GSMArena team, 25 April 2014

Big mini

LG G2 mini review: Big mini

Modest quad-core performance

The G2 mini comes with a Snapdragon 400 chipset with four Krait 200, Cortex-A7, cores clocked at 1.2 GHz and the Adreno 305 graphics processing unit. The phone makes use of 1 GB of RAM.

The Cortex-A7 processor clocked at 1.2GHz delivers a reasonable mid-range performance very close to the Cortex-A9 CPUs of old, with the added benefit of having lower power consumption.

Jumping to the benchmark tests, BenchmarkPi focuses on the per-core performance. It evaluates how fast the processing core is and the G2 mini scored just under its siblings by processor - the Moto G and Xperia C - and not far behind Cortex-A9 competition.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

LG G2
99
Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
132
LG Nexus 5
146
HTC One
151
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
166
Motorola Moto X
192
HTC One mini
293
Huawei Ascend P6
348
Sony Xperia C
374
Motorola Moto G
392
LG G2 mini
407
LG Nexus 4
431
Nokia X
676

Linpack is a single or multi-threaded oriented benchmark. Here the G2 mini scored just lower than the more powerful HTC One mini (boasting a Snapdragon 400 with better Krait 300 cores) and didn't manage to overpower the Moto G either.

Linpack

Higher is better

LG G2
1054
Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
788
HTC One
646
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
413
LG Nexus 5
393
Motorola Moto X
391
HTC One mini
320
Motorola Moto G
259
LG G2 mini
217
LG Nexus 4
213.5
Huawei Ascend P6
161.4
Sony Xperia C
132.3

Geekbench 3 is a cross-platform CPU benchmark. In it the G2 mini bested the Moto G and came close to the LG Nexus 4 - not a bad score.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

LG Nexus 5
2453
LG G2
2243
Motorola Moto X
2123
HTC One
1972
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
1937
Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
1869
Huawei Ascend P6
1315
LG Nexus 4
1288
LG G2 mini
1123
Motorola Moto G
1120
Sony Xperia C
1079
Oppo R819
1047
HTC One mini
887
Nokia X
421

AnTuTu 4 gauges the overall device performance instead of just the CPU. Here the G2 mini came close to the way more powerful Moto X and again beat the Moto G, if only by a hair. In Quadrant the G2 mini scored almost double the points of the similarly-spec'd Xperia C.

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

LG G2
35444
Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
27613
HTC One
26389
LG Nexus 5
25097
Motorola Moto X
19031
LG G2 mini
17362
Motorola Moto G
17214
LG Nexus 4
17006
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
14518
Sony Xperia C
13948
Huawei Ascend P6
13776
HTC One mini
11434
Nokia X
7514

Quadrant

Higher is better

LG G2
19815
Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
12376
HTC One
11746
Motorola Moto X
9018
LG G2 mini
8918
LG Nexus 5
8844
Motorola Moto G
8508
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
7153
HTC One mini
6048
Huawei Ascend P6
5287
Sony Xperia C
4941
LG Nexus 4
4567
Nokia X
2880

Heading into GPU-intensive test territory it's time to see how the Adreno 305 inside the G2 mini performs against the similarly spec'd Moto G and the PowerVR SGX544 inside the Xperia C. At GLBenchrmak's 2.5 Egypt 1080p offscreen test the Adreno 305 rounded up 5.8 frames per second. GLBenchmark's offscreen test shows what the GPU inside the phone can do in raw performance - not pushing the native qHD resolution, but instead a fixed 1080p one. Naturally, the G2 mini was outperformed by Snapdragon 600 and 800-yellding foes as their Adreno 320 and 330 are much more potent.

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex offscreen also gave the nod to the Adreno 305 over the PowerVR SGX544 - the Adreno got twice the framerates.

Finally, the Epic Citadel, which generates a beautiful and rich medieval scene, was the place where the the Adreno 305's managed to push the LG G2 mini to a score of 57.4 fps. That's mostly thanks to the low resolution as the GPU didn't had to do as much work as the one in the 720p Moto G.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

LG Nexus 5
23
LG G2
22
Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
17.1
Motorola Moto X
16
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
6.4
LG G2 mini
5.8
Motorola Moto G
5.6
HTC One mini
5.6
Huawei Ascend P6
4.4
Sony Xperia C
2.8

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

Motorola Moto X
59.6
LG G2 mini
57.4
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
54.7
LG G2
51
LG Nexus 5
49.1
LG Nexus 4
48
Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
37.2
Sony Xperia C
36.3
HTC One
35.6
Motorola Moto G
34
HTC One mini
30.7
Huawei Ascend P6
29.6
Oppo R819
23.1

And for the final installment of our synthetic round comes the browsing experience, which is comprised of the JavaScript-focused and HTML 5-oriented SunSpider and BrowserMark 2. Finally, Vellamo does a little of everything for an all-round score.

JavaScript performance deemed the G2 mini slightly better than the Moto G and better overall than most of its more expensive rivals, which can be attributed to them running Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.

In Browsermark the Android 4.4 and G2 mini duo scored a very high result leaving others, like the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini in the dust.

Vellamo wasn't as generous as the other two and left the G2 mini sob in the bottom place.

SunSpider 1.0.2

Lower is better

LG Nexus 5
734
Motorola Moto X
1050
LG G2 mini
1082
Motorola Moto G
1308
Sony Xperia C
1322.3
Nokia X
2363.3

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

LG Nexus 5
2745
LG G2
2718
LG G2 mini
2600
Motorola Moto G
2562
Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
2438
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
2314
HTC One
2262
HTC One mini
2164
Sony Xperia C
1984
LG Nexus 4
1794
Nokia X
1729
Huawei Ascend P6
974

Vellamo

Higher is better

LG G2
2908
Motorola Moto X
2446
HTC One
2382
HTC One mini
2252
Samsung Galaxy S4 S600
2060
Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
2019
Motorola Moto G
1928
Sony Xperia C
1582
Huawei Ascend P6
1434
LG Nexus 5
1340
LG Nexus 4
1310
LG G2 mini
1179

All in all, we saw the LG G2 mini perform decently In the synthetic benchmarks we threw at it. In most cases it performed spectacularly for its low-powered quad-core CPU. However, synthetic benchmarks are one thing, and overall performance (user interface, apps) is another. There, the G2 mini didn't disappoint either. Everything is snappy and fluid, even when opening a bunch of applications at the same time. We're definitely pleased with it.

Next Page » 6. Phonebook, telephony, messaging

5. Synthetic benchmarks

Reviews LG G2 mini reviewPage 5