**Recording Video and Software Differences**

When it comes to recording video, you won't have the same level of control as with other software like Snap. You can click "stop" to pause your recording, but there are limitations to what you can do in this mode. The settings icon is accessible by tapping anywhere on the display, which allows for a more intuitive experience. However, some users may find the limited number of settings and the heavy-handed skin over Android to be frustrating.

**Stock Experience**

The stock experience provides a clean and straightforward interface, with features such as home screens, swipe gestures, notifications, and settings all easily accessible. While there are some differences in terms of features and functionality between the LG GPad and the stock experience, it's clear that both offer a solid foundation for users. However, those who prefer not to have as many features bundled into the skin will likely appreciate the simplicity of the stock Android approach.

**LG GPad Features**

The LG GPad offers several features that may appeal to some users, such as quick access toggles and more comprehensive settings options. These can be particularly useful for those who value convenience and ease of use. However, others may find these features to be unnecessary or even intrusive. Ultimately, the choice between the LG GPad and the stock experience comes down to personal preference.

**Performance and Display**

In terms of performance, the LG GPad is generally smooth and quick, with a responsive interface that makes it easy to navigate. The display is also notable, with a 1920 x 1200 resolution at 7 inches, which provides a high pixel density for an impressive viewing experience. However, some users may find the lack of front-facing speakers, such as those found on the Nexus 10, to be a drawback.

**Design and Comparison**

The design of the LG GPad is notable for its unibody construction with a textured back, which provides a premium feel. In contrast, the Nexus 7 has a more straightforward design, with a tapered edge and a simpler aesthetic. While the Nexus 7 may not be as visually striking, it's also a more affordable option, with a price tag of $229 compared to the LG GPad's $350. Ultimately, the choice between these two devices comes down to personal preference regarding design and features.

**Comparison of Screen Sizes**

One key difference between the LG GPad and the Nexus 7 is screen size. The LG GPad offers an 8.3-inch display, which some users may find more suitable than the 7-inch display on the Nexus 7. Additionally, the LG GPad's screen size is closer to that of the iPad Mini, a device with which it shares similarities in terms of form factor and functionality. For those who prefer a larger tablet experience without being too large for everyday use, the LG GPad may be an attractive option.

