LG V500, Is it Great for Gaming?

Written by B Johnson January 19, 2014
LG V500
So, is LG V500 a great gaming tablet? Well, the answer for that question is absolutely yes. But we’ll focus more on that later.
For now, let’s take a look at what LG’s latest 8.3-inch tablet has to offer to tablet shoppers out there.

LG V500 or known as LG G Pad is actually quite interesting to check out given that LG, despite having a major success in smartphone market, this manufacturer hasn’t been really active in tablet making business in the past few years.

As a matter of fact, I personally never heard any tablet that was made by LG.

But that’s why i love about tech industry these days.

Having more and more choices of great tablets like this one on the market is like a blessing for many tablet buyers out there.

I mean, if there was only one tablet, say, iPad, that we could only buy on the market today, then it would be like a curse for consumers.

Apple would definitely monopolize the market and even price its tablet insanely higher than the price of iPad today.

That’s why, as consumers, we all should feel thankful because that doesn’t happen.

LG V500

Anyway, as the new arrival from LG Mobile, it’s no doubt that LG V500 will definitely come with some high-end specs that obviously can rival many latest tablets around the market to date, especially the high-end ones.

I’m actually kind of amazed with this LG’s tablet, not only its spec sheet, but the whole thing about this tablet.

I mean, I really like of how LG makes LG V500 with great design with premium material, compared to other Android tablets that mostly have, should i say, mediocre design and material, of course with the exception of Sony Xperia tablets.

LG V500
Okay, i know, Google Nexus 7 from Asus also has pretty good design – or, the current-gen Samsung GALAXY Note that has a solid design despite its fake metal trimming, fake stitching and fake leather texture back cover.

But both of these devices don’t have the design that could really amaze us, especially when comparing them to the premium design of iPads.

But the good thing is, LG can finally tackle that issue by bringing a solid premium design on its tablet.

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When talking about specs, i think what LG V500 has inside its machine can’t be said as really outstanding compared to its rivals given that this tablet only comes with Qualcomm’s second beast of this year.

And that is Snapdragon 600 processor, the same chipset that Sony injects on its Tablet Z.

Okay, don’t get me wrong - I like Snapdragon 600 as much as i love Snapdragon 800.

However, compared to other high-end tablets like Kindle Fire HDX or GALAXY Note 10.1 LTE, both of these are already equipped with Qualcomm’s current flagship chipset, Snapdragon 800.

But i think, this maybe has something to do with the LTE band support that must be equipped on Note 10.1 and Kindle Fire HDX, while tablets like LG V500 or Xperia Z don’t support LTE connectivity.

So this is why, the Wi-Fi model of GALAXY Note 10.1 only uses Samsung’s Exynos processor, instead of Snapdragon 800 on the LTE edition.

So i believe, the Snapdragon 600 on LG V500 can still be considered as a beast processor given that this chipset only lacks the LTE band.

And Qualcomm might not sacrifice the whole performance of this processor that much compared to the flagship model, Snapdragon 800.

Besides that super fast Snappy 'Snapperson' 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, LG V500 also comes with:
  • an 8.3-inch display with the resolution of 1920x1200 pixels,
  • Adreno 330 GPU,
  • 2GB of RAM,
  • 4600mAh battery,
  • 5MP rear-facing camera and 1.3MP front-facing snapper,
  • Android 4.2.2 comes out of the box,
  • 16GB of internal storage
  • the support of microSD card slot
  • and many more.
With all of these goodies, i don’t think it will ever suffer any issue with laggy performance, even though this tablet delivers a full HD display and outstanding performance all day.

Design

As i mentioned above, something that i really love about this tablet is its design.

I’m glad to see that LG V500 doesn’t really use that plastic polycarbonate material just like other Android tablets out there, say, Samsung or Asus’ tablets.

And that’s great because that makes LG V500 an equal rival to iPad, although Sony Tablet Z, with its elegant and premium design, is also a perfect rival for iPad.

LG V500

Anyway, the design of LG V500 actually kind of reminds me with the design of LG Nexus 4, not the glass back cover material of LG Nexus 4, but the overall look of this phone.

I mean, look at how LG V500 has that solid curve shape on the edges of its back, similar like the curve design of Nexus 4.

This really contradicts with LG’s recent flagship smartphone, LG G2, which is made by LG as the companion device of LG V500 or the other way around, just like Samsung that makes GALAXY Gear the companion device for GALAXY Note 3 or Note 10.1.

When compared with LG G2, you can see how this smartphone has different concept design with LG V500 in many ways.

From the design, the layout of volume and power buttons, the back cover material and many more.

