Is the G3 (still) worth it?

[Theot]

I've had my G3 for a year. I'm on sprint and after the last couple updates I've not had the overheating issue like it used to be and it used to get warm pretty fast and start throttling with any moderately graphic intensive game.

I've ran stock, rooted stock base and CM builds. I love the simplicity of CM but there have been to many bugs for me still. The main reason I root is to block ads and to get a slimmed down optimized ROM. For the sprint G3 I stick with the Bare ROMs. They are fully debloated of the carrier and non essential LG bloat and run quite well. I get great battery life.

If you don't want to root, I highly recommend uninstalling all the carrier bloat you can, and disable all the LG apps you can that you don't want to use. Enable developer options, turn down the animations to 0.5x and you will see a big improvement. For any other apps you want to get rid of and can't, I use this debloater http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2998294 it's simple and works well and easy to undo if you over do it.

I think the G3 is still a very solid device with good specs, you just have to tweak the software a bit to make it run well and if you need a good camera you can't go wrong.

 

[Ivailo Yanev]

Year and a half with mine and not a single hiccup just waiting to see what the difference between my current 5.0 and the new 6.0 (hopefully coming soon) will be. I'd say it's still worth it!

 

[maclancer]

Year and a half with mine and not a single hiccup just waiting to see what the difference between my current 5.0 and the new 6.0 (hopefully coming soon) will be. I'd say it's still worth it!

Hopefully 6.0 come very soon to T-Mobile. According to some... It is very fast and much better than 5.0

 

[bembol]

I bought it twice when it came out and a year later, thought I could get over the pale display and use it as an "iPod" but after a few weeks I sold it.

Love the G series since the G2 but when I got G4, the display was night & day. Sped a bit more and go for the G4.

 

[Gdraft#WN]

I've been on vacation for a week, in and out of the hotel, logging in and out of the hotel WiFi.

At least in theory..... I cannot even count how many times I have had to reboot this week. It would hang connecting to the WiFi. Then when leaving the hotel it would hang and not find a T-mo signal.

Basically everytime I connected or unconnected to WiFi, I had to reboot.

As much as I hate to go through the hassle of a factory reset, I will do that this weekend and see if I can breathe some new life into this piece of $@#%.

If not, it is going to be time to get a nexus and go to stock Android and tell T-mo and LG to take their "software enhancements" and put them some place unpleasant.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[maclancer]

I've been on vacation for a week, in and out of the hotel, logging in and out of the hotel WiFi.

At least in theory..... I cannot even count how many times I have had to reboot this week. It would hang connecting to the WiFi. Then when leaving the hotel it would hang and not find a T-mo signal.

Basically everytime I connected or unconnected to WiFi, I had to reboot.

As much as I hate to go through the hassle of a factory reset, I will do that this weekend and see if I can breathe some new life into this piece of $@#%.

If not, it is going to be time to get a nexus and go to stock Android and tell T-mo and LG to take their "software enhancements" and put them some place unpleasant.

Posted via the Android Central App

You G3 obviously have some kind of malfunction issue. I have the same G3 with T-Mobile and have 0 issues with my phone. I have a very pleasant experience so far.

 

[cegabq]

I'm on VZ & have had my G3 for 13 months now. Recently compared it to the specs of the Nexus 6 & 6P; I'm staying with my G3 & don't see any reason to switch:
Same screen resolution
Same RAM
It supports a micro-SD card
The screen is plenty big enough for me
It has a replaceable battery & it's no biggie for me to carry a "lipstick-style" charger in the bottom of my bag.
I'm not rooted & haven't had {knock on wood} any of the problems others have reported.

 

[RHChan84]

Had the G3 since a little after release. Battery initially was amazing. 4 hours SOT. With the LP update, I barely got 2.5 hours and was horrible. Factory reset didn't do anything nor did flashing back to stock without root of custom recovery. Even with no apps, I was still getting maybe 3 hours at most.

Like GDraft mentioned, WiFi issues all the time. Even with a stock setup. I rebooted daily to the point where I rooted of again just to use TiBackup and auto reboot function. But sometimes, I would reboot 2-3 times daily. I jumped onto different ROMs and it helped a lot with my issues but none of them were stable to use all the time. With different ROMs, WiFi issues were gone but "force stopped" issues all the time. So it was either WiFi issues or force stopped issues with the G3.

