and fast capturing. For a major handset maker such as LG it's not that hard to achieve the “high-quality picture” aspect for its cameras, but in order to offer users the possibility to capture these high-quality pictures fast, they had to integrate a certain technology into the G3 that is only available in high-end SLRs. Here are the three breakthroughs of the LG G3 13-megapixel camera: Laser Auto Focus, Enhanced OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) and exceptional audio quality for video recording.

With the laser technology, the G3's camera can achieve autofocus in just 0.276 seconds. By comparison, it takes a brain signal 0.300 seconds to reach the hand; it takes the same amount of time to a human eye to blink. Basically, this means that LG G3's camera can focus on a subject faster than the blink of an eye. Next in line, the new enhanced OIS (optical image stabilization) technology is 20% times better than the standard version included in the G2. This is why LG has decided to simplify the process of taking a picture from the conventional way of focusing on the subject and than pressing the shutter button, into just one step process. All you need to do is touch the area you want to capture and thanks to the enhanced OIS your pictures will be sharper and crisper than ever. You can forget those blurry pictures taken while on the move thanks to G3's new camera technology. LG was wise enough to improve the front-facing camera as well and made it perfect for selfies. The 2.1-megapixel camera in the front is not only good for video calls, but it has been especially tailored to take the best selfies. According to LG, the G3's front camera features an enlarged sensor, an increased number of lenses and features improved resolution.

LG also made it easier for G3 users to take selfies. Simply raising the hand in front of it will signal the camera that you are ready to take your photo. The camera than starts a countdown that enables users to pose for the picture. The third G3 camera cornerstone is video recording. With the LG G3 users can experience high-quality audio during phone calls, while they listen to music, but also when filming or watching movies. Aside from the fact that it includes more microphones, it also offers improved mic quality and enhanced speakers with boost amp. On top of that, if you shoot a video in a noisy area, the G3 will assess the ambient noise levels and automatically choose the best setting for sound recording. 

Design – “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” (Leonardo da Vinci)

The G3 has been built on the highly-praised G2 design, which received lots of awards last year. Based in the new “simple is the new smart” philosophy, LG G3 features a simple and sleek, yet stylish design. In order to match the sophisticated finish on the back, LG has redesigned the graphic user interface (GUI) following the same “simple is the new smart” concept. Another design attribute of the G3 is its hidden curves. Basically, the form factor and the sleek curves of the smartphone are the result of countless tests to determine the optimal radius of a large screen smartphone. This is supposed to solve the grip-ability issue for smartphones that have higher than 5-inch displays.

Last but not least, the back cover of the G3 is made of a metallic skin that should offer a sophisticated look and feel. The skin is covered with a matte overlay which should make certain the smarpthone will not be covered with fingerprints. The famous “rear key” placed under the main camera has been enhanced. The height and angle of the power key and volume have been optimized, while the materials and textures have been improved to offer a more intuitive layout. LG G3 has been confirmed to pack a 2.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor inside, along with an Adreno 330 graphics processing unit and, depending on the model, either 2GB or 3GB of RAM. The same goes for the storage inside, as LG announced the G3 will be available in 16GB and 32GB variants, both of which featuring microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 128GB).

The smartphone is powered by a removable 3,000 mAh battery and offers a range of connectivity options, including 4G, LTE, HSPA+, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Smart Ready, NFC (Near Field Communication), SlimPort and GPS with GLONASS.

LG G3
Images credits to LG Mobile

Read more »

Intel Haswell-E HEDT CPUs Made for New 2011-Pin Socket and DDR4 Memory

If you thought that the Devil's Canyon processors were the only high-end Haswell chips still coming out this year, prepare to be proven wrong. The Core i7 HEDT lineup has just been detailed too.