**Final Thoughts**

In conclusion, the LG GPad offers several features and functionalities that may appeal to some users, but its design and price may not be for everyone. The stock Android approach provides a clean and straightforward interface, while the Nexus 7 offers a more affordable alternative with similar features and performance. Ultimately, the choice between these two devices comes down to personal preference regarding design, features, and functionality.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys Mike here the Detroit Borg with a look at the new Google Play edition of the LG gPad 8.3 now I previously reviewed the full version of the LG gPad the one running LG skin of Android but this is the stock version of Android if I can get that knock on feature to work there so that is the lggg pad and if you want to see my full review as you can see it just crashed while trying to demonstrate that feature so if you want to see my full review of the LG gPad 8.3 I'll post a link in the description below but anyway this is sold in the Google Play Store for 349 running the latest version of Android right now Android 4.4 uh and basically it's the same Hardware just running a clean version of Android it's only available in Black has a 16 gig capacity it's not available with LTE like the Nexus 7 this is only a Wi-Fi device uh and it is got the same internal specs as the LG gpan so we have the same 1.7 GHz quad core Snapdragon 600 processor 2 gigs of ddr2 RAM we have a 5 megap autofocusing camera good for 1080p video at 30 frames per second we also have a 1.3 megapix front F or rear facing camera now we have the same 8.3 in LCD IPS display with a resolution of 1,00 by1 1920 good for 273 pixels per in so really nice display but many have complained that it is a little dim compared to something like the Nexus 7 or the iPad Mini now 16 gigs isn't good enough for you you can expand it thanks to a Micro SD card slot which supports 64 gig cards now of course you can get this cheaper or you can get the stock or original LG version cheaper uh through other retailers uh for example I got this for $329 this is $3.49 but you can buy even cheaper than that so you can get it for $2.79 and that sort of thing from other resellers so let's go ahead crack this open and take a look so there it is and crumpled plastic so we have a little tab here to lift up there you go we're going to set that aside for just a minute while we take a look at the content so we have some paperwork not literature I know you guys hate when I use the word literature so there we go Google Play edition quick start guide as you can see it's printed by LG this all comes from LG just blessed with Google's operating system so really nice we also have our wallwart our charger here wrapped in plastic LG branding and we have our micro USB charging cable now this is a higher capacity charger by the way uh than the standard USB uh wall wart that You' get with your phone all right so let's get to our tablet in this little plastic envelope slide it out so you can see we have a little piece of plastic cover in the front that's about it so let's go ahead and lift that up now taking a close look at the LG G Pad there is no indication at least externally or in the design that it's any different from the standard LG gPad uh pretty much has the same design it'll Google branding here so if you bring in the white version of the LG gPad I reviewed you can see it looks the same just different coloring now the metal back panel picks up the coloring of the white as well as the front bezel so you you can see black bezel versus white I'm not sure which one I prefer I think I prefer the white I really like that but this looks also really sharp now this kind of has a bluish slate color to me it looks very similar to the Slate color from Apple's devices last year recently replaced with space gray it's got a nice dark color kind of a stealthy color uh if you look back here you can see we have our stereo speakers which are preserved with the Nexus or the stock experience on the side you see we have these plastic trim pieces with that nice design to it up here we have that 5 megapixel autofocusing camera again a good for 1080p at 30 frames per second up here we have that micro SD card slot supports 64 gig cards we also have our headphone jack right next to it on the left side nothing on the bottom side we'll find our microphone as well as a micro USB charging port on the right side we'll find our volume rocker as well as our sleep wake button you can see the volume rocker has one indicator letting you know what's up and on the top we have an IR blaster unfortunately there is no software included that works with that IR Blaster so you'll have to install that separately now on the front we have a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera good for 720P HD video we also have our LG branding and I think we have our ambient light sensor in somewhere in here as you can see on the White Version it's just to the right of the camera all right so let's go ahead and boot this up for the first time just going to tap and hold the power button so we get our new boot and animation familiar to Android 4.4 all right so let's go and take a look at the basic user experience Now by default lock screen widgets are turned off which is something that Android 4.4 introduced so you can swipe down on the right to get to your quick access toggles as well as your settings control so let's get to settings let's go to security enable widgets right there now if we go to the lock screen we can swipe to the right so you see all the widgets some of them have already installed we can go ahead add new ones so we can add Google keep or whatever we have available to us from that list now we do not have the option to open the camera from the lock screen unfortunately you can access Google Now by swiping up from the lock screen takes you right there now because this is a tablet we can swipe down on the right to get to our settings and quick access toggles you can swipe down on the left to get to your notification shape here you can launch any of your apps as you want so a pretty familiar experience we also have these on-screen Android controls so we can swipe up on our home button to get to Google now we can tap on our recent apps to see everything we've loaded previously tap on them again to get to them and of course you can also close them as well by swiping them out of the way and the back button works as you'd expect now for the most part this looks and acts just like the Nexus 7 has the same software configuration they haven't added anything to it like the uh Z Ultra did or the HTC One did with audio this is pretty much the stock experience just like the Nexus 7 so nothing really here to look at you can see if we go to sound the sound controls are the same the