I gave up on the G3 and went with the Nexus 6P 128GB and I have been happy. No waiting for LG then carrier to release updates, and smooth.

I can't do much about the G3 since its after the 1 year warranty and VZW won't do anything about it. Pretty much said I'm stuck or pay full price for a new phone.

 

[superawesomeme]

G3 D855 (International version) is a pretty solid piece of kit. I've had mine for about 8 months now, mostly running a custom rom based on stock (to avoid bloat) but recently upgraded to the new MM 6.0 Stock. I'm now unrooted and running pure LG UX4.0 and it's like a new phone. Yes the UI is still a bit boxy and naff but the camera is one of the best I've used on a phone, the battery life is incredible - I was averaging about 8 hours screen time the other day thanks to the new battery optimisation - and for around £200 ($300USD) you'd be hard pushed to do better.

There are phones I prefer the look of, both the physical design and the UI (One Plus 2, Wiley Fox...) but they don't meet the same specs.

 

[ralfyguy]

Well, I can relate. I just went through the same purchase decision. I bought the G3 D850 in July for around $300. It was the max amount I could afford. I came from a Moto G, that although was a great phone, I wanted a better screen and camera.

I have had numerous LG phones in the past and I know their hardware is top notch. I never have cared for their software, but I thought I could live with it. The phone has rarely ever got hot, the photo's have been fantastic, it was able to handle my daily app usage.

Over the past few months, the LG overlay on Android 5.0.1 with the G3 has really gotten under my skin. It is messy and really hurts my productivity. Then the HTC A9 came out, Nexus 5X. I found myself really wanting to change phones. Then the OnePlus X hit at $250 and I thought, why am I struggling with this G3, that is such a good deal and nearly stock Android.

This past weekend, I decided that I was most likely going to sell my G3 and get something else. The G3 hardware is great! So why not at least try to Root and add a custom rom to it. As it turns out, my version with the 21r update is very difficult to do. It took a lot of hard work, but I finally got it done. I put CM12.1 on it (5.1.1) by Sunday. It flat out fly's now! Yesterday and today, I have been testing everything and adding my apps back on. I haven't found a single bug.

Bottom line, the G3 is now exactly the phone I wanted all along. I can't believe how slow the stock ROM was. No more stutters, lag, and many new features. Battery life is about the same. No heat issues (except when I was downloading all the apps). It is blistering fast. I highly recommend it if you think that you have the patience to buy a used one, root and ROM it. You can buy them here in the US used in near perfect condition for under $200.

Otherwise, I just can't recommend the G3. The Android Overlay they have really drags the performance of the phone down. It is a solid phone otherwise.

I take it that you have the D850 from AT&T. If so could you please give a step by step how to put CM 12.1 on it and if there is any drawbacks to the stock OS?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[superawesomeme]

Bottom line, the G3 is now exactly the phone I wanted all along. I can't believe how slow the stock ROM was.

How do you find the camera on CM? I tried a CM based ROM a while ago but the camera was awful so I started using a modded stock based one and now I'm pure stock, but I hate UX4.0 near as much as I hated UX3.0

I'd love to run CM but don't want my camera to suffer.

 

[Heisenberglapi]

Can u help me to root my d855?
Thanks.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Ivailo Yanev]

My D855 has zero problems when logging in and out of Wi-Fi networks. It logs daily to at least 3 different networks (my home, and 2 or three at my work) and I disconnect it pretty much every two hours or so when I need to move around the building or go home. I've never had signal drops so I guess it depends on the network and the phone type specifically. I have a few other friends with the D855 and they don't seem to have this problem either.

 

[j_grouchy]

I bought it twice when it came out and a year later, thought I could get over the pale display and use it as an "iPod" but after a few weeks I sold it.

Love the G series since the G2 but when I got G4, the display was night & day. Sped a bit more and go for the G4.

I don't know anything about a "pale display". My G3 has a beautiful, vibrant display.
I've really loved my G3. I never did fall in love with the buttons on the back, but much prefer the on-screen buttons to Samsungs home button + capacitives. It's a terrific device, in my opinion.