It’s actually kind of disappointing that LG G2 doesn’t have the same premium feel just like LG V500. Whereas, LG G2 is introduced by LG as the current flagship from the company.

So i really hope that LG will stop using that cheap plastic back cover on the next-gen devices, especially smartphones.

Don’t get me wrong, LG G2 is a perfect smartphone – I know that.

But it’s too bad that its plastic back cover makes it less perfect than it should be.

So it’s kind of like, LG G2 should get a perfect 10 point in review, but its plastic material holds it back from getting that 10 point and only manages to get 8 out of 10.

The great thing is, LG V500 doesn’t need to have that design issue just like LG G2.

This tablet uses an aluminum back material that feels really sturdy and solid in hand grasp, plus elegant in front of public.

And this is a huge plus point, which i think could also be the main selling point of this tablet.

So if you’re still looking for a premium looking Android tablet or even an iPad mini alternative, then LG V500 is the best choice for you.
  • It has great specs,
  • great design,
  • premium material,
  • and given that LG has been the screen supplier for Apple iPad, then i strongly believe that the display of LG V500 is outstanding, despite having only 1920x1200 pixel screen (which is slightly lower than the 1536x2048 pixel display on iPad mini).
Special Features

Something i really love about LG’s homemade tablet is its software.

Compared to the stock Android version on tablets like Google Nexus devices, the Android version on LG V500 has a bunch of awesome features and functions that are just much better for daily use.

One of the examples is the Q-slide apps on this tablet.

Q-slide apps is the march of basic apps like PaintBrush-alike drawing app, calculator, video player, music player, browser, email app, etc, that are provided by LG on the notification center.

So if you pull down the notification window, on the second row from the top, you can see some apps that if opened, will pop up as small-sized multi-window apps that appear on top of window.

For example is the video player app. If you open this Qslide app, you can watch some videos while browsing the web at the same time on the same screen.

You can also adjust the opacity level of that video player into transparent mode so it doesn’t interrupt you when doing things like browsing internet or reading books.

This is kind of cool actually, making your life easier when using this tablet.

Something that iPad has been lacking until today. The other cool feature of this tablet is called Qmemo.

Qmemo allows you to take screen shot of the current thing that you see on the screen. You can also do things like writing on that screen shot and save it to your image collection.

Actually, this feature can also be found on other tablets, from high-end models to even the low-end ones like Asus Memo Pad 7HD and many more.

But it’s still a cool and useful feature though.

LG V500On LG V500, there is also a feature that lets you save 3 different favorite apps on the left side of the screen.

So with this feature, everytime you want to keep your current app that you want to access again later, you can just swap the screen to the left with 3 finger gesture.

However, this feature only allows you to save for up to 3 apps.

And whenever you need any of those apps again, you can just swap the screen to the right with the same 3 finger gesture to open those 3 of your favorite apps.

Besides on LG V500, you can also find this feature on LG G2 actually, given that LG G Pad is designed based on LG G2 concept, so basically, they both have similar features and functions.

The other thing that makes this tablet great is the feature that allows you to create multiple different profiles on the tablet.

This is kind of like the similar feature on Windows laptops where you can create different profiles for each member of your family.

The great thing about this tablet is, it also allows you to customize the whole thing of every profile.

So you can do things like, set the apps that are not allowed to open on other profiles, use different widgets or wallpaper on every profile, forbid your media files (images, music files, videos, etc) to be accessed on other profiles, and many more.

So you don’t need to worry anymore if your kids or your parents use your tablet because they won't be able to see your media files on their profiles.

Battery life

Talking about battery life, LG V500 may not have that behemoth 9000mAh battery on Lenovo 10 Yoga tablet.

However, that doesn’t mean that the 4.600mAh battery on LG’s tablet will be mediocre in heavy usage.

In fact, i truly believe, in full charge, LG V500 could last more than 1 day even in heavy usage. There are many reasons to back up that argument.

First of all, its processor. Compared to Lenovo 10 Yoga with its Mediatek chipset, LG V500 comes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600.

And we all know it – when it comes to processor, Qualcomm is much more superior than Mediatek in many ways, especially in performance and energy consumption.

Okay, i know, the battery life of LG V500 may not be as equal as Lenovo’s tablet.

But that’s not surprising because LG V500 only has 4.600mAh battery capacity and must deliver outstanding super fast performance on full HD 1920x1200 display, compared to Lenovo’s 9000mAh battery that doesn’t even have the same fast performance as LG V500 and is only tasked to deliver 720p or 1280x800 display.

