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For the last week I’ve been wondering if I could live with the Optimus G Pro as my primary smartphone. The R7 999 high end smartphone ticks many of the boxes that I look at when selecting a new smartphone: long battery life, a 1080p display and some meaty specs under the hood to handle multitasking. One question was left nagging at the back of my mind, do I want a phablet?

For those who have never heard the term phablet (/ˈfæblɪt/) it is a portmanteau of the words ‘tablet’ and ‘phone’ and one that my esteemed colleague Christo is not very fond of to put it lightly. Phablets are phones that have such massive screens that they begin to blur the line between phone and tablet.

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Specs

The 5.5 inch display of the Optimus G Pro puts it in direct competition with the phone that is undoubtedly the leader of the phablet category, the 5.5 inch Samsung Galaxy Note II. The Optimus G Pro is 6 months newer than its competition which explains why it has a higher resolution display (1080p vs 720p), a faster processor (1.7GHz vs 1.5 GHz) and a better camera (13MP vs 8MP). The problem with the 6 month delay is that Samsung is, by all accounts, gearing up for the next iteration of the Note and with the brand equity that they have it may be hard for the Optimus G Pro to compete with a potential Note 3.

A Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chip does duty along side 2GB of RAM which is up there with the main contenders in the smartphone world and on the wireless communication side of things there is a next generation 802.11ac receiver to handle WiFi comms and an LTE aerial rated for 100 Mbps down and 50 Mbps upload speeds.

The Optimus G Pro may look like the Note II but the build quality feels tangibly better even though the materials are almost identical. The pixelated graphic on the back of the phone comes directly from the Nexus 4 that LG manufactures for Google and quite a few people commented on how ‘awesome’ it looked and I have to agree with them.

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The Display

The G Pro has a 1080p display that has a pixel density of 401 ppi which means that pictures and videos viewed on its display are beautiful. In fact using it as a portable media device for viewing movies over the weekend drew many an admiring eye to the LG’s display. Screens of this size are not just good for media viewing, they also make viewing web pages an absolute treat with text looking crisp and the ability to look at web pages without constantly scrolling to get more content.

Colour reproduction is great and because it’s an LCD panel and not an AMOLED panel the colours, especially greens and oranges, don’t appear to be over saturated. Strangely, although the screen is slated as being an IPS panel I found that colours would begin to wash out when I went past 45 degrees. For a phone with this size display and media playing prowess it was a bit disappointing to note that someone watching next to you would be getting a tangibly worse picture.

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Software

The Optimus G Pro runs on Android 4.1.2 which is strange, not because it’s terribly outdated or behind on features but rather because a flagship device like this should have seen an update to 4.2 by now if not just for cosmetic sake to keep up with the Jones’. LG obviously put thought into the Optimus G Pro’s software and because you have all of that screen real estate LG includes its QSlide software which allows you to overlay a multitasking window for QSlide apps on top of whatever you’re doing.

There are also some concessions that LG has made due to the fact that the screen is bigger than the average human’s hand. In the menu you’ll find the options for one handed use that will condense the standard keyboard, lock screen pin entry or the phone keypad to one side of the screen for easier one handed operation.

It’s a marvel that Samsung hasn’t sued LG for the Optimus, not only does the design mimic the Note II but it also has several features that Samsung is best known for including dual camera pictures, Smart Stay (Smart Screen as LG calls it) and Smart Video. Although I usually disagree with most of these tacked on features because of the bloat that they add to the OS I’m a fan of Smart Screen and I’m glad LG has it on the Optimus.

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Camera Samples

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Performance

The Optimus G Pro scores 22113 on AnTuTu benchmarking software which smokes the 17531 of the Note II and comes close to the HTC One at 23717 which basically puts this at the top end of the smartphone spectrum at the moment.

In real life terms though I never had to worry about an application slowing down the phone even when I was pushing a graphically intensive game like Dungeon Hunter 4 the Optimus G Pro just smiled and waved as the pretty graphics appeared on the screen.

But by far the best thing about the Optimus G Pro is the battery. With 3140mAh of power the battery is one of the biggest ever supplied in a smartphone and not only that but LG has also got a power saving mode that regulates the phone’s battery consumption once the phone gets to a predefined level of battery. I was easily getting to a full day of usage out of the Optimus G Pro which for me is a miracle considering how hard I push the standard smartphone.

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Conclusion

So am I going to switch? This is indeed the question. While I am tempted to move to the Optimus G Pro as my primary phone I’m not a fan of screens over 5 inches. I just don’t get any more benefit out of a screen that large. So my answer is no. While I would take it over a Note II and many other smartphone because of the battery life I wouldn’t switch to the G Pro personally. If you’re in the market for a phablet though and you’re not a Samsung fan then you should definitely give the Optimus G a serious look.

Design: 4/5

Performance: 4.5/5

Battery life: 5/5

Value for money: 3/5

Display: 3/5

Overall: 4/5

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