Before any sketches of the G3 were even committed to paper, LG had settled on its one key specification. The company’s flagship Android phone for 2014 would be built around a 5.5-inch Quad HD LCD display. With a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440, it’s only matched by a pair of phones for the Chinese market — the Vivo Xplay 3S and Oppo Find 7 — and comfortably outdoes its 1080p global competitors. I love this as a technical achievement and the G3 renders everything beautifully, but I cannot discern any advantage from the extra pixels. The only time I notice them is when I look at the resolution of screenshots from the G3.

The most impressive thing about this screen is not its otherworldly 538ppi pixel density, but how efficient the designers have been with the space around it. 76.4 percent of the G3’s front is occupied by the display, allowing it to fit a larger panel into the same dimensions as the 5-inch HTC One and 5.2-inch Xperia Z2. LG’s phone is also significantly lighter than the others, making it feel much more streamlined.

I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Plastics.

Color accuracy, contrast, and viewing angles are all very good. The black background behind the G3’s on-screen Android keys is dark enough to seem to melt away into the phone’s black frame. Additionally, unlike Sony’s Xperia Z2, which struggles outdoors, the G3’s IPS display is bright enough to remain useful on a sunny day.

The extra pixels don’t make a difference, but the thin bezels do

As laudable as the display may be, and as much as the other flagship Android phones validate the G3’s size, it does make for an uncomfortably big phone. A 5.5-inch smartphone, no matter how thin its bezels, presents ergonomic challenges that smaller devices don’t have to deal with. I can’t just whip the G3 out of a pocket and single-handedly snap and tweet a photo the same way I can with something like the Moto X. Closer in ergonomics to Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3, the G3’s sheer dimensions demand that it be used with two hands for safety. Unlike the 5.7-inch Note, however, LG’s latest has softer corners and a nicely curved back that can be cradled comfortably. Whereas the Note 3 feels like a small tablet, the G3 can still get away with calling itself a large smartphone.

In a briefing ahead of the G3 launch event