HEDT stands for High-End Desktop and is a stamp applied to those motherboards and central processing units that are just too overpowered for consumers. And by that we mean that they have specs that are too overkill even for hardcore gamers, though there is nothing stopping such people from buying the things is they have enough cash. Still, the fact is that they are always overpowered. And this definitely holds true for the upcoming Core i7 Haswell-E HEDT processor lineup. There are three chips, but they are all superior to even the Devil's Canyon CPU lineup that will make its debut this summer. According to information published on Coolaler website, there will be three Core i7 HEDT Haswell-E CPUs on the market later this year.

All of them will be compatible with the X99 chipset and the new LGA 2011 socket that the Santa Clara chip giant is preparing. You see, you won't be able to use the chips with existing LGA 2011 mainboards, because the new CPUs will support quad-channel DDR4-2133 MHz memory, and the current-generation core-logic can't cope with that. The best of the lineup (there seem to be three processors in the series) is the 8-core Core i7-5960X, with 16 logical CPUs (Threads, thanks to HyperThreading technology), 20 MB L3 cache memory, and clock speeds of 1.2 GHz base, 3 GHz top. Two x16 PCI Express slots are supported by the root complex, as well as a 1 x8 slot. All for a TDP (thermal design power) of 140W.

Second in the series, strength-wise, is the Core i7-5930K, with six cores, 15 MB cache memory, clocks of 1.2 GHz / 3.5 GHz, and the same PCI Express link setup as above (so it can split to x8/x8/x8/x8, + an fifth extra, for quad-graphics configs and a slot left over for whatever else, like an SSD). Finally, there's the Core i7-5820K, which is almost identical to the Core i7-5930K but might not support HyperThreading and is limited to an upper Turbo Boost speed of 3.3 GHz. Its PCIe loadout is one x16, one x8 and one x4. All three have (or will have) the unlocked BClk multiplier and prices of down to as little as sub-$400 / €$400.

Intel Core i7 HEDT LGA 2011 CPUs detailed
Image credits to Intel

Read more »

Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 Scores 35K Points in AnTuTu

Despite recently launching the premium Galaxy TabPRO / NotePRO line, Samsung seems to determined to introduce a new lineup of high-end tablets with AMOLED displays.

Granted, the devices have been rumored for a while now, so much that at one point their existence was actually questioned. Anyhow, the slates will finally make a real-life appearance at the “Galaxy Premiere” event scheduled for June 12. The Galaxy Tab S specifications have been leaked before, but now the smaller of the two has shown up in the AnTuTu benchmark database (via Gforgames) bringing yet another confirmation, in case you were in need of another. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 will arrive with an 8.4-inch display and boasts a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels. Power will come from an Exynos 5 Octa 5420 SoC with frequencies up to 1.9GHz. The device will be fitted with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. In the photography department, Samsung will be added the usual two cameras (8MP on the back and 2MP up in front). Like most of Samsung’s recent devices, the tablet will enjoy the benefits of arriving with Android 4.4.2 out of the box.

This we already knew, but now we can also add the tablet has scored 35,713 points in the AnTuTu database. Now for those of you who are wondering what the main differences between the Galaxy Tab S 8.4 and the 8.4-inch counterpart from the TabPRO lineup are, it should be highlighted that the Tab S arrives with a Super AMOLED display, while the latter takes advantage of an LCD panel. Anyway, yesterday we finally saw the first picture really showing the beautiful display of the AMOLED tablet put to work. Recent leaked photographs showcased the tablet, but none of them showed what the display is capable of. But in a humorous turn of events, a low-resolution image surface revealing crisp colors on the AMOLED display.

Surely, we’ll still have to wait until the tablet actually get released into the wild, before making a real assessment of the display, but the teaser image seems encouraging. In related news, at the “Galaxy Premiere” event we might see Samsung unveil another tablet, in the form of the 13.3-inch model that has been making rounds around the web some months ago. The slate has been dubbed “Warhol” and it will supposedly arrive with an LCD display but provide the same advanced WQHD resolution.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 shows up in AnTuTu
Images credits to AnTuTu

Read more »