display settings are the same as well so they haven't done anything that really differentiates it now like the Nexus 7 this also has landscape orientation on both the lock screen and home screens so this is also similar to the Sony Z Ultra for the Google Play Store now if we go to the app drawer you'll find the full Suite of Google Apps including Quick Office which launched with Android 4.4 so this gives us an editor for Word documents Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and we have the Hangouts app Drive currents the calculator the standard Google Calendar Chrome of course is the default web browser we have Google keep Maps we have the People app we also have photos so we now instead of having a gallery app as well as a Google Plus photos app we now just have the photos app which merges all together so pretty much standard stock experience we have our folder full of Google apps on the homepage Google Earth Drive Play Games Etc now taking a look at some of our benchmarks next to the Nexus 7 you can see this does do a better job but it does have a processor clocked a little higher at 1.73 GHz versus 1.51 GHz both of course are quad core processors so 641 versus 580 1996 versus 1848 generally speaking that's pretty close now if we compare the LG gPad to the Nexus 7 obviously it is much bigger than the Nexus 7 but the display is much dimmer so for example if we bring up the same website with the same white space you can see just how much dimmer the LG gPad looks in comparison to the Nexus 7 both displays are set to the same brightness so if we go to our display settings right here uh uh let's see right there you can see they're both set to maximum so it gives you an idea of the relative screen brightness from the LG gPad to the Nexus 7 so like a lot of people complain the LG gPad is a little dim looking compared to something like the NEX 7 or even the iPad Mini so again we bring up our brightness controls just to show you again we have the same brightness so generally speaking come on get out of the way you can see that the LG gPad is a little dimmer now taking look at the camera app it's pretty straightforward stuff for a stock experience we have tap to focus as you can see you get the little animation indicating that you've successfully focused on your scene also adjust as exposure and that sort of thing you can also change your mode here by changing it to panorama mode we also have uh a photos sphere which we're familiar with allows you to take a photo kind of coaches you through that I'm not going to go through that process you've seen it before we also have our video camera so you can record video and as you're recording video you can't Snap photos like you can with other software so you can click stop you can go to your settings icon up here this gives you to your settings as you can see right here so you can see it's a limited number of settings it drills down for you now you can also tap anywhere on this display to bring up your settings and it follows your finger uh to wherever you want to go and as you can see it drills down into your settings so you can select more things as you go now if we go to the still camera again tap anywhere on the screen to focus you see get a little animation here tap to release the shutter so pretty standard stuff now just to give you an idea of the software differences between the LG gPad and the stock experience you can see they pretty much work the same you have home screens you can swipe through you have a drop- down menu for your notifications as well as your settings uh there of course differences here you have a lot more features on the LG gPad and a lot of people don't like this heavy-handed skin over Android which I'm one of those people I prefer not to have a lot of this but some of them are quite useful such as these quick access toggles you have much fewer of them on the stock experience in fact many of them take you right out of the uh menu app so for example if you want to change brightness it leaves that drop down menu in this case I can change brightness uh while staying within the drop down shade so those are features that are are useful many of the other features are not particularly useful so I prefer to live without them particularly if it means I get the latest version of Android and a smoother experience now I can't really complain about the LG gPad besides its habit of restarting and crashing on certain things but overall performance is pretty smooth and quick and you still get a lot of features to use if you prefer of course you don't have to use them if you don't want to but ultimately I prefer the look and feel of stock NOW although we have Sero speakers on the back they are rear firing so they can't really compete with the front firing seral speakers on something like the Nexus 10 which are one of the better sounding tablets no no no no the housings are misalign there's no way we can redirect the power I know a lot of people are going to ask which device do I prefer the LG gPad or the Nexus 7 now the Nexus 7 I think has a really nice design even though it's made mostly out of plastic while the LG Pad is made out of metal there's something to be said for this unibody design with that nice texture on the back versus this more parted design on the LG G pan with the contrasting plastic and metal uh so I mean they're using nicer materials on the LG gPad but I really can't fault the design of the Nexus 7 with a nice tapered Edge it's a little simpler I think a nice looking design so I really don't really look at the Nexus 7 as a cheap device or a cheap looking device it's just a nice design that happens to be cheap so anyway the LG g-pad is also a lot more expensive 350 versus $229 for the Nexus 7 and then Nexus 7 is a really good device has a beautiful display it's brighter than the LG gPad it's also got the same resolution so 1920 over 1200 over a 7-in display gives you a higher pixel density so 323 versus 273 on the LG gPad so you get a better quality display is just smaller on the Nexus 7 but for me I prefer the screen size of the LG gPad 8.3 I find this a more useful screen size than something like the 7-in tablet because my phones are getting bigger and bigger uh so they I don't really find a need to carry around a separate tablet that isn't too much bigger than my phone so I actually find this preferable now uh versus something like the 7in tablets that have kind of been popular up until this point so this also more closely resembles something like the iPad Mini which is a form factor I prefer now the iPad Mini has slightly different dimensions but generally speaking it's similar in size so this is a 7.9 in display versus 8.3 but you can see it's a 4x3 aspect ratio so it's generally a larger display it's just wider in terms of its portrait aspect versus its landscape aspect so it looks larger than