LG G Pad 8.3 review: Couch surfer

As an integral part of Android Jelly Bean, Google Now is present on the G Pad 8.3. You can get to it by swiping up from the home button.

In addition to being able to recognize voice commands, Google Now will learn from your usage patterns and display relevant information. For example, if you search for a particular sports team frequently, Google Now will display information for upcoming games you might want to watch.

Google Now

The service interacts with you by generating cards which are displayed on your screen and give you a short overview of information it believes is relevant to you. Going to work in the morning? Google Now knows this and lets you know there's a big traffic jam on your usual way to the office, and will offer you an alternate route. This extends to a multitude of other areas, including weather, traffic, public transit stations, and nearby points of interest.

You can either type or talk to Google Now and the app will give you one of its aforementioned info cards (if available) and read you its contents aloud (you can disable this from the app settings). If there's no card to help with the answer to your question, Google Now will simply initiate a Google web search instead.

There is also a Google Now widget which generates information for you based on what your interests are.

Synthetic benchmarks

The LG G Pad 8.3 boasts a Snapdragon 600 chipset with four Krait 300 cores clocked at 1.7GHz, 2GB of RAM and the Adreno 320 GPU. This is identical to what powers the Optimus G Pro, so we expect numbers more or less in line with those of the 5.5-inch phablet, with most difference due to the fact that the G Pad has to some more pixels to push.

The G Pad 8.3 managed to join its G Pro brethren on top of the Benchmark Pi and Linpack tests, and was also able to beat out the Nexus 7 and Galaxy Note 8.0.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• LG G Pad 8.3
  131
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  211
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
  324
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  351
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
  470
• Samsung Galaxy 3 7.0
  483
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 Plus
  488
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0
  499
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
  520
• Huawei MediaPad
  703

Linpack

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• LG G Pad 8.3
  736
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
  324
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  263
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 Plus
  222
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  185
• Google Nexus 7
  124
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  105
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
  86
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  96
• Samsung Galaxy 3 7.0
  78

In our compound benchmarks, the G Pad did well once again, scoring towards the top of the charts in AnTuTu, Geekbench 3, and Quadrant. It handily outclassed its main rivals in the form of the Nexus 7 and Galaxy Note 8.0.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  24716
• LG G Pad 8.3
  24440
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  24236
• Sony Xperia ZL
  20743
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  20216
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• HTC Butterfly
  19513
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  19131
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
  17159
• Oppo Find 5
  15167
• Google Nexus 10
  12695
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  9070

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2937
• LG G2
  2243
• HTC One
  1972
• LG G Pad 8.3
  1950
• HTC One Max
  1899
• LG Optimus G
  1623
• LG Nexus 4
  1288
• HTC Butterfly
  1257

Quadrant

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One
  11746
• LG G Pad 8.3
  11804
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  7215
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0
  6942
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  5864
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  5552
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  4627
• Nexus 4
  4567
• Google Nexus 10
  4385

We ran GFXBench (formerly GLBenchmark) tests off-screen, which means we're testing at a fixed resolution and getting numbers for raw GPU power. The G Pad 8.3 didn't disappoint, and even outdoes the Optimus G Pro in the less-intensive Egypt test.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPad 4
  54.4
• Google Nexus 10
  40
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  40
• LG G Pad 8.3
  39
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  39
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  32
• Asus Padfone 2
  31
• Oppo Find 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  29
• Sony Xperia ZL
  29
• Sony Xperia Z
  29
• LG Optimus G
  29
• HTC Butterfly
  27.9
• Apple iPhone 5
  27
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  26
• Nexus 4
  26
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15
• HTC One X+
  12
• HTC One X
  9

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  15
• LG G Pad 8.3
  15
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  7.0
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  4.0

But video benchmarks running at native resolution will give the most accurate portrayal of real world performance, which is why we've included the Unreal Engine 3-powered Epic Citadel benchmark. Unreal Engine is popular with mobile game makers, so it's a pretty important test. Here is where the G Pad 8.3 failed to top our charts this time around, but still posted a respectable score of 36.3 fps, which is quite playable.

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1
  54.9
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  54.9
• LG G2
  51
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  47.7
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  37.2
• LG G Pad 8.3
  36.3
• HTC One
  35.6
• HTC One Max
  34.9
• HTC Butterfly
  29.6

Our browser benchmarks show some great numbers from the G Pad 8.3, with the tablet scoring near the top of the category in the SunSpider web benchmark. With HTML 5 thrown into the mix in Browsermark and Vellamo, the G Pad does even better.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• LG Optimus G Pro
  1011
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  1150
• LG G Pad 8.3
  1190
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  1233
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  1366
• Google Nexus 7
  1703
• new Apple iPad
  1722
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  1891
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7
  1953
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
  1992
• Galaxy Tab 2 7.0
  2253
• Huawei MediaPad
  2490

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG G Pad 8.3
  2664
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  2386
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  2228
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  2363
• HTC One
  2262
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Google Nexus 10
  1773
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0
  1612
• HTC Butterfly
  1475

Vellamo

Higher is better

• LG G Pad 8.3
  2505
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2265
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2060
• Google Nexus 10
  1929
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0
  1633
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1
  1777
• Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 7.0
  1440
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• Asus Nexus 7 (2013)
  1597

Overall, the Snapdragon 600 platform performs admirably on the LG G Pad 8.3. If you're planning on doing a lot of web surfing, the G Pad provided some excellent results, while the CPU also held firm in its own benchmarks. The real-time GPU performance is not stellar, but the results we achieved were still more than adequate.