LG Launches New G Pad 8.3 Android Tablet

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

LG has launched a new 8.3 inch Android tablet.

While Acer cranks out its latest 8 inch Windows 8.1 tablet, rival tablet maker LG Electronics has taken the Android route with its LG G Pad 8.3, part of the company's premium "G" line of mobile products. The new tablet is available now at BestBuy.com and will be available in-store at retailers nationwide beginning with Best Buy on November 3.

"From its light weight to its sleek design, LG G Pad 8.3 is the ultimate complement to the Android smartphone experience," said James Fishler, senior vice president, marketing, LG Electronics USA. "LG G Pad 8.3 delivers top-notch viewing and entertainment for Android users with its impressive Full HD screen and useful, intuitive multitasking tools like those found in LG G2."  

According to the specs, the new LG tablet sports an 8.3 inch IPS screen with a 1920 x 1200 resolution (273 ppi), backed by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 quad-core chip clocked at 1.7 GHz, and 2 GB of LPDDR2 RAM. The device also provides 16 GB of internal storage, and a microSD card slot for adding up to 64 GB more space. The tablet also provides a 5MP BSI camera on the back and a 1.3MP camera on the front.

"LG G Pad 8.3 offers easy-to-sync connectivity across all your Android mobile devices, including the new LG G2, with QPair," reads the company's press release. "When enabled with LG G Pad 8.3, QPair affords users a seamless extension to their Android smartphones by providing simultaneous access to recently opened apps, incoming calls, text messages and more. LG G Pad 8.3 users can even reply to texts and use LG features like QuickMemo to capture and comment on images, making mobile sharing effortless between LG G Pad 8.3 and other Android devices."

The specs also show that the new tablet measures just 0.32 inches thin and weigh 0.75 pounds. Powering this device is Google's Android 4.2.2 "Jelly Bean" and a "long lasting" 4,600 mAh Li-Polymer battery. Other specs include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, 16-bit stereo, one microUSB port, and LG's suite of multitasking capabilities. These include QSlide Function 2.0, which allows the user to float two apps over the main screen with adjustable window size and transparency.

The new LG G Pad 8.3 is listed on Best Buy in Black and White, both costing $349.99 USD.

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Kevin Parrish
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • halcyon
    Very nice.
    Reply
  • vmem
    nice tablet

    pricing? not so much. especially considering similar specs (1 inch larger + mSD slot) to the ASUS Nexus 7 but over $100 more expensive
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    11740865 said:
    nice tablet

    pricing? not so much. especially considering similar specs (1 inch larger + mSD slot) to the ASUS Nexus 7 but over $100 more expensive
    The Nexus 7v2/2013 might be a nice tablet on the specs side but it has way too many people complaining about touch-screen and GPS issues for my taste. I have personally purchased three of those from three different places and returned all three of them due to touch-screen, GPS and miscellaneous other issues on ALL three of them, which should be statistically almost impossible unless it was a design, manufacturing or QA/QC issue.

    So the GPad might be a noteworthy alternative for people who are fed up with having to return their 3rd or 6th N7-2013 (on Google's N7 forum, there really are people who are on their 6th+ replacement) and want to try something else that might work as expected.
    Reply
  • teh_chem
    I really like LG's android UI. Far superior to vanilla Android IMO. I'd get this tablet if (a) I were in the market for a new tablet anytime soon, and (b) I had more confidence that LG would adhere to an acceptable OS update schedule. I love my LG Optimus G (well, minus the crappy camera), but the updates for it have been slow. Sure, it's a provider issue as well, but LG isn't know to have the best OS update schedule.
    Reply
  • w8gaming
    Personally, I think now that Windows 8 Pro tablet running on Bay Trail is selling for $300-$400 range, plus it includes Office for free, the competition on the 8" tablet is really heating up. For me, one of the major use for my Android tablet has been video playing. While video playing on Android is great most of the time, there are times certain video format just could not be played, or has sound sync issue. Video players on Android simply cannot match up the quality of free video player on Windows such as KLite+MPC or VLC Player. And Windows also does not have 4Gb limit on file size when dealing with large video file. Downside for Windows tablet? Most do not offer 3G or LTE, so mobile connectivity is lacking unless using another portable hotspot device.
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    11743240 said:
    Personally, I think now that Windows 8 Pro tablet running on Bay Trail is selling for $300-$400 range, plus it includes Office for free, the competition on the 8" tablet is really heating up. For me, one of the major use for my Android tablet has been video playing. While video playing on Android is great most of the time, there are times certain video format just could not be played, or has sound sync issue. Video players on Android simply cannot match up the quality of free video player on Windows such as KLite+MPC or VLC Player. And Windows also does not have 4Gb limit on file size when dealing with large video file. Downside for Windows tablet? Most do not offer 3G or LTE, so mobile connectivity is lacking unless using another portable hotspot device.

    IMO, I am not an Apple fanboy in the slightest, but you can bash or praise Apple all you want, from a technical standpoint, video playback is something that they actually get right where others don't. The Quicktime format has been around since the dawn of the GUI interface, and it's been perfected over time. And the inclusion of the Quicktime format in iPads and iPod touches is a smart decision. I was watching a movie on my iPad the other day and it was just as good if not better than watching it on anything else.

    But what will be interesting to see is what's going to go down in the 8" tablet market. The LG G Pad looks very promising, and so do the new Windows 8.1 8" tablets from Dell and Lenovo. It will get interesting by the end of the year.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    11745701 said:
    But what will be interesting to see is what's going to go down in the 8" tablet market. The LG G Pad looks very promising, and so do the new Windows 8.1 8" tablets from Dell and Lenovo. It will get interesting by the end of the year.
    And it will get even more interesting next year, just as this year has been more interesting than last year!

    Things are going to look "a lot more interesting later" in the mobile/tablet space for another three or so years. Beyond that, even entry-level tablets will start becoming more powerful than what most people need if most specs continue almost doubling every year: at this rate, a low-end tablet might have 8GB RAM, 64GB storage in 2017 and more than enough processing power to handle any mainstream task.
    Reply
  • g-unit1111
    11745995 said:
    11745701 said:
    But what will be interesting to see is what's going to go down in the 8" tablet market. The LG G Pad looks very promising, and so do the new Windows 8.1 8" tablets from Dell and Lenovo. It will get interesting by the end of the year.
    And it will get even more interesting next year, just as this year has been more interesting than last year!

    Things are going to look "a lot more interesting later" in the mobile/tablet space for another three or so years. Beyond that, even entry-level tablets will start becoming more powerful than what most people need if most specs continue almost doubling every year: at this rate, a low-end tablet might have 8GB RAM, 64GB storage in 2017 and more than enough processing power to handle any mainstream task.

    I've been trashing the Surface RT because of the closed Windows 8.1 platform, but the Surface Pro 2 looks absolutely amazing, it's definitely the future of tablet computing as the thing is essentially a laptop replacement with an Intel Core i5M and up to 512GB in storage (plus up to 64GB micro SXHD), which is unheard of in tablet computing. As NAND comes down in price, you can bet we'll be seeing storage wars among tablet manufacturers. That will be amazing when that happens.
    Reply