LG Optimus GJ review: Wild child

Google Now gets it done

Google Now was first introduced in Jelly Bean 4.1 and is constantly being updated by Google to be smarter than ever.

It's accessed by swiping up on any of the on-screen controls and gives you a short overview of information it believes is relevant to you. Going to work the same route every morning? Google Now will let you know there's a big traffic jam on your usual way to the office and will offer an alternative route.

It can interpret a lot of things from your search history as well. If you've been searching for, let's say, your favorite football team, Google Now will prepare a card showing you the next match the team is playing and will provide you with score updates once the game begins.

Google Now is always improving

If you allow it, the service can also scan your email for upcoming flights, deliveries or restaurant reservations and let you know when they are due. There are also numerous kinds of cards like birthdays (yours and those of your contacts and friends in the Google+ social network) and what distance you've walked in a particular month.

Google has also integrated Voice Actions. They can handle stuff like sending messages (SMS or email), initiating a voice call, asking for directions, taking a note or opening a site. Google Now can also launch apps, check and manage your calendar and look for nearby places of interest and stuff like movie theater listings.

Synthetic benchmarks

The LG Optimus GJ boasts a quad-core Krait CPU cores clocked in at 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and the Adreno 320 GPU. Although this configuration is the same as the one found on the somewhat dated Optimus G, it's still robust enough to hold its own under most circumstances.

There are superior quad-core processors around - the Snapdragon 600 chipset is a fine example, powering the likes of the Galaxy S4 and the Optimus G Pro, and so is the Cortex-A15 on the Samsung Galaxy S4, so the GJ isn't going to rival those top flagships.

In Benchmark Pi (which is all about single-threaded performance), the Optimus GJ scored right around the Xperia Z flagship and its variants. Linpack adds multi-core performance into the equation, and again the GJ comes in alongside the Xperia Z devices.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  132
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Sony Xperia SP
  184
• Sony Xperia ZR
  264
• Sony Xperia ZL
  264
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• LG Optimus GJ
  266
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Meizu MX 4-core
  362
• Nexus 4
  431
• Sony Xperia L
  435

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC One
  646
• LG Optimus GJ
  638
• Sony Xperia ZL
  631
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• Sony Xperia ZR
  627
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Oppo Find 5
  593
• Sony Xperia SP
  348
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214
• Nexus 4
  213
• Sony Xperia L
  191
• Meizu MX 4-core
  189
• HTC One X+
  177
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175
• HTC One X
  160
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141

AnTuTu, Quadrant and Geekbench 2 are all compound performance benchmarks, all of which test the system as a whole. The GJ posted some very respectable results considering its pedigree. Although it was outclassed by some of the newer flagships, it isn't expected to compete with them directly.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  24716
• HTC One
  22678
• Sony Xperia Z
  20794
• Sony Xperia ZL
  20743
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• HTC Butterfly
  19513
• LG Optimus GJ
  19396
• Sony Xperia ZR
  18288
• Sony Xperia SP
  15874
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15547
• Oppo Find 5
  15167
• Sony Xperia L
  9746

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One
  11746
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• Sony Xperia ZR
  8073
• Sony Xperia ZL
  7912
• Sony Xperia SP
  7897
• HTC One X+
  7632
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• LG Optimus GJ
  6714
• HTC One X
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5450
• Meizu MX 4-core
  5170
• Nexus 4
  4567
• Sony Xperia L
  4279

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  3227
• LG Optimus G Pro
  3040
• HTC One
  2708
• Sony Xperia Z
  2173
• HTC Butterfly
  2143
• Sony Xperia SP
  2105
• LG Optimus GJ
  2319
• Sony Xperia ZR
  2071
• Sony Xperia ZL
  1995
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1845
• LG Optimus G
  1723
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1661
• iPhone 5
  1601
• Sony Xperia SL
  1073

We ran both of the GLBenchmark benchmarks in off-screen mode at a fixed resolution, which lets us test raw GPU power. The Optimus GJ didn't disappoint, scoring as towards the middle of the pack with some respectable numbers.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4
  43
• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  41
• HTC One GPE
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE
  33
• LG Optimus GJ
  33
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia ZR
  32
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• LG Optimus G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• HTC One X
  11

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  17.1
• Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE
  15
• LG Optimus GJ
  14
• HTC One GPE
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZR
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

But most games will probably want to run at native resolution, so we're including Epic Citadel, which uses the Unreal Engine 3. Unreal Engine is popular with mobile game makers, so it's a pretty important test. The benchmark was run at the highest quality setting and yet the LG Optimus GJ did as well as the rest of the flagships in our chart.

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia ZR
  57.2
• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  57.1
• HTC One
  56.4
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE
  55.8
• Sony Xperia Z
  55.6
• HTC One GPE
  54.2
• Nexus 4
  53.9
• Asus Padfone 2
  53.4
• LG Optimus G
  52.6
• LG Optimus GJ
  52.5
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  41.3
• Oppo Find 5
  38.6

Our browsing benchmarks have the GJ in the middle of the pack again, with Vellamo and Browsermark 2 throwing HTML 5 into the equation.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  810
• Samsung Ativ S
  891
• Apple iPhone 5
  915
• Nokia Lumia 920
  910
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• HTC One X+
  1001
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1011
• Motorola RAZR i XT890
  1059
• Sony Xperia SP
  1116
• HTC One
  1124
• LG Optimus GJ
  1139
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1192
• Sony Xperia ZL
  1290
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1312
• Sony Xperia ZR
  1310
• Sony Xperia Z
  1336
• LG Optimus G
  1353
• HTC Butterfly
  1433
• Nexus 4
  1971
• Oppo Find 5
  2045
• Sony Xperia L
  2539

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2438
• Sony Xperia SP
  2263
• HTC One
  2262
• LG Optimus GJ
  2190
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2107
• Sony Xperia Z
  2093
• Sony Xperia ZR
  1831
• Sony Xperia L
  1809
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Oppo Find 5
  1797
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Nokia Lumia 820
  1760
• Samsung Omnia W
  1632
• HTC Butterfly
  1475
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1247

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia SP
  2497
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• Sony Xperia ZR
  2253
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2186
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2060
• LG Optimus GJ
  1947
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Oppo Find 5
  1658
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• Sony Xperia L
  1640
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1468
• Nexus 4
  1310

The Optimus GJ provides some great performance, but with one important caveat: the device tends to overheat quickly, likely due to its watertight chassis. LG combat this by automatically underclocking the processor and lowering the screen brightness whenever the temperature reaches a certain threshold. There is no way to adjust or disable this feature.

This results in performance which doesn't accurately reflect the above benchmark results - many of the benchmarks scores dropped by 10-15% after just several minutes of usage.