LG GPad 8.3

[MRU]

So now that the G Pad 8.3 GE has been announced, what do you think? Would you recommend it after your experience considering now it has stock Android? Was the hardware good? Speakers and screen?

Screen was excellent, speakers were decent but not spectacular, but well positioned to get some good audio separation and good volume too (if a small bit tinny sounding at louder volumes and prone to crackling)

Hardware wise it is good but I still have my reservations based on the games I played that all suffered serious performance issues. Rayman Run for example was seriously unplayable. Now it shouldn't have been at all - so whether it was a software incompatibility or whether the GPAD has some bad thermal throttling I just don't know. RipTide 2 had notably choppier experience than it did on the Nexus 7 2013 too.

So yeah, I think with stock android it has seriously answered a major amount of my problems with the device - though I would still be a little nervous to recommend it without someone running some checks first.

 

[AppleRobert]

Screen was excellent, speakers were decent but not spectacular, but well positioned to get some good audio separation and good volume too (if a small bit tinny sounding at louder volumes and prone to crackling)

Hardware wise it is good but I still have my reservations based on the games I played that all suffered serious performance issues. Rayman Run for example was seriously unplayable. Now it shouldn't have been at all - so whether it was a software incompatibility or whether the GPAD has some bad thermal throttling I just don't know. RipTide 2 had notably choppier experience than it did on the Nexus 7 2013 too.

So yeah, I think with stock android it has seriously answered a major amount of my problems with the device - though I would still be a little nervous to recommend it without someone running some checks first.

Not really anything negative on xda about the device. The battery life is the hot button mostly. No one is really using the stock UI with Nova leading the way as an alternative and some have gone as far as rooting.

I grabbed one for $279 at BB last week. I really like it and to tell the truth so much so I don't know how much I'll be using the N7 now. The G Pad raises my interests for games and video because of the larger size. I always used alternatives for that instead of my N7. I even like it better for reading.

 

[MRU]

Not really anything negative on xda about the device. The battery life is the hot button mostly. No one is really using the stock UI with Nova leading the way as an alternative and some have gone as far as rooting.

I grabbed one for $279 at BB last week. I really like it and to tell the truth so much so I don't know how much I'll be using the N7 now. The G Pad raises my interests for games and video because of the larger size. I always used alternatives for that instead of my N7. I even like it better for reading.

Out of interest can you install Rayman Run, and see if it works for you. For me the level would start and then it would all slow down to a unplayable mess.

I'd like to know if it was just my device or whether its replicated on others.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...=HfMYosvS5aB7igk-acFRRg&bvm=bv.57799294,d.ZG4

 

[tbayrgs]

Out of interest can you install Rayman Run, and see if it works for you. For me the level would start and then it would all slow down to a unplayable mess.

I'd like to know if it was just my device or whether its replicated on others.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...=HfMYosvS5aB7igk-acFRRg&bvm=bv.57799294,d.ZG4

I know it's not exactly what you asked but I installed Asphalt 8 on my new GPE version of the G Pad 8.3 (sorry, not interested in Rayman Run and it's $2.99 price tag here in the US), figured it's probably even more intensive than Rayman and had no problems with it. Used it for about 10 minutes, ran a couple races--no noticeable hiccups and seemed very smooth.

 

[AppleRobert]

Out of interest can you install Rayman Run, and see if it works for you. For me the level would start and then it would all slow down to a unplayable mess.

I'd like to know if it was just my device or whether its replicated on others.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...=HfMYosvS5aB7igk-acFRRg&bvm=bv.57799294,d.ZG4

Everything I've run as far as games have all worked well BUT I mostly just do the freebie quick ones for a fix like subway surfers, temple run and candy crush. I do have that one turbo jet ski game that costed me and I have no issues playing that either.

