Friday, August 9, 2013

LG Optimus G Pro versus Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 - Battle of the LTE Phablets


There are two LTE enabled phablets in the Philippines right now. On the one hand, you have LG's Optimus G Pro. This is the more upmarket of the two offerings. It has a 5.5-inch 1080p display paired with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor and 2 GB of RAM. The bezel around the LG Optimus Pro's display is impressively thin, making it 4 mm narrower than the Samsung Galaxy Note II. Priced at Php27,990 it offers very good value for the money.

However, this nice piece of hardware, has two shortcomings. The LTE connectivity of the LG Optimus G Pro is limited to the 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz bands. This makes it incompatible with the Smart Communications LTE network. This is the reason why it did not make it to my Top Five Smartphone list. The LG Optimus G should work fine on Globe Telecom's LTE network.

The second shortcoming of this phablet is more subjective. It feels a bit old on launch. The phablet has gotten bigger. The new Samsung, Sony and Huawei phablets are now between 5.8 to 6.3-inches. Smartphones have gotten bigger, with Android flagship models now between 4.7 to 5.2-inches. This puts the LG Optimus G Pro somewhere between modern phablets and a modern smartphone.


The Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 is a more modest offering. It has a 6.3-inch 720p display. It has a dual core 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and 1.5 GB of RAM. Pretty much, it is a step behind the LG Optimus G Pro in every category. It is cheaper though, and can be found for Php22,850.  

Like the LG Optimus G Pro, the bezel around the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 is impressively thin. Now, I am not a person one who is fond of phablets. I find big smartphones awkward, and phablets even more ungainly. But I really fell in love with the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3. I don't like it as a smartphone, but I love it as a tablet. It is much more handy than a 7 or 8-inch tablet, and the screen is big enough for web browsing and reading. I was really tempted to buy it, but it is a bit expensive for a device which will be a third device backing up my smartphone and laptop. Small 7-inch tablets are priced much lower. 

Despite the marginal specifications, I recommend everyone to give the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 a look.

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