Samsung Galaxy S8 vs. LG G6: Comparison Review Of Specs, Features And More

Now that Samsung has finally taken the wraps off of its flagship smartphone for this year, it’s about time for us to pit the LG G6 with the Galaxy S8. Both Android handsets appear to be very promising because they are pioneering an era of almost bezel-less flagship phones. They also come with highly advanced features, making them complete head-turners. Therefore, it is just fitting for us to look into these devices and see if one can beat the other based on their specs, features and other technologies.

Performance

From the get-go, it’s clear that Samsung’s Galaxy S7 successor would be the winner in terms of performance because it is the first smartphone to ship with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835. The reason behind why Samsung’s flagship device comes with the latest processor is due to the fact that Samsung was the one that provided the 10nm FinFET technology for the chip. We previously learned that when Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 835, the LG G6 and HTC’s U Ultra were out of the running to feature the latest premium processor.

With Samsung reportedly hoarding the latest Qualcomm processor, LG was left with no other choice than to launch the G6 with last year’s Snapdragon 821, which was manufactured using 14nm process. Compared with the 821, the 835 chipset has 30 percent area efficiency, 27 percent better performance and 40 percent less battery-consumption. The Snapdragon 835 supports Quick Charge 4.0 that can refuel a battery to 50 percent in 15 minutes, as pointed out by TechWalls.

READ: Bixby working on Samsung Galaxy S7, older phones

The Galaxy S8’s Snapdragon 835 is an octa-core chip comprising four 2.35GHZ Kryo cores and four 1.9GHz Kryo cores. On the other hand, LG’s Snapdragon 821 is a quad-core chip composed of two 2.35GHz Kryo cores and two 1.6GHz Kryo cores. Samsung’s handset comes with the Adreno 540 GPU, while LG’s flagship device houses an Adreno 530 GPU. It’s obvious that in real life and on paper, the LG G6 is no match for the Galaxy S8 in terms of performance.

Display

This year, both Samsung and LG have started a new era of display technology for their smartphone businesses. Ditching the design of the yesteryears, both South Korea tech companies are moving forward with handsets that have larger screen-to-body ratio. Though the trend is expected to be adopted by rival companies, both LG and Samsung are setting the bar high when it comes to offering flagship phones that are now mostly screen panels on the front.

The LG G6 has a 5.7-inch 1440 x 2880 display, which the company named as FullView display. On the contrary, Samsung’s Galaxy S8 boasts of a 5.8-inch 1440 x 2960 screen, which Apple’s biggest rival calls the Infinity Display. The QHD panels of the two are absolutely stunning since they are capable of rendering 16M colors. On paper, however, the S8 has a larger pixel density of 570 PPI than the G6’s 564 PPI. It’s also important to note that Samsung is using its Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, while LG still relies on IPS LCD panels.

READ: LG gives up selling phones in China

Both the S8 and the G6 feature HDR, and their screens also have the always-on technology. LG did a great job in slicing off a significant amount of bezels from the G6’s front panel, but Samsung outdid that by having curved-edge construction on the front of the S8. All things considered, while we were initially leaning toward declaring this round a tie, the innovation in the form factor and display on Samsung’s flagship is hard to ignore. Hence, we’re giving this round to the Galaxy S8.

Camera Technology

Though Samsung managed to introduce a very innovative handset, it somehow lacked the motivation to improve the camera department by doing what its rivals are doing, which is to bring dual-camera technology to its flagship devices. The Galaxy S7 debuted with a 12-megapixel back camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing snapper; the defunct Galaxy Note 7 also came with the same lenses. And it did the same thing to the S8 except that it bumped up the sensor of the selfie snapper to 8 megapixels.

