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00:00Hi everyone, I'm Tom, I'm the Tech Chap. I like to test, analyse and review the latest
00:04smartphones, tablets and consumer tech. Listen, this is my first video so please be nice.
00:08We're going to be talking about the LG G3.
00:12Hey guys, I'm Tom the Tech Chap and six years ago this week I posted this shockingly bad
00:18video. This was my first ever video on January 30th 2015 I think it was and now I've just
00:24passed 1 million subscribers which is all thanks to you guys and it's absolutely crazy.
00:30So I thought this would be a good opportunity to look back, see how far I've come and more
00:34importantly how far phones have come in the last six years.
00:38So this was my first ever video, a review of the LG G3 which I bought with my own money,
00:44I borrowed my dad's Canon 7D camera and I also shot this in his office. It actually
00:49did quite well, I mean 31,000 views although that is over six years but most importantly
00:55for me I had some really nice comments which made me keep at it. It also helped that this
00:59was a genuinely great phone at the time and you may recognize a couple of people who also
01:04reviewed this.
01:05The G3 from LG is the first of their phones I've reviewed so it's actually my first experience
01:10with their particular flavour of Android.
01:13What's up YouTube, Saf here on SuperSaf TV and this is my hands on review of the LG G3.
01:18Now that this is out and now that we know everything we know about it, it's clearly,
01:22easily one of the best phones that's come out this year, if not the best.
01:25So six years later and now I've got a fancier camera, I think my hair's gone back a couple
01:30of inches and I bought this on eBay, the LG G3 for £70, it's not cheap actually.
01:37And all I had to do to blow your mind and think holy moly I miss old phones is this.
01:42Removable batteries and microSD and of course a headphone jack. I mean the S21 Ultra just
01:49can't keep up.
01:50And on the off chance you missed my initial review from six years ago, a quick recap of
01:55the G3 which at the time was competing with the Galaxy S5 and we get a pretty big 5.5
02:01inch screen, 16 by 9 of course so a little wider and boxier than more recent 20 by 9
02:06phones.
02:07Not only that though, it also has a quad HD resolution. Even the S21 Plus is only full
02:12HD.
02:13But what's really surprising is just how light this thing is. At 159 grams it makes
02:18modern phones feel like bricks.
02:21Of course that's because we have a plastic body with this brushed metallic finish but
02:25I still really like the look of this thing and the other benefit of having a plastic
02:28back is it's removable with a 3000 mAh hot swappable battery.
02:34The only downside is the rubbish old micro USB port.
02:38Is it just me or do you think older phones had a little bit more personality than they
02:42do these days? I think one of my favourite phones back from this era was the HTC One
02:47M7 and the M8. I loved that phone and I think it had such an awesome design with that metal
02:52body but what about you? Is there a particular phone from the past that you think really
02:56stood out or was one of your favourites? Let me know in the comments below.
02:59Of course one thing we don't have with the G3 is any kind of biometric security so
03:04there's no fingerprint reader or face unlocking although you do have the option of a NOC
03:07code which I remember being very excited about at the time.
03:11Now on the inside we have a Snapdragon 801 along with either 2 or 3 gigs of RAM and 16
03:17or 32 gigs of storage.
03:19The question is though, can the Exynos 2100 keep up with the Snapdragon 801? It could
03:24be close.
03:26Well unfortunately the latest Geekbench app isn't supported on the G3 anymore but in
03:303DMark's slingshot test, the S21 Ultra is about 9 times faster.
03:37So if we fire up a bit of Call of Duty Mobile on the G3, bearing in mind this game came
03:41out about 5 years after the phone launched and it plays, well not that bad actually,
03:46albeit on very low settings but we're getting a solid frame rate. I half expected this not
03:50to play at all.
03:52I'll tell you what the craziest thing is, that when this came out in late 2014, this
03:58was a flagship phone and yet it only cost about £500 which in today's money is about
04:03£550 so about half the price of something like the Galaxy S21 Ultra. You could get two
04:09of these for the price of one of these.
04:12It's funny because in some ways I'm thinking, oh not much has really changed. I mean we've
04:16got Android 5 on here which added this material design so it still feels kind of modern and
04:21it's not fundamentally any different to use. But at the same time, next to something like
04:25this, well the S21 Ultra feels like a phone from the future.
04:31But one thing I'm really curious about is the camera. How does this compare with the
04:36latest and greatest?
04:37Well we've got a single 13 megapixel camera on the back, no ultrawides, telephotos or
04:42periscopes back in those days. However, the G3 was one of the first to add a laser autofocus
04:48and I'm also pretty surprised to see it supports 4K video.
04:51And actually looking at some photos, they're not that bad actually. And in good light,
04:56the G3 can still take a decent photo.
04:58However, if I bring in the S21 Ultra, which to be fair is 6 years newer and costs over
05:03twice as much, it shows that while year on year we may only see iterative upgrades these
05:08days, over time it does add up and we're getting much sharper and more detailed photos,
05:13dynamic range is miles ahead and I think the biggest advancement in camera tech in recent
05:17years has been night mode. In low light, the G3 just can't keep up.
05:23Switching to selfies and it really is impressive how far we've come in just a few short years.
05:27It's so much sharper and again with night mode for the selfie camera as well these days,
05:31it just shows that megapixels don't really tell you that much. It's all about the size
05:35and the quality of the sensor and crucially the software and the processing with more
05:40advanced image signal processors in the latest chips.
05:47So not only was this the first ever phone I reviewed, in fact the first ever video I
05:52made which for me holds a bit of a special place because this is where it all started,
05:57but it's also pretty surprising that while in some respects it feels like a million years
06:01ago, in others it's still a pretty usable phone. It's not that much different. Camera
06:06quality can't keep up and it's obviously not as fast and there's no high refresh and some
06:10of those extras, but then again we've also lost some features. No headphone jack or micro
06:15USB or removable batteries. This was one of the killer features back in the day and
06:20I kind of miss it to be honest. Being able to just take a couple of extra batteries with
06:23you, hot swap them out and you're then instantly back to 100%. Although of course now we have
06:28much faster charging and also bigger batteries so that kind of offsets it a little bit, but
06:32the big question is if we go forward another six years to say 2027, what features do you
06:38think will have then a standard that will make something like the S21 Ultra feel outdated
06:43and last gen? Do you think by that point we'll all have folding, rollable phones,
06:47everything will be under the screen and we'll have 20 lens camera setups? Give me your predictions
06:53in the comments below. And just to celebrate my 1 million subscriber special, I didn't really
06:57want to advertise it, but I want to give away a brand new Galaxy S21 Ultra. All you have to do
07:03is click on the gleam link below and just make sure you subscribed and left a comment. That's
07:06pretty much it. It's an international giveaway, nice and simple and I'll pick a winner at random
07:11in the next couple of weeks. Just a little token to say thank you really for supporting me and
07:15sticking with me as we've grown this channel and this community. 2021 is going to be an awesome
07:19year and if we're going to continue to see the kind of innovations and advances that we've seen
07:24in the last five or six years, I can't wait to see what's coming up next and to show you guys. So
07:29thank you very much for watching. Good luck in the competition and I'll see you next time right
07:32here on the Tech Chat. So that's about it. I hope you've enjoyed this video. I look forward to any
07:37questions or any messages you may have. This has been my first review, so please go easy and you
07:42have a great day and it's been really nice. Have fun. Cheers.