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The LG G3 was a pretty good phone when it was released in 2014. It had a Snapdragon 801 processor, a 5.5" 1440p display, 3GB of RAM, and a 3,000mAh removable battery. I expect the number of people still using the G3 in 2017 is pretty small, but if you're still hanging in there (and you're on T-Mobile), you have an update waiting for you.
Since our last LineageOS post, the project has continued to add new features and support new devices. In addition to new Quick Settings tiles and changes to included apps, the ROM now supports 16 additional devices.
Cyanogen Inc. may be dying as a company, but the voluntarily-maintained CyanogenMod ROMs are still alive and kicking. Case in point: seven more devices are joining CyanogenMod 14.1, which is based on Android 7.1 Nougat. Six of these Android-powered machines have builds already up, but one doesn't yet.
Not interested in those new flagships from Samsung, LG, or HTC? Or maybe you just want a cheap smartphone for your teenage kid, your parents, your tech-challenged spouse, or as a secondary device for yourself? Here are a couple of Woot deals for you.
Waiting on a carrier is not the only way to get the most recent version of Android onto your device. There's the option to flash a custom ROM instead.
A Marshmallow update for the T-Mobile LG G3 started popping up about a week ago, but only in the LG PC Suite. Now, T-Mobile has made the Marshmallow OTA official. The rollout started yesterday, and should be done in the coming days. Not bad for a phone that's nearly two years old.
We love it when "old" devices get updated to new versions of Android, especially when said old devices are really great smartphones that were popular in their day and still serve their job even in today's landscape. My LG G3, for example, is now in my mother's hands and she has zero complaints about it since it does more than she could ever need. I'm still waiting for Marshmallow to hit her phone though, because as much as she doesn't care what Android version runs below the surface, I do want her to have Doze to improve the aging battery's life and to get a newer Android Security Patch Level (which is sure to come with a full system update).
The benefit of replaceable batteries is that you can replace them. This effectively doubles your device's battery life. I know. Mind blown.Batteries can be pricey. Like other forms of phone accessories, you may want to wait for a sale before picking one up.Oh look, what have we here? It looks like a sale is going on right this moment. LG is offering significant discounts off batteries and cradles. You can get batteries for 60% off. Some cradles are going for 50% off. Adding a battery and a cradle to your cart can net you a 70% discount.What this means is that you can get batteries and cradles for the V10, G4, and G3 for $15. And if you add one of each to your cart, the price drops down to $10 apiece.
Both Christmas and Valentine's are over, but Verizon doesn't seem to be aware of that. It has decided to wrap up its OTA updates with a bow and deliver them straight to your phone so you can enjoy some Marshmallow flavor before the end of winter.
The G4 is LG's latest flagship phone, but the G3 is still a slick piece of hardware. At this point we're approaching the end of its software support cycle, but the hardware is more than adequate to keep most folks satisfied for another year or two. And if you consider the existence of CyanogenMod nightlies, there's a solid chance owners will get to run a few more major versions of Android on this thing.
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LG would probably like to sell you a G4 right now, but the G3 is still a perfectly nice phone. Today you can pick one up on eBay for the downright reasonable price of $279.99. This is a new unlocked phone that should work on any GSM/LTE network in North America.
Great news, owners of the LG G3 on Verizon! Well, good news. Maybe provisionally upbeat news? OK, it's an item of information that happened this morning, so I can unequivocally say that this is... news. You're getting an over the air update to your phones starting today. It includes a Bluetooth button, some options for LG's notification system, and some new HD Voice settings in the menu. That's all. I'm sorry.
AT&T has announced a couple of over-the-air updates rolling out to current and past flagship devices. At least one will hopefully improve your typical phone-using experience.
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The LG G4 is out now, so the G3 is technically yesterday's news. It's still a fine phone, though, and the price is getting more reasonable all the time. You can pick up a new unlocked one right now for 0 on eBay. It was most recently on sale for $340, and it's still around $400 on Amazon.
LG G3 owners on Sprint, you should be getting a new over-the-air update in the next few days. Don't get too excited, it's not a new version of Android - you should have gotten Lollipop 5.0 sometime back in February. Nope, this update does one thing and one thing only: enable factory reset protection, a 5.0 feature that was left out of LG's updated build for some reason.
Do you want the new LG G4? Well, go call dibs. That's not what this post is about. We're gathered here to talk about the G3. It's still a good phone. Only now, due to planned obsolescence, it's becoming a cheaper one. On eBay, you can get an unlocked GSM model for a pretty reasonable $340. This is the 32GB model, which AT&T still sells for 0.
AT&T introduced VoLTE roughly a year ago, and it has gradually expanded since. The ability to talk over an LTE connection has come to more markets and devices alike. But support isn't ubiquitous in either area, and hardware that doesn't ship with VoLTE out of the box needs a firmware update to make things work. Now it's the LG G3's turn.
The LG G3 told everyone that thought 1080p was overkill to shove it. The handset proudly beat competitors to the market with a 2560x1440 display resolution, and now all of those pixels will be used to show off Android 5.0 on US Cellular's version of the phone.
The wait for Android 5.0 to arrive on the LG G3 has varied widely based on carrier—AT&T managed to get it released rather quickly and T-Mobile just rolled it out a week or two ago. Now it's Verizon's turn to get the Lollipop update done.
LG continued the resolution war last spring when it announced the LG G3 with a 2560x1440 LCD. The display had good sharpness, but the brightness and colors were not great. LG says it has a new and improved 5.5-inch LCD ready to go, and it's going to be used in its "forthcoming flagship smartphone," meaning the G4.