As for LG, it is continuing its streak of putting out flagship handsets with dual-lens modules. The underwhelming G5 was built with a dual 16-megapixel + 8-megapixel rear camera module, and LG equipped the device with an 8-megapixel front camera. The V20, which is also a premium offering by the company, houses the same combination of lenses on the back and a smaller 5-megapixel camera on the front. So when LG showcased the G6 at MWC 2017, it didn’t come as a surprise that it has dual-camera technology. The rear module is composed of two 13-megapixel cameras with wide angle and zoom lenses. In addition, the front shooter has a 5-megapixel sensor.

READ: Analysts anticipate Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+ shortages

YouTube channels TechBuzz and TEST Comparisons have uploaded side-by-side comparisons of the photos and videos taken using the LG G6 and Samsung’s Galaxy S8 (S8+ has the same camera specs). Consumers who have seen the videos are claiming that the G6 produces more natural-looking outputs, while the S8 is said to be making over-processed and saturated images and clips. The LG G6 is arriving in the U.S. in the first week of April, while the S8 is scheduled for release on April 21. By then we would get to see comparisons between the cameras of the official handsets. But for now, we’re declaring the G6 the winner of this round for the very reason that it has a more sophisticated camera technology.

Miscellaneous

The LG G6 comes in two internal memory models: a 32GB version and a 64GB variant. And it has 4GB of RAM. Contrariwise, the Samsung Galaxy S8 only comes in a 64GB model with 4GB of RAM. Both handsets are equipped with the 3.5mm headphone jack, but LG’s jack has 32-bit DAC (digital to analog converter) with 192kHz audio support. This means it produces more exceptional sounds than Samsung’s 24-bit/192kHZ audio.

Both phones are running Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box, but the G6 has LG’s UX 6.0 UI on top of it and Samsung also has the improved TouchWiz UI. The LG G6 and the Samsung S8 also come with the same glass and metal construction. The two devices have glass panels on the front and back with metal bands holding the two together. While the S8 sports Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and the back, the G6 comes with Gorilla Glass 5 on the back and Gorilla Glass 3 on the front.

The two flagship phones are IP68 certified, so they are dust-proof and water-resistant for up to 30 minutes when submerged up to 1.5 meters of water. They each have a v3.1 USB port. They both have rear-mounted fingerprint scanners, but the S8’s has received a lot of criticism due to its awkward placement beside the camera lens. The Galaxy S8 has an iris scanner and facial recognition technology, but the latter recently raised some brows after it was found to be easily fooled using photos.

READ: Google rolls out Android Wear 2.0 despite announcing delay

When it comes to smart assistants, LG has yet to come up with its own technology. Thus, it will pretty much rely on Google Assistant, which the Mountain View giant has decided to roll out to Android Nougat and Android Marshmallow devices. On the contrary, the Galaxy S8 has Bixby to lure consumers to it. When Samsung announced its new flagship phones during its Unpacked event, it introduced Bixby as the perfect AI companion. Although regarded as one of the main selling points of the S8 and S8+, Business Insider is not pleased with Samsung’s new technology and it even described Bixby as “the most limited” among all digital assistants after testing it out.

The LG G6 comes in three colors: Mystic White, Astro Black and Ice Platinum. On the other hand, the Galaxy S8 has five color models: Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Arctic Silver, Maple Gold and Coral Blue. Without a doubt, there are many differences between the G6 and the S8, but only one thing made us decide to declare LG’s flagship as the winner of this round — the battery. The G6 houses a 3300mAh battery, while the S8 has a 3000mAh battery. Both are non-removable, which is sadly a downside. Nevertheless, the bigger battery of the G6 is evidently advantageous.

Conlusion

Even though it’s clearly a tie after four rounds, we have decided to choose the Samsung Galaxy S8 as the better handset than the LG G6. Samsung proved this time that it is still the major innovator among the big players in the smartphone scene. The company took a novel approach in engineering a mobile device and it succeeded in impressing us (and many people in general). The G6 is not too far behind, so kudos to LG for making a spectacular handset as well. How about you — which do you think is the better smartphone between the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the LG G6? Tell us in the comments below.