So in overall, the battery life of LG V500 will still be long lasting even in heavy usage for gaming, browsing the web and watching videos in marathon, but not as long lasting as iPad Air or Lenovo 10 Yoga tablet.

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The gaming performance of LG V500 might be something i truly like from this tablet.

I mean, i’m really glad that LG uses processor from Qualcomm and not from other manufacturers for this LG V500 tablet.

Okay, all due respect to other mobile processor manufacturers out there, but Qualcomm’s processors are just awesome.

That’s why Samsung uses Snapdragon 800 on GALAXY Note 3 instead of its own Exynos octa-core processor.

Or Amazon, Asus, Sony that all of their current devices are equipped with Snapdragon processors. That just shows how awesome Qualcomm’s homemade processors really are.

So when it comes to gaming performance, Snapdragon 600 on LG V500 is no exception.

This thing flies. And with Adreno 320 GPU, there’s no doubt that this tablet can handle any kind of games on Google Play Store so perfectly and smoothly with no lag whatsoever.

No argue to that.

Accompanied with 2GB of RAM, then you can throw many apps or games on this tablet at the same time, and it still delivers outstanding fast performance in daily use.

For your information, the GPU on LG V500 is the same one found on the latest model of Google Nexus 7 tablet, although Google’s tablet comes with a Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset, which is last year’s flagship model from Qualcomm.

So you can expect that LG tablet to still be able to play even high-performanced games in the next 2 years, even the graphics intensive ones.

With that being said, then LG V500 can be considered as a great gaming tablet, even in the next 2 years – in my personal point of view.

So you don’t ever need to worry that the future games that will launch in, say, 2015, will not be compatible anymore with LG V500 because that’s not gonna happen.

This tablet will still be able to play those games.

The reason why i believe that is because, the Snapdragon 600 processor and Adreno 320 GPU on this tablet is just way beyond the future for being the industry standards in 2013.

I mean, most the games that you see on the Google Play Store today don’t even reach the highest quality graphics that Snapdragon 600 could handle.

So most of the current Android games today, even the ones that have stunning graphics and visual effects, can still be played smoothly with last year’s Snapdragon S4 Pro devices.

That’s why i think the highest graphic capabilities of Adreno 320 on Snapdragon 600 processor will finally be used perfectly at the fullest in next year’s games or even 2015’s games.

My Personal Opinion

To sum this up. LG V500 is no doubt a really amazing quality tablet at great price.

I even believe that this tablet could be an iPad mini killer, if not both iPads, given its superior features, User Interface and most importantly, price point.

With only $350, you can get many great goodies from this tablet, which make it a much better choice to other’s rival tablets, even the iPad mini 2.

Okay, i know – iPad mini 2 has that 1536x2048 pixel display just like the iPad Air, compared to LG V500’s screen that only has 1920x1200 pixel resolution.

However, if you compare their screens, the resolution of LG V500’s screen is actually not that far with iPad mini 2’s display, right?

So the differences are actually not that noticeable with human eyes What makes LG V500 superior than iPad mini 2 and even iPad Air is absolutely its features.

As mentioned above, LG V500 comes with many many goodies like:
  • 3 finger gesture to save 3 apps,
  • awesome Qslide apps like calculator, video player, music player, etc that can be floated everywhere on the screen,
  • Qmemo to capture screen shot and write something on it,
  • Multiple user profiles that allows users to create specific different profiles for them and their family members (and even set the apps or media files that are only allowed to access by the owner),
  • attractive lockscreen visual effects,
  • microSD card slot
  • and other things that CANNOT be found on both iPads.
LG V500 may only have 5MP rear-facing camera on the back, compared to both iPads that have 8MP camera.

But for God’s shakes, this is LG, people! And this company already proves its superiority on 13MP camera of LG G2, which is outstanding and even outperforms iPhone 5S’ 8MP camera (based on the camera tests between LG Nexus 5 and iPhone 5S, that is won by LG Nexus 5’s 8MP camera).

Okay, i know – the 5MP camera on LG V500 may not beat iPad mini’s or iPad's Air 8MP camera.

But still, LG V500’s camera can be considered as pretty decent based in its class and price range.

So overall, if you’re looking for a solid built Android tablet at $350, LG V500 is a great choice.

I already spill some pros and cons about this tablet above and even compare many of its aspect with several different devices, like Google Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HDX, iPads, and Lenovo 10 Yoga tablet.

So based on my personal opinion, i think LG V500 is a much better choice than tablets like Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HDX, Lenovo 10 Yoga and even iPads, of course, in overall aspect based on design, material, features and many more.
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