And I don't have a blue line on my G Pad! 🙂

I may try that game you suggested though cause I kind of owe you for your help on other toys I have. 🙂

 

[MRU]

I know it's not exactly what you asked but I installed Asphalt 8 on my new GPE version of the G Pad 8.3 (sorry, not interested in Rayman Run and it's $2.99 price tag here in the US), figured it's probably even more intensive than Rayman and had no problems with it. Used it for about 10 minutes, ran a couple races--no noticeable hiccups and seemed very smooth.

Mmm. Maybe I did have a lemon after all 🙂

Everything I've run as far as games have all worked well BUT I mostly just do the freebie quick ones for a fix like subway surfers, temple run and candy crush. I do have that one turbo jet ski game that costed me and I have no issues playing that either.

And I don't have a blue line on my G Pad! 🙂

I may try that game you suggested though cause I kind of owe you for your help on other toys I have. 🙂

Lol. No don't go to the trouble of purchasing that 🙂 money can be spent better elsewhere 😀 🙂

 

[AppleRobert]

Mmm. Maybe I did have a lemon after all 🙂




Lol. No don't go to the trouble of purchasing that 🙂 money can be spent better elsewhere 😀 🙂

Well I had contemplated getting it before anyway so I did yesterday. It runs smoothly and so does Asphalt.

You need an android tablet to compliment your rMini, this is it! Try another when it is on sale.

 

[MRU]

Well I had contemplated getting it before anyway so I did yesterday. It runs smoothly and so does Asphalt.

You need an android tablet to compliment your rMini, this is it! Try another when it is on sale.

We'll at least I know mine was a lemon, if I can get a GE of the GPad I may give it another shot 🙂

 

[AppleRobert]

We'll at least I know mine was a lemon, if I can get a GE of the GPad I may give it another shot 🙂

Well I have not compared Rayman Run on the G Pad to my Nexus 7 or my 1st gen Mini with cellular. You have me curious to tell the truth. It seems to run fine on the G Pad but time will tell how that device performs with that app versus other devices.

 

[MRU]

Well I have not compared Rayman Run on the G Pad to my Nexus 7 or my 1st gen Mini with cellular. You have me curious to tell the truth. It seems to run fine on the G Pad but time will tell how that device performs with that app versus other devices.

You'd know if it was messed up on your device ... seriously literally within a second or two of me pressing run on any given level for me the game would slow to a total crawl and run at about 1/4 speed.

If it runs same speed from start of a level to the the end - that's a big difference from the model I had.

🙂

 

[sugarfiend]

Does any know if the standard edition, not the GPE, of this tablet will be able to upgrade to android 4.4 or will it be stuck with the out of box 4.2?

 

[ChazUK]

Does any know if the standard edition, not the GPE, of this tablet will be able to upgrade to android 4.4 or will it be stuck with the out of box 4.2?

I'd suspect it will be getting 4.4. Would be appalling from LG if not.

I've now had mine a few days and will freely admit on not at all a fan of LG's customisations. Samsung and LG need to tone things down a notch IMO.

Thankfully for me, I'd done my research and already intended to go the custom ROM route and having official CyanogenMod 11 nightlies already out (and zero issues to report stability wise) it has been a fantastic tablet.

Great present from my wife made better by the Android community! 😀

 

[MRU]

I'd suspect it will be getting 4.4. Would be appalling from LG if not.

I've now had mine a few days and will freely admit on not at all a fan of LG's customisations. Samsung and LG need to tone things down a notch IMO.
! 😀

Yeah the LG skin is more in your face than touchwiz and that's truly shocking !!!!

 

[Alfuh]

Update on my G Pad experience:

First off, you can see in my first post here that I mention I got the 2013 N7 and this tablet and was going to compare them and decide which to keep. So if this is an update on my G Pad experience then it's obvious which road I went down...

I got the N7 as a refurbished model on an eBay daily deal and figured if it was refurbished that any possible touch issues would be resolved. Wrong. Had horrible touch lag and would just spaz out sometimes. I even went as far as rooting and flashing different kernels for the touch controller and it helped out, but it still wasn't a smooth experience. The second I booted the G Pad up, even with the default skin, I realized how much better the G Pad was. Got N7 back to factory default and shipped it back.

