LG Spirit 4G Smartphone Review

For the original German review, see here.
The LG Spirit is a 4.7-inch Smartphone which offers a 720p panel (resolution: 1280x720 pixels) and an 8 MP camera. On paper, this seems to be the best middle-class Smartphone. The LG design includes a curved back, which is available in three different colors, and provides pleasant eye-candy. The controls of the device can be found on the stylish back: volume rocker and standby button. Our test model is equipped with an LTE module, but LG provides a UMTS version as well. The UMTS configuration is cheaper, but only by 20 Euros (~$22).
Let us take a peek at the competition: the metal Samsung Galaxy A3 is a stylish opponent, but it is relatively expensive. Perhaps the HTC Desire 510 or the Acer Liquid E3 E380 will prove to be worthy competitors for our test model? Last but not least, the LG Leon, which may be a close sibling, but is also a fierce rival. How does our test model cope in the face of this multifaceted competition?
Are you a techie who knows how to write? Then join our Team! Wanted:
- News Writer (Romania based)
Details here
Case
The case is primarily composed of synthetic materials, which is reasonable, considering the price. The curved back is available in gold or dark-gray/metallic. The UMTS version is available with a white back. Although the back may change, the front remains a constant black. Thankfully, the rear cover is removable, which would present users with the opportunity to swap around the colorful backs to suit their mood, should LG choose ever to sell them separately. The removable battery, micro-SIM and microSD slots are easily accessible under the back cover of the device.
The cover hugs the front of the device, but is easy to take off. The back deforms slightly when pressured, which can cause distortions on the screen. Overall, we feel the LG Spirit is a sturdy device, as the case proved resistant during testing.
At 10 mm (~0.4 in) thick, the device is quite thick. The curvy back helps a little and makes the Smartphone looks a little slimmer. The back should offer a better grip, but thanks to the 4.7-inch form factor, the LG Spirit lies snugly in our hands. The device is easy to operate even with small hands.
Connectivity
The Snapdragon 410 SoC places the LG Spirit at the top of the middle-class. We are happy to see the device also has NFC and a built-in FM radio. 8 GB storage is too little but is reasonable considering the price. The device can only support microSD cards up to 32 GB.
Software
We are happy to report that the Smartphone runs on Android 5.0.1 and the manufacturer has not made any major changes to the vanilla Google OS. Furthermore, the device does not come loaded with a mountain of preinstalled Apps. On the one hand, there will be a distinct lack of niche, yet interesting Apps. On the other hand, the device has a lot more free storage space to offer the user thanks to the absence of Bloatware.
For years now, LG has been running a RemoteCall Service App, which allows LG service employees to remotely test the device and repair it. User consent is required to run this App on our model. In addition, the LG App Store "SmartWorld" was found on our device.
Communication & GPS
Our test model, the LG Spirit 4G, operates on LTE networks and is capable of achieving up to 150 MB/s per download and 50 MB/s per upload. 5 LTE, 3 UMTS and 4 GSM frequencies are supported, which makes our test model an ideal candidate, even for use in foreign countries. The reception of the E-Plus LTE network on our device was decent, both indoors and outdoors.
The WLAN module supports networks with the 802.11 b/g/n standards and can operate on the 2.4 GHz frequency. The reception quality is average: at ten meters (~33 feet) from the router and through three walls, the Wi-Fi bars of our device drop to half. When loading websites, the browser has a little lag. This effect is exacerbated as the distance between the device and router increases.
The GPS module of our test model could not locate us indoors, but outdoors it found enough satellites to calculate an approximate position. The accuracy of the module is decent: up to 12 meters (~39 feet). We took the GPS for a bike ride and, for comparison, we used a professional navigation GPS, the Garmin eTrex 30.
During this test, the measurements of our device were off by 10 meters at most (~33 feet / in comparison to the Garmin), which is quite good. When we were at the crossing of a train line, the Garmin eTrex 30 was far more accurate and the same is true when we drove along the river or in the forest. We found it annoying (but not surprising) that both navigation devices place us floating on the water instead of riding along the bank of the river. Overall, the GPS of the LG Spirit does a decent job, but, as expected, it cannot compete with a professional GPS in terms of accuracy.
Telephone & Speech Quality
The telephone App has been tweaked by LG a little and we feel it looks more stylish than the standard Android 5 offering. The LG tweak offers a variety of extra features: next to the dial pad, the user has icons for call lists, contacts, favorites and groups. The dial pad can be resized and the aforementioned icons can be adjusted.
The audio quality of the speaker is decent: it may sound a little dull, but it is acceptable. If you raise the volume to 100%, the sound is very distorted and the caller is hard to understand. The microphone is a little dull, which makes our voice sound a little distant.
Cameras & Multimedia
The rear camera has a decent resolution of 8 MP and it supports auto-focus and LED flash. The camera module is capable of recording in Full HD at 30 pictures per second. The quality of the videos is decent, even when captured in poor lighting. And the photos? The colors are vibrant in good lighting, but zooming in reveals the washed-out details and blurry edges. High-quality cameras, like those in the Nokia Lumina 930, offer strong colors and sharp pictures despite weak lighting and boast little to no blurring.
