LG G Pad 8.3 hands-on

Introduction

LG jumped the gun a little bit announcing the LG G Pad 8.3 before IFA started, but now the company is giving it a proper introduction. The 8.3" tablet has been designed specifically to fit snugly in hands and pockets rather than for raw screen size.

LG put a lot of thought in designing the G Pad 8.3

That said, LG has managed to fit a fairly large screen considering the tablet doesn't feel big in our hands. The aluminum unibody design is a definite plus too, along with the expandable storage and the pair of stereo speakers.

LG G Pad 8.3 at a glance

• Form factor: 8.3" tablet with aluminum unibody
• Dimensions: 216.8 x 126.5 x 8.3mm
• Screen: 8.3" 1,920 x 1,200, 273ppi
• Chipset: Snapdragon 600, quad-core Krait 300 at 1.7GHz, Adreno 320, 2GB RAM
• OS: Android 4.2.2
• Camera: 5MP back camera, 1.2MP front-facing camera
• Video camera: 1080p recording for the main camera, 720p for the front camera
• Battery: 4,600mAh
• Storage: 16GB built-in; expandable via microSD card slot
• Misc: stereo speakers on the back

The screen is sharp and with great colors and LG has prepared some proprietary goodies - the KnockON from the LG G2 (wake the device with a tap rather than the power button), but also three-finger swipe to quickly switch between apps and, our favorite, QPair.

LG G Pad 8.3

QPair connects the G Pad to your Android smartphone ala BlackBerry Bridge on their Playbook - any Android smartphone (Jelly Bean recommended). It will display messages from the phone on the tablet and let you reply to them, even move browser tabs between the phone and tablet. What we liked best is that LG didn't get territorial and didn't make QPair an LG-exclusive feature.

Jump over to the next page for our thoughts on the hardware, a video demo of QPair and even a few benchmarks and camera samples.