For anyone comparing these two models: I would have stayed with the G Pad regardless of the touch issues... Here is why

Screen size - I really like the extra screen real estate that the G Pad offers. I use it for everything from Web surfing, to reading, to watching Netflix, to casual gaming and having the extra screen makes a difference. I don't have any light bleed issues or blue lines. The color is a bit warm, but I will survive.

Software - I rooted my G Pad the second I got it. Installed custom recovery and was ready and waiting for CM11. What happened next was a bit surprising... I actually started to like the skin a bit. Not the launcher which was quickly replaced by Nova, but the actual tweaks on Android. I find myself using the IR blaster quite a bit and having it in the pulldown menu is great. The QSlide stuff is pretty cool too. I use mighty text so I don't bother with Qpair. I also threw SwiftKey on pretty quickly. Overall the software isn't as clunky as I was afraid it would be and a few of the features are keeping me from flashing some of the very promising ROMs that are coming out right now.

Dev Support - Figured I would throw this in. I didn't want a DOA tablet waiting on manufacturer updates. I was coming from a Nook HD+ and as weak as that tablet was I was always running CM with the latest version of Android. Seeing the amount of activity on XDA was a big deciding factor for me. I know I just said above I am liking default skin, but I know that will run on one day and having options is important. Ever since this thing was released as a God it has gotten a lot more attention.

Performance - I won't go too deep into this, but it does everything I want... And fast. I only play casual games (just beat 10000000!) but you can see from other posters that the internals do just fine against top end games.

Build Quality - This tablet seems like a pretty premium tablet. The screen is nice, the aluminum backing is designed well, no creaks, etc

Here are some of great few gripes I've had with the tablet :

Battery - as others have mentioned it is mediocre. It's not horrible and I've heard it gets a lot better with an AOSP ROM.

Handling - it is pretty slippery compared to my N5, the N7 I tried, and the Nook HD+ I came from. All of those use a soft touch backing and the aluminum of the G Pad, while nice looking, isn't as easy to handle.

Well that about does it. My comparison between the Nexus 7 and the LG G Pad 8.3 and a review afterwards. Hope this helps some people out.

Excuse any typos... Written on the tablet and SwiftKey can get aggressive with autocorrect 😉

 

[Rodster]

I was interesting in one of these so i'm glad I stumbled on this thread. It's too bad it has performance issues. Oh well, here's hoping the Nexus 8 rumors are true.

 

[MRU]

I was interesting in one of these so i'm glad I stumbled on this thread. It's too bad it has performance issues. Oh well, here's hoping the Nexus 8 rumors are true.

Performance issues were only one a few games and were seemingly effecting my LG pad - others subsequently bought and downloaded games found no performance degradation - therefore we can only surmise that I perhaps had a dodgy one and that it was not indicative of the whole.

 

[Sensamic]

I was interesting in one of these so i'm glad I stumbled on this thread. It's too bad it has performance issues. Oh well, here's hoping the Nexus 8 rumors are true.

Even better, I would get the new Samsung 8.0 tablet with QHD screen, Snapdragon 800, etc. Even better tablet.

 

[Alfuh]

Pretty sure Nexus 8 is not coming. Those rumors were based on the GPE for this tablet.

Also, I flashed Mahdi ROM and am enjoying it quite a bit right now. Miss the IR blaster (which LG locked down ... uncool), but other than that everything is running well.

 

[Rodster]

Even better, I would get the new Samsung 8.0 tablet with QHD screen, Snapdragon 800, etc. Even better tablet.

I prefer a tablet that runs vanilla android. I'm not a fan of Samsung's layered OS. I noticed that Google is selling this tablet with Kit Kat installed for $349.

 

[Shanghaichica]

I'm interesting in getting one of these. I think the nexus 7 is too small, especially since I now have a note 3. I want an 8 inch android tablet. I was considering the note 8.0 but now that I have the note 3, I'll probably want something different.

Admittedly I've never used an LG device before, but I don't think the skin will bother me as I use and like touch wiz.

