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We thought a quad-core processor and 4G LTE support would spell trouble for the LG Optimus G's battery. Since the battery is non-removable, we were worried, but ended up pleasantly surprised with the phone's 2100mAh cell's performance.
Battery
Just like the Samsung Galaxy SIII, the Optimus G has a quad-core and a 2100mAh battery. That's a good sized cell, which is necessary for the potentially thirsty specs like you'll find in this phone. Using the TechRadar battery test, which consists of running a ninety minute video with brightness maxed, WiFi on and 4G service engaged, we gave it a run for its money.
After the test, the Optimus G still had 73 percent of its battery life remaining. This is pretty well beyond the HTC One X, which ran down to around fifty percent, but not as good as the Galaxy S3, which only went down to 82%.
Testing the phone around town, we found that a day of heavy usage would generally have the handset around 20% by nighttime. This after a day of browsing the web, checking Facebook, making calls and watching videos.
It's definitely a charge nightly kind of device, but it performs surprisingly well for being so hardware-intensive. It also has a lot of battery saving settings such as eco mode and quad-core management to help squeeze more life from its cell. While it would be no fun to engage those options and lose all that awesome power, they're nice if you absolutely must make it through the day on one charge.
AT&T's 4G LTE
While it hasn't quite covered the country to the extent of its rival Verizon, AT&T boasts an impressive 4G coverage area in the United States. Depending on where you live, that gives the AT&T version of the LG Optimus G a big leg up over its Sprint counterpart, whose 4G coverage is much smaller.
Testing the Optimus G around the San Francisco Bay area, we were impressed with the both the data speeds and the reliable connection AT&T offered. We rarely had less than three bars, and download and upload speeds were comparable to a WiFi connection.
Of course, those data plans are never cheap, and AT&T doesn't offer unlimited data. Instead customers will have to choose from a tiered "Mobile Shared" plan. This means you'll have to share your allotment of data with others on your plan. While we haven't been able to see what kinds of plans Sprint will offer for the Optimus G as of this writing, it currently offers unlimited plans for other devices. We see no reason why they wouldn't do the same with the Optimus G.
