LG G Pad 10.1 review: Inching along

Synthetic benchmarks

The LG G Pad 10.1 isn't made to brake speed boundaries with its Snapdragon 400 chipset, quad-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, Adreno 305 GPU and lowly 1GB of RAM. Still this hardware package should be enough to push things along without serious hiccups.

So let's take a look at the numbers from the various benchmarks that we use. We've broken them down into all-round benchmarks, CPU benchmarks, GPU tests and finally web browsing performance consisting of JavaScript and HTML 5 tests. These tests should give you an idea of what performance to expect.

Basemark OS II breaks down performance by single and multi-core speed and finally has an overall score. The Snapdragon 400 didn't really impress with its scores here and offers almost the exact performance as its smaller sibling, G Pad 7.0.

GeekBench 3 is a cross-platform test and measures the entire hardware rig. It saw the 10-inch G Pad 10.1 as a bottom of the table performer but considering its rich company the score isn't surprising.

Basemark OS II

Higher is better is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (Exynos)
  829
• LG G Pad 10.1
  529
• LG G Pad 7.0
  525

Basemark OS II (single-core)

Higher is better is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (Exynos)
  2394
• LG G Pad 10.1
  1243
• LG G Pad 7.0
  1141

Basemark OS II (multi-core)

Higher is better is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (Exynos)
  7493
• LG G Pad 7.0
  4873
• LG G Pad 10.1
  4864

GeekBench 3

Higher is better is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (Exynos)
  2881
• Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1
  2743
• Apple iPad Air
  2388
• LG G Pad 7.0
  1135
• LG G Pad 10.1
  1115

The Adreno 305 is tasked with pushing the HD resolution of the screen, push the entire Optimus UI and isn't really built to manage to many pixels. The on-screen GFXBench Manhattan saw an unplayable score of 3.8 fps for the G Pad 10.1 while Basemark X shows a three-digit score against four digits from top tier competition.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1
  4.7
• LG G Pad 7.0
  3.8
• LG G Pad 10.1
  3.8
• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (Exynos)
  2.9

Basemark X

Higher is better is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (Exynos)
  6875
• LG G Pad 7.0
  822
• LG G Pad 10.1
  807

We've already established that the G Pad 10.1 isn't made for heavy gaming and you should look more intently in the JavaScript and HTML 5 performance below. Kraken 1.1 shows a very poor score but that doesn't translate into poor browsing - things differ by a mere second or two between the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and the G Pad 10.1 in terms of loading speed.

HTML 5 looks much better for the G Pad 10.1

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (Exynos)
  4777
• LG G Pad 7.0
  14761
• LG G Pad 10.1
  14794

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better is better

• Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 (Exynos)
  1515
• LG G Pad 7.0
  971
• LG G Pad 10.1
  949

For half the price of a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 or iPad Air you can't frown at the inferior performance in synthetic tests. Put in practical, real-life conditions the LG G Pad 10.1 does a very good job to hide its inferior hardware and provide a fast-enough operation.