Just days after an LG Korea official had claimed that there won’t be Android 7.0 Nougat updates for LG G4 and LG V10, the South Korean company went ahead and reversed the statement, confirming that the OS will be made available in the second half of 2017, at least for the Korean market.
It was indeed a strange move that the LG G4 and V10 won’t be updated to Android 7.0 Nougat, but it makes sense when the 2014 LG G3 is nowhere on the list of devices that will be receiving the Nougat treat. Having been released in June 2014, the G3 is now close to three years and looking at how most OEMs work, we don’t expect any major software update to hit this LG fans’ favorite phone.
In fact, the only 2014 phone that has been updated to the latest Android 7.0 Nougat (now v7.1.1) is the Google Nexus 6 and this is simply because of the phone’s association with the Android OS owner. But in a rear occurrence, the LG G3 has been listed on benchmarking website Geekbench and surprisingly, the phone has Android 7.1.1 Nougat running the show.
The fact that the Geekbench listing has an LG G3 powered by Android 7.1.1 Nougat doesn’t confirm that the phone will be receiving the OTA update to this OS. It could be a Nougat-based custom ROM running the show, something that only those willing to take the risky, rooting journey can be able to install on their phones.
With the LG G3 running on the Snapdragon 801 SoC – a processor that was deemed unfit to run the new Android 7.0 Nougat – we don’t expect an OTA update to hit the phone. But based on the benchmarks, it seems the G3 fares on quite well with Nougat running the show. With just 2GB of RAM on board, the LG G3 managed a score of 969 during single-core tests and 2315 when taken for multi-core tests.
Other than the 2GB RAM and Snapdragon 801, the LG G3 also comes with 3GB RAM variant, but the rest of the specs remain unchanged. These include a huge 5.5-inch QHD screen and Gorilla Glass 3 on top, a 13MP main camera and 2.1MP shooter on the front as well as a decent 3000mAh removable battery that supports Qi wireless charging.