LG launches G3 in India for Rs 47,990: Is the most talked-about 2K display worth the hype?

LG G3 is **finally in India** and obviously the thing that’s going to be talked about at length is the display. It’s one of the first phones to have a 2K or WQHD display, which means you will be looking at a display with 2560x1440 pixels of resolution and a pixel density of close to 550 PPI.   That number itself is mind-blowing. Considering that most modern televisions are still 1080p, the G3 is already ahead in terms of resolution, but does that mean a 2K display is necessary or even an improvement over the 1080p seen in all of last year’s flagships?   Having seen the G3’s display up close, it’s safe to say it’s one of the best in the business, but in terms of viewing experience there’s nothing here that stands apart from the 1080p screen on the G2 from last year. The viewing angles are great and colour reproduction is mostly spot on, as we expect from LG. But there are some pitfalls to it as well.   The company claims it has managed to improve power consumption despite increasing pixel count. But that’s not strictly speaking true as the review by Anandtech says.  The website did its usual battery of tests for the G3’s display and found that LG has cranked up the saturation of pictures a bit too far, masking the difference between 80 percent and 100 percent saturation in some colours. It was also found to have a lower maximum brightness level than the G2, while artificial sharpening was also evident. The website went so far as to call the display the only real flaw in the phone, and that it contributes greatly to a lower battery uptime than the G2.   Similarly, the GSMArena review says contrast is worse than the G2. “The G3 is markedly worse than its predecessor both at 50% and 100% brightness. At 100% brightness the black luminance is among the highest we’ve seen, while the whites are markedly dimmer than on the G2.” The review also called out the sunlight legibility not being on par for a high-end display.   More scathingly, neither review said that the higher resolution made any difference to the viewing experience, outside watching videos or in the gallery. This is in line with our personal experience of the phone, which could have passed for a 1080p display just as easily. The extra resolution, the bump up in pixel density is not immediately apparent, even if LG claims it is.