LG Stylo 3 Review: Functional Stylus, Replaceable Battery

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LG Stylo 3: At First Glance

The LG Stylo series is famous for its provision of an affordable alternative to the higher-end Samsung Galaxy Note series. The 2017 release of the LG Stylo series known as the LG Stylo 3 offers some improvements from its predecessor – the LG Stylo 2.

Since affordability is the whole idea of the LG Stylo series, the LG Stylo 3 is also affordable, currently at about one-third the price of a Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Precisely, at the time we updated this review in September 2021, the LG Stylo 3 cost $66.99.

For what the LG Stylo 3 is worth, let us proceed to discover if you will be getting an equivalent value.

LG Stylo 3: Design, Dimension & Weight

The LG Stylo 3 maintains the design of its predecessor with just a bit of improvement. It maintains a gray polycarbonate chassis with a brushed-metal finish.

Although the removable back cover is made of polycarbonate plastic, the LG Stylo 3 does not look cheap but mid-range.

The LG Stylo 3 features a 5.7-inch display just like its predecessor with prominent top and bottom bezels. Speaking of the screen size, it falls slightly outside the size preferred by most users.

According to our research findings, most users prefer a phone with a screen size between 5 to 5.5-inch.

The top bezel houses a notification LED, a front camera equipped with an IR sensor and LED flash.

Also, the top bezel houses the proximity and ambient light sensor as well as the calls speaker. Meanwhile, the bottom bezel has just the iconic LG logo.

The navigational Home, Recent, and Back controls are located on-screen just above the bottom bezel. That sums up all you will find on the front view of the LG Stylo 3, let’s move on to its back view.

The back view of the LG Stylo 3 sees a prominent vertical arrangement. The vertical layout houses the rear camera, flash, and fingerprint reader.

In addition to locking and unlocking the phone, the fingerprint reader also serves as a Home button and a power button. Additionally, it supports gesture controls like swiping down to take a screenshot or swiping right or left to shrink the screen.

However, the fingerprint reader is a bit slow, it takes few noticeable seconds to register and unlock the phone.

Furthermore, at the center of the back cover, you will find another LG logo. Meanwhile, by the bottom left side of the LG Stylo 3’s back, you will find the main speaker.

I find the motive behind rear speakers questionable because they get muffled when the device is placed on a surface. Similarly, when you hold the phone in your hands, you are probably covering the back speaker.

To avoid these issues means to place the phone face-down or hold it in a rather awkward position.

Moving on, you can remove the back cover of the LG Stylo 3. You can do this easily with your thumbnail via a small opening by the bottom left.

When you remove the back cover, you will see the battery, SIM slot, and memory card slot.

To insert a SIM card or memory card to LG Stylo 3, you need to pull out the battery then slide them into their slots. It is quite difficult to slide the cards in without removing the battery first.

Now to the edges of the LG Stylo 3, let’s do this through the rearview. The bottom houses a USB charging port by the center, it is flanked to the right by a microphone and earphone jack.

Whereas the right side houses the volume buttons. While the left side houses the back cover opening by the bottom and the stylus slot by the top-left corner.

Speaking of the stylus, it is the most noteworthy feature of the LG Stylo 3 and it does not disappoint. As soon as you pull out the stylus, the phone fires an automatic pen detection that can make a sound, vibration, or nothing depending on your setting.

If the screen was locked, pulling out the stylus will wake the screen and display a Screen-off memo. The stylus is used to write notes, erase, save, and share notes while the device is still locked.

Meanwhile, if the screen was unlocked when you pull out the stylus, it automatically launches 5 functionalities. The first is the Pop Memo app that is used to create memos, add handwriting, texts, images, save and share the memos.

Secondly, there is the GIF Capture app for taking videos of what is currently displayed on the screen, it also allows you to edit and share the video. Thirdly, there is a Pop Lens for zooming on images or texts.

Also, there is the Pop Scanner that’s used for scanning objects or documents using the camera. Lastly, there is the Capture+ app which has a lot of functionalities, for instance, it is used for taking screenshots.

Additionally, you can use the Capture+ with the QMemo to add texts to images, change the pen styles and color. Also, it allows you to write notes on any screen you are currently on – be it a website’s homepage or any page at all.

The stylus has a rubber tip that glides smoothly on the screen and makes it comfortable to write with. However, it does not offer as much functionality as the Samsung S-pen, but it suits its price range decently.

When it comes to the color options, the LG Stylo 3 is only available in Titan. I am not so impressed by LG Stylo 3’s limited choice of color options.

In terms of size and weight, the LG Stylo 3 weighs 150.3 g and measures 155.7 x 78.7 x 7.4 mm. The weight of the LG Stylo 3 falls within the weight preferred by most smartphone users.

Our research reveals that most mobile phone users prefer a phone that weighs between 140 g to 170 g. Comparatively, the LG Stylo 3 and its predecessor have a similar footprint but the LG Stylo 3 is a little heavier.

Specifically, the LG Stylo 2 measures 155 Х 79.5 Х 7.4 mm and weighs 144.6 g.

In conclusion, I will rate the LG Stylo 3 a nine in this design review section.

LG Stylo 3: Display Features

The LG Stylo 3 features a 5.7-inch IPS LCD just like its predecessor. IPS (In-Plane Switching) is an advanced version of LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) which delivers great quality. 

However, in comparison to OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode), IPS LCDs are known to consume slightly more power. 

The LG Stylo 3’s display has an HD resolution with 1920 x 1080 pixels. Although there are phones with better resolutions like FHD, FHD+, 2K, and 4K, HD resolution is understandable in the price bracket of this phone.

With an HD resolution, you will be able to enjoy decently sharp, crisp, and color-popping videos.

The LG Stylo 3’s screen is made of corning gorilla glass which protects it from damages, scratches, and cracks.

