LG G3 Camera Review: Killer 'Laser Autofocus Sensor', 'Dual-Tone' Flash and ‘Selfie’ Mode
The South Korean company LG released its flagship smartphone, the LG G3, on May 27, 2014. This handset is already getting rave reviews across the globe and it is slated to give tough competition to the top smartphones ruling the market.
Features (Quick View)
The salient features include a 5.5 inches screen with 2,560 x 1,440 pixels (Quad HD) resolution. The handset is powered by a quad-core Krait 400 (Qualcomm Snapdragon 801) processor, clocked at 2.5 GHz with 2 GB of RAM. In addition, this phone comes with 16 GB and 32 GB of internal storage and it supports microSD card for further expansion up to 128 GB. Other specifications include Li-Ion 3000 mAh battery, and Android v4.4.2 (KitKat) OS.
Details on the much-touted 'camera unit' of the recently released LG G3.
Camera
The LG G3 houses a 13 megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2.1 megapixel front-facing camera.
The unique selling point of LG's rear-facing camera is its 'laser autofocus sensor' also being called as 'laser emitter' by several publications. LG has apparently taken a cue from the 'robot vacuum cleaners' that uses a similar mechanism to navigate through a dark room.
Similar to the HTC's 'Duo camera' technology introduced in HTC One (M8), G3 uses an additional optical system to speed up the camera's focus capabilities. As Gizmodo points out, this technology is not new, but it is getting prominent now because of introducing this mechanism in smartphones.
The company LG is following the trend set by many other smartphones by introducing the dual-LED (dual tone) flash in their flagship G3. This dual flash combines various colour LED beams for more natural look.
As Slash Gear puts it, when a photo was captured by LG G3 in a dark room; the 'laser emitter' mechanism allows the LG G3 camera to locate objects even in the dark. In specific, this mechanism helps the camera to not bank on the available light in order to focus an area or an object.
Therefore, this laser emitter is definitely a stand-out feature of the new LG G3 that trumps many other top-selling smartphones' camera performance especially in the dark.
The company claims that the laser autofocus sensor mechanism is very quick as it takes only 0.276 seconds to focus. In addition, the camera also features simultaneous video and image recording, optical image stabilization, geo tagging, face detection, and HDR. It is worth mentioning that, the 'Touch & Shoot' UI cuts down the focusing and capturing image to a single step. That translates to capturing images when the user touches the area to focus.
The front-facing camera features a 'selfie' mode, which apparently sets the timer on, when the user moves the hands in front of the camera, according to NDTV.
The quality of video captured by LG G3, with the help of both the rear and front cameras are comparatively good. In addition, the LG G3 can shoot 4K (3,840 x 2,160) videos.
Interested readers can checkout this amazing video on LG G3 Camera from Youtube.
What do you think of the camera unit of LG G3? Will this give tough competition to other flagship smartphones that are selling like hot cakes? Feel free to leave a comment.