The 1 MP front camera takes poor-quality pictures (as expected). In weak lighting, pictures suffer from blurring. However, it is appropriate for the occasional Selfie.
Accessories
LG offers a run-of-the-mill package: a handy USB adapter, a micro USB cable and a headset. The audio quality of the headset is decent. Although, the manufacturer does not offer any special accessories for the LG Spirit, it does offer plenty of general accessories, like portable printers or additional batteries.
Warranty
The warranty of the device lasts 24 months and the accessories are insured for 12 months.
Input Devices & Interface
LG has made some changes to the keyboard of the Smartphone as well: instead of the standard Android fare, the user will be greeted by the LG keyboard. Sadly, the user will not have the option of switching to the Google standard keyboard. The LG keyboard offers a good typing experience and a plenitude of settings: height adjustment, speech commands and customization of the bottom row of keys. However, some users will feel that the LG keyboard is uncomfortably cluttered with icons and would prefer to use the original Google keyboard. The Play Store offers many alternatives to the preinstalled keyboard of our test model.
The touchscreen is very precise, even in the corners. Multi-touch gestures are reliably recognized and executed. LG offers interesting gesture controls: such as putting the phone in silent mode by turning it on its display or waking the device from standby with a double tap. As mentioned at the start of the review, the volume rocker and standby button are on the posterior of the Smartphone, which is practical, unless the device is lying on its back.
Display
The 4.7-inch panel of the device boasts a resolution of 1280x720 pixels in a 16:9 format. An average brightness of 347.9 cd/m² places our device in the middle of the pack. At 92%, the illumination is very balanced. We did not notice varying brightness levels in different areas of the panel.
|
Brightness Distribution: 92 %
Center on Battery: 359 cd/m²
Contrast: 780:1 (Black: 0.46 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 5.17 | 0.5-29.43 Ø4.9
ΔE Greyscale 5.4 | 0.5-98 Ø5.2
Gamma: 2.35
LG Spirit Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | LG Leon LGH340N Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Samsung Galaxy A3 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash | HTC Desire 510 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB SSD | Acer Liquid E3 / E380 SGX544, MT6589, 16 GB SSD | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Screen | 4% | 28% | -39% | 3% | |
Brightness middle | 359 | 326 -9% | 434 21% | 355 -1% | 483 35% |
Brightness | 348 | 323 -7% | 433 24% | 371 7% | 460 32% |
Brightness Distribution | 92 | 81 -12% | 96 4% | 80 -13% | 90 -2% |
Black Level * | 0.46 | 0.36 22% | 0.37 20% | 0.63 -37% | |
Contrast | 780 | 906 16% | 959 23% | 767 -2% | |
Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 5.17 | 4.81 7% | 2.98 42% | 12.13 -135% | 4.32 16% |
Greyscale dE 2000 * | 5.4 | 4.82 11% | 2.68 50% | 14.77 -174% | 6.39 -18% |
Gamma | 2.35 94% | 2.03 108% | 2.44 90% | 2.42 91% | 2.26 97% |
CCT | 7168 91% | 7288 89% | 6603 98% | 17097 38% | 7091 92% |
* ... smaller is better
The black value and contrast of the device are decent: the black surfaces are lit up at 0.46 cd/m². There is a discrepancy in brightness between the center of the panel and its borders, but dark content is displayed well enough. The contrast of 780:1 ensures reasonably strong colors.
In our test, we use a spectrophotometer and the CalMAN software. We noticed an omnipresent, slight blue tinge, which is barely visible to the eye. We also noticed a strong deviation of bright gray tints from the ideal values of the sRGB color spectrum, whereas nearly no deviation was found in the darker tones. Overall, the average deviation is 5.4 for the gray levels and 5.17 for the colors.
The decent brightness would allow us comfortable use outdoors, were it not for the glossy panel. The user should definitely avoid direct sunlight as this will render all content illegible. However, if you can find a shaded area or work indoors, you will be happy with the LG Spirit 4G.
Performance
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 MSM8916 processor ensures middle-class performance with its 4 cores and 1.4 GHz clock speed. New Apps should not have any issues with the resolution of the device. Sometimes the system lags or stutters briefly.
Geekbench 3 | |
64 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
64 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N |
Linpack Android / IOS | |
Single Thread (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
Multi Thread (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
HTC Desire 510 |
AnTuTu v5 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
HTC Desire 510 |
The LG Spirit is as fast as any other competitor is when surfing the web. The Samsung Galaxy A3 can not offer a tangible boost in speed, despite having a higher price point. In fact, all our devices load pages quickly and we never had issues with navigation.