Furthermore, the screen has a pixel density of 386 PPI. Thankfully, this is higher than the industry standard quality of 300 PPI.

Although higher pixel density is better, with 386 PPI, text, images, and videos on the LG Stylo 3 will be sufficiently sharp.

Additionally, the LG Stylo 3 has an aspect ratio of 16:9 known as widescreen. Hence, watching movies and playing games will be enjoyable with a wide viewing angle.

Finally, I will rate the LG Stylo 3 a seven in this display review section.

LG Stylo 3: Camera Features

The camera features of a smartphone have become one of the top factors users check before making a buying decision. The reason for this is that more users are using their phones as cameras to take pictures for social media and other purposes.

To effectively evaluate the quality of a phone’s camera, we review 3 features – the camera’s Megapixel and its pixel size. We will also consider its ƒ.stop number which determines the camera’s aperture.

A smaller ƒ.number means bigger apertures and the bigger the aperture, the better the pictures the phone takes especially at night.

The LG Stylo 3 has a front camera of 5 MP which takes decent Instagram-worthy selfies. It also has a beauty mode for smoothening the face and reducing blemishes.

The rear camera of the LG Stylo 3 is rated 13 MP (Megapixel) and it has an ƒ.number of ƒ/2.2. Additionally, the camera has a pixel size of 1.12µm which means that the camera captures 1.12-micron pixels in each picture.

The small pixel size of the LG Stylo 3 explains why it does not fare well in low lights. Apparently, a camera with a larger pixel size performs better in low lights.

The rear camera takes decent pictures in well-lit environments, but you need to allow the lens to focus which might take a while. You will also want to hold the phone steady to avoid blurry pictures.

On the other hand, indoor pictures are mostly grainy and noisy. Overall, the rear camera produces less than ideal pictures with a strange blue tint.

There Is also no professional mode like you will find on the flagship LG G6. Therefore, you won’t be able to change the ISO, HDR, shutter speed, etc.

In conclusion, I will rate the LG Stylo 3 a seven in this camera review section.

LG Stylo 3: Battery Life and Talk Time

The LG Stylo 3 ships with a 3,200 mAh battery which was advertised to deliver up to 14 hours of 3G battery talk time.

The battery is removable which is a good thing because you can replace a dead battery with an already charged one when you are in a hurry. Also, if you experience a bad battery you can easily replace it yourself with a good one.

To determine how long the battery lasts, I carried out a video test. The test involved streaming a widescreen Netflix video over LTE with maximum screen brightness.

Consequently, the LG Stylo 3 lasted 6 hours 33 minutes which is slightly longer than that of its predecessor. Precisely, its predecessor, LG Stylo 2 lasted  6 hours 6 minutes.

This is not surprising since the LG Stylo 2 ships with a smaller battery capacity of 3,000 mAh.

Despite doing better than its predecessor, the battery performance of the LG Stylo 3 in my test was below LG’s claim. But that is logical because my test is more power-intensive.

If you are wondering if the LG Stylo 3 supports fast charging, I’m sorry to disappoint you, it does not support fast charging.

In conclusion, I will describe the battery performance of the LG Stylo 3 as average. Therefore, I will rate the LG Stylo 3 a six in this battery review section.

LG Stylo 3: Storage Options & Performance

As people now take more pictures with their phones, they need enough storage spaces to save all these pictures. Therefore, phones now tend to do better in the storage department.

However, I can’t say the same for the LG Stylo 3 because it ships with a measly 32 GB of internal storage just like its predecessor. Things get worse when you realize there are about 25 preinstalled apps that can’t be removed occupying the already inadequate storage space.

In addition to the preinstalled apps, the operating system also occupies a substantial chunk of space. Therefore, you are left with little space to install your apps or save personal photos or videos.

Thankfully, things get better, the LG Stylo 3 supports a microSD card for storage expansion. Most impressively, the MicroSD card slot can hold up to 2 TB giving you more than enough space to save files and photos.

Finally, I will rate the LG Stylo 3 a six in this storage review section.

LG Stylo 3: Security Features & Sensors

The first noticeable advantage of the LG Stylo 3 is that it has a rear fingerprint. This means that you can unlock the phone quickly with your finger instead of entering a PIN. 

However, the phone has limited sensors. In addition to the fingerprint sensor, the other available ones are the accelerometer, gyro, and proximity sensors.

The accelerometer and gyro sensors work together to determine the phone’s orientation and automatically rotate the screen. 

The phone’s proximity sensor detects when you are holding the phone near your face during a call and turns the display off. This is very important as it increases the battery life of the phone. 

Not only is it beneficial for saving power, but it also protects the screen from unintentional touches.

The phone does not have some other sensors considered essential. For example, it does not have an ambient light sensor.

An ambient light sensor detects the ambient light and automatically dims the phone’s display. Consequently, the LG Stylo 3 will not benefit from auto-dimming its display to fit external light conditions.

A phone that can automatically dim its display benefits your eyes and saves battery. 

Another important sensor missing in this phone is a barometer sensor. One implication of this is that you may not be able to use a health app on the phone.

Finally, I will rate the LG Stylo 3 a seven in this security and sensors review section.

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Conclusion

The LG Stylo 3 is an affordable option for stylus lovers who do not want to spend so much for the competitor – Samsung Note 8. Although the overall performance of the LG Stylo 3 may not be as impressive as its more expensive counterpart, it offers all you need in a smartphone.

Speaking of which, it boasts a functional stylus, a replaceable battery which is difficult to come by these days. Additionally, although the internal storage is meager, it makes up for that with the SD card storage expansion.

Overall, the camera performance, battery performance, display performance, etc. might not be the best. However, the LG Stylo delivers decent performance for what it is worth.

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