I think it's great value for the money, particularly as it's on sale in the UK at the moment.

As for the battery life, I doubt it could be any worse than my galaxy tab 2 10.1, which I get about 6 hours usage from.

I'm not a hardcore gamer, I just play things like angry birds so it should definitely be able to handle those games.

 

[Rodster]

I broke down and bought one this morning before the deal expires on Newegg. I debated whether to go with a rMini, LG GPad 8.3 or the new Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and decided the BEST bang for the buck is the LG at $250.

My main concerns regarding the LG 8.3 was screen brightness (85% max while playing games), audio issues in certain apps and it's not a Snapdragon 600 but rather an S4 Pro inside. Since i'm using it primarily for web browsing, streaming audio and video and will be doing light gaming, this fits just fine.

The rMini has it's share of issues primarily iOS 7 w/ A7 and it just has inconsistent performance. The screen is not as good as other tablets in the price range and has washed out colors but most of all it's TINY and not that great for web browsing.

The Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 is a new device with solid specs but i'm not a big fan of TouchWiz and it's $150 more. So best bang for the buck wins right now and this purchase should hold me over hopefully for the rumored announcement of the new Nexus 8.

 

[tbayrgs]

I broke down and bought one this morning before the deal expires on Newegg. I debated whether to go with a rMini, LG GPad 8.3 or the new Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and decided the BEST bang for the buck is the LG at $250.

My main concerns regarding the LG 8.3 was screen brightness (85% max while playing games), audio issues in certain apps and it's not a Snapdragon 600 but rather an S4 Pro inside. Since i'm using it primarily for web browsing, streaming audio and video and will be doing light gaming, this fits just fine.

The rMini has it's share of issues primarily iOS 7 w/ A7 and it just has inconsistent performance. The screen is not as good as other tablets in the price range and has washed out colors but most of all it's TINY and not that great for web browsing.

The Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 is a new device with solid specs but i'm not a big fan of TouchWiz and it's $150 more. So best bang for the buck wins right now and this purchase should hold me over hopefully for the rumored announcement of the new Nexus 8.

Well, glad you've found a tablet you like (I have the G Pad 8.3 GPE) but some of your logic is flawed or just a bit inaccurate.

First, the G Pad does in fact run on a Snapdragon 600--the Nexus 7 uses a S4 Pro.

Also, the rMini certainly isn't the best screen available but it's not the worst. In fact, I'd give that distinction to the G Pad. I've put my G Pad next to a Nexus 7 and rMini at the same time and the Nexus had the best color accuracy while the G Pad had the worst--had very warm tones, almost yellow. The rMini was far closer to the Nexus than the G Pad and brighter. I haven't used the new Galaxy Pro 8.4 but from what I've read, it's display is top notch. Also, between these four tablets, the LG actually has the lowest pixel density.

Regarding the size of the rMini display--it may be your general perception but in truth, it's barely any smaller than the G Pad, primarily due to its use of a 4:3 display ratio vs. the 16:10 used on the G Pad.

iPad Mini retina display area: 194.81 sq. cm
LG G Pad display area: 202.27 sq. cm

Take into account on screen buttons on the G Pad and it's basically dead even.

The standard G Pad is definitely cheaper and it offers great build materials/quality, as well as memory storage expansion via microSD, so there certainly is value. The question is whether it's enough to offset the other shortcomings. Both you and I appear to agree that they do. 😀

 

[nfl46]

I nearly got one of these on Newegg for $249. It was tempting.

 

[Shanghaichica]

I'm going to pick one of these up on Friday. Hopefully the £20 off deal will still be on, but if not I think I'll just get one anyway. I've been watching the YouTube reviews and I'm very impressed.

 

[Rodster]

First, the G Pad does in fact run on a Snapdragon 600--the Nexus 7 uses a S4 Pro.

I made that comment based on several reviews posted on Newegg.com and it was noted and confirmed that the LG Pad 8.3 has the S4 Pro and not the SD 600.