something like the 8.3 here so from my perspective I'm really glad to finally have a stock Android tablet similar in size and form factor to the iPad Mini so that's going to do for me in this video thanks for watching and I'll see you again in the next videohey guys Mike here the Detroit Borg with a look at the new Google Play edition of the LG gPad 8.3 now I previously reviewed the full version of the LG gPad the one running LG skin of Android but this is the stock version of Android if I can get that knock on feature to work there so that is the lggg pad and if you want to see my full review as you can see it just crashed while trying to demonstrate that feature so if you want to see my full review of the LG gPad 8.3 I'll post a link in the description below but anyway this is sold in the Google Play Store for 349 running the latest version of Android right now Android 4.4 uh and basically it's the same Hardware just running a clean version of Android it's only available in Black has a 16 gig capacity it's not available with LTE like the Nexus 7 this is only a Wi-Fi device uh and it is got the same internal specs as the LG gpan so we have the same 1.7 GHz quad core Snapdragon 600 processor 2 gigs of ddr2 RAM we have a 5 megap autofocusing camera good for 1080p video at 30 frames per second we also have a 1.3 megapix front F or rear facing camera now we have the same 8.3 in LCD IPS display with a resolution of 1,00 by1 1920 good for 273 pixels per in so really nice display but many have complained that it is a little dim compared to something like the Nexus 7 or the iPad Mini now 16 gigs isn't good enough for you you can expand it thanks to a Micro SD card slot which supports 64 gig cards now of course you can get this cheaper or you can get the stock or original LG version cheaper uh through other retailers uh for example I got this for $329 this is $3.49 but you can buy even cheaper than that so you can get it for $2.79 and that sort of thing from other resellers so let's go ahead crack this open and take a look so there it is and crumpled plastic so we have a little tab here to lift up there you go we're going to set that aside for just a minute while we take a look at the content so we have some paperwork not literature I know you guys hate when I use the word literature so there we go Google Play edition quick start guide as you can see it's printed by LG this all comes from LG just blessed with Google's operating system so really nice we also have our wallwart our charger here wrapped in plastic LG branding and we have our micro USB charging cable now this is a higher capacity charger by the way uh than the standard USB uh wall wart that You' get with your phone all right so let's get to our tablet in this little plastic envelope slide it out so you can see we have a little piece of plastic cover in the front that's about it so let's go ahead and lift that up now taking a close look at the LG G Pad there is no indication at least externally or in the design that it's any different from the standard LG gPad uh pretty much has the same design it'll Google branding here so if you bring in the white version of the LG gPad I reviewed you can see it looks the same just different coloring now the metal back panel picks up the coloring of the white as well as the front bezel so you you can see black bezel versus white I'm not sure which one I prefer I think I prefer the white I really like that but this looks also really sharp now this kind of has a bluish slate color to me it looks very similar to the Slate color from Apple's devices last year recently replaced with space gray it's got a nice dark color kind of a stealthy color uh if you look back here you can see we have our stereo speakers which are preserved with the Nexus or the stock experience on the side you see we have these plastic trim pieces with that nice design to it up here we have that 5 megapixel autofocusing camera again a good for 1080p at 30 frames per second up here we have that micro SD card slot supports 64 gig cards we also have our headphone jack right next to it on the left side nothing on the bottom side we'll find our microphone as well as a micro USB charging port on the right side we'll find our volume rocker as well as our sleep wake button you can see the volume rocker has one indicator letting you know what's up and on the top we have an IR blaster unfortunately there is no software included that works with that IR Blaster so you'll have to install that separately now on the front we have a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera good for 720P HD video we also have our LG branding and I think we have our ambient light sensor in somewhere in here as you can see on the White Version it's just to the right of the camera all right so let's go ahead and boot this up for the first time just going to tap and hold the power button so we get our new boot and animation familiar to Android 4.4 all right so let's go and take a look at the basic user experience Now by default lock screen widgets are turned off which is something that Android 4.4 introduced so you can swipe down on the right to get to your quick access toggles as well as your settings control so let's get to settings let's go to security enable widgets right there now if we go to the lock screen we can swipe to the right so you see all the widgets some of them have already installed we can go ahead add new ones so we can add Google keep or whatever we have available to us from that list now we do not have the option to open the camera from the lock screen unfortunately you can access Google Now by swiping up from the lock screen takes you right there now because this is a tablet we can swipe down on the right to get to our settings and quick access toggles you can swipe down on the left to get to your notification shape here you can launch any of your apps as you want so a pretty familiar experience we also have these on-screen Android controls so we can swipe up on our home button to get to Google now we can tap on our recent apps to see everything we've loaded previously tap on them again to get to them and of course you can also close them as well by swiping them out of the way and the back button works as you'd expect now for the most part this looks and acts just like the Nexus 7 has the same software configuration they haven't added anything to it like the uh Z Ultra did or the HTC One did with audio this is pretty much the stock experience just like the Nexus 7 so nothing really here to look at you can see if we go to sound the sound controls are the same the display settings are the same as well so they haven't done anything that really differentiates it now like the Nexus 7 this also has landscape orientation on both the lock screen and home screens so this is also similar to the Sony Z Ultra for the Google Play Store