Sunspider - 1.0 Total Score (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
Acer Liquid E3 / E380 |
Octane V2 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
Acer Liquid E3 / E380 |
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
Acer Liquid E3 / E380 |
Google V8 Ver. 7 - Google V8 Ver. 7 Score (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
HTC Desire 510 |
* ... smaller is better
The 8 GB storage of the LG Spirit is quite fast and it is only surpassed by the internal flash memory of the Galaxy A3. Sadly, the OS and preinstalled Apps will take most of the limited space and leave the user with 3.4 GB.
AndroBench 3-5 | |
Sequential Read 256KB (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
Acer Liquid E3 / E380 | |
Sequential Write 256KB (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
Acer Liquid E3 / E380 | |
Random Read 4KB (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
Acer Liquid E3 / E380 | |
Random Write 4KB (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
Acer Liquid E3 / E380 |
The LG Spirit incorporates the Qualcomm Adreno 306 graphics chip. As the chip is found in most competitors, our test model is on par with its competition. The Acer Liquid E3 is a clear exception, as it lags far behind in our tests. During the onscreen tests, the higher resolution of our device, translated into a lower performance and allowed the LG Leon and the Samsung Galaxy A3 to surpass it.
GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7 | |
T-Rex Onscreen (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
Acer Liquid E3 / E380 | |
1920x1080 T-Rex Offscreen (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
Acer Liquid E3 / E380 |
GFXBench 3.0 - on screen Manhattan Onscreen OGL (sort by value) | |
LG Spirit | |
LG Leon LGH340N | |
Samsung Galaxy A3 | |
HTC Desire 510 |
Games
When running demanding games, like "Asphalt 8: Airborne", the user will notice that the high resolution is both a blessing and a curse. Such demanding games will not run fluidly at high details, whereas, simpler games, like "Angry Birds" or "Candy Crush", will provide a far smoother experience.
Emissions
Temperature
The temperatures of the LG Spirit remain within reasonable limits. At load, the device hits a maximum temperature of 36.4 degrees Celsius (97.52 Fahrenheit) around the headpiece, which can be quite uncomfortable. Overall, the heating is not an issue.
While idling, the Smartphone barely heats up and stays at 31.8 degrees Celsius (89.24 Fahrenheit). Once again, the maximum temperature was measured at the front of the device (in the bottom half).
The battery test of GFXBench allows us to check if the system has to throttle its hardware after long periods of load. The test repeats the same graphics benchmark 30 times and measures the frame rate. The performance stays constant for our test model throughout, which means that there is no threat of throttling.
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 36.4 °C / 98 F, compared to the average of 35.1 °C / 95 F, ranging from 21.9 to 63.7 °C for the class Smartphone.
(+) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 36 °C / 97 F, compared to the average of 33.9 °C / 93 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 30.2 °C / 86 F, compared to the device average of 32.8 °C / 91 F.
Speakers
The placement of the speaker on the back of the Smartphone is suboptimal, as the sound output will be noticeably reduced. All-in-all, this is a good speaker for the price: loud, yet balanced sound. It even incorporates a little bass. The user will enjoy occasionally watching videos or listening to music on the device.
We do not like the provided headset, as its sound is very thin. The 3.5 mm audio jack provides good sound output.
Energy Management
Power Consumption
Unfortunately, the LG Spirit did not provide us with any useful data during our test and, as such, we must rely on the result of the battery life tests for a rough picture of the energy management of the test model.
Battery Life
The battery life of the LG Spirit 4G is very good: the device can surf more than 11 hours with the WLAN module. The user can watch movies comfortably and can extend the battery life by using the right App. If we use the device sparingly for basic functions now and then, it will last a good 20 hours. This places our model ahead of the Samsung Galaxy A3, which also has a good battery life. The discrepancy in run times is obvious if one considers the larger 8 Wh battery of the LG Spirit 4G.
LG Spirit Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | LG Leon LGH340N Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Samsung Galaxy A3 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 16 GB eMMC Flash | HTC Desire 510 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB SSD | Acer Liquid E3 / E380 SGX544, MT6589, 16 GB SSD | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Battery Runtime | -22% | 1% | 18% | -3% | |
Reader / Idle | 1205 | 862 -28% | 1080 -10% | 1280 6% | |
H.264 | 685 | 602 -12% | |||
WiFi v1.3 | 674 | 381 -43% | |||
Load | 203 | 215 6% | 256 26% | 262 29% | 197 -3% |
WiFi | 410 | 568 | 570 | 424 |
Pros
Cons
Verdict
The LG Spirit is a good middle-class package: cheap, suitable performance, a stylish yet ergonomic case and a decent, high-resolution panel. The battery life is quite long and the temperature emissions are low. The interface is good and the manufacturer has not made major changes to the Android 5.0.1 OS. We like the case as well, as it is sturdy and the back is removable.
However, there are some flaws that dampen our enthusiasm: why does the speakerphone have such strong distortions at maximum volume? Why is the storage so limited? Furthermore, the OS occasionally lags and we would like a better grip on the back.
All-in-all, this is a cheap, middle-class Smartphone with LTE. For its price, the performance is decent and the screen is good.
LG Spirit
- 05/13/2015 v4 (old)
Florian Wimmer