now if we go to the app drawer you'll find the full Suite of Google Apps including Quick Office which launched with Android 4.4 so this gives us an editor for Word documents Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and we have the Hangouts app Drive currents the calculator the standard Google Calendar Chrome of course is the default web browser we have Google keep Maps we have the People app we also have photos so we now instead of having a gallery app as well as a Google Plus photos app we now just have the photos app which merges all together so pretty much standard stock experience we have our folder full of Google apps on the homepage Google Earth Drive Play Games Etc now taking a look at some of our benchmarks next to the Nexus 7 you can see this does do a better job but it does have a processor clocked a little higher at 1.73 GHz versus 1.51 GHz both of course are quad core processors so 641 versus 580 1996 versus 1848 generally speaking that's pretty close now if we compare the LG gPad to the Nexus 7 obviously it is much bigger than the Nexus 7 but the display is much dimmer so for example if we bring up the same website with the same white space you can see just how much dimmer the LG gPad looks in comparison to the Nexus 7 both displays are set to the same brightness so if we go to our display settings right here uh uh let's see right there you can see they're both set to maximum so it gives you an idea of the relative screen brightness from the LG gPad to the Nexus 7 so like a lot of people complain the LG gPad is a little dim looking compared to something like the NEX 7 or even the iPad Mini so again we bring up our brightness controls just to show you again we have the same brightness so generally speaking come on get out of the way you can see that the LG gPad is a little dimmer now taking look at the camera app it's pretty straightforward stuff for a stock experience we have tap to focus as you can see you get the little animation indicating that you've successfully focused on your scene also adjust as exposure and that sort of thing you can also change your mode here by changing it to panorama mode we also have uh a photos sphere which we're familiar with allows you to take a photo kind of coaches you through that I'm not going to go through that process you've seen it before we also have our video camera so you can record video and as you're recording video you can't Snap photos like you can with other software so you can click stop you can go to your settings icon up here this gives you to your settings as you can see right here so you can see it's a limited number of settings it drills down for you now you can also tap anywhere on this display to bring up your settings and it follows your finger uh to wherever you want to go and as you can see it drills down into your settings so you can select more things as you go now if we go to the still camera again tap anywhere on the screen to focus you see get a little animation here tap to release the shutter so pretty standard stuff now just to give you an idea of the software differences between the LG gPad and the stock experience you can see they pretty much work the same you have home screens you can swipe through you have a drop- down menu for your notifications as well as your settings uh there of course differences here you have a lot more features on the LG gPad and a lot of people don't like this heavy-handed skin over Android which I'm one of those people I prefer not to have a lot of this but some of them are quite useful such as these quick access toggles you have much fewer of them on the stock experience in fact many of them take you right out of the uh menu app so for example if you want to change brightness it leaves that drop down menu in this case I can change brightness uh while staying within the drop down shade so those are features that are are useful many of the other features are not particularly useful so I prefer to live without them particularly if it means I get the latest version of Android and a smoother experience now I can't really complain about the LG gPad besides its habit of restarting and crashing on certain things but overall performance is pretty smooth and quick and you still get a lot of features to use if you prefer of course you don't have to use them if you don't want to but ultimately I prefer the look and feel of stock NOW although we have Sero speakers on the back they are rear firing so they can't really compete with the front firing seral speakers on something like the Nexus 10 which are one of the better sounding tablets no no no no the housings are misalign there's no way we can redirect the power I know a lot of people are going to ask which device do I prefer the LG gPad or the Nexus 7 now the Nexus 7 I think has a really nice design even though it's made mostly out of plastic while the LG Pad is made out of metal there's something to be said for this unibody design with that nice texture on the back versus this more parted design on the LG G pan with the contrasting plastic and metal uh so I mean they're using nicer materials on the LG gPad but I really can't fault the design of the Nexus 7 with a nice tapered Edge it's a little simpler I think a nice looking design so I really don't really look at the Nexus 7 as a cheap device or a cheap looking device it's just a nice design that happens to be cheap so anyway the LG g-pad is also a lot more expensive 350 versus $229 for the Nexus 7 and then Nexus 7 is a really good device has a beautiful display it's brighter than the LG gPad it's also got the same resolution so 1920 over 1200 over a 7-in display gives you a higher pixel density so 323 versus 273 on the LG gPad so you get a better quality display is just smaller on the Nexus 7 but for me I prefer the screen size of the LG gPad 8.3 I find this a more useful screen size than something like the 7-in tablet because my phones are getting bigger and bigger uh so they I don't really find a need to carry around a separate tablet that isn't too much bigger than my phone so I actually find this preferable now uh versus something like the 7in tablets that have kind of been popular up until this point so this also more closely resembles something like the iPad Mini which is a form factor I prefer now the iPad Mini has slightly different dimensions but generally speaking it's similar in size so this is a 7.9 in display versus 8.3 but you can see it's a 4x3 aspect ratio so it's generally a larger display it's just wider in terms of its portrait aspect versus its landscape aspect so it looks larger than something like the 8.3 here so from my perspective I'm really glad to finally have a stock Android tablet similar in size and form factor to the iPad Mini so that's going to do for me in this video thanks for watching and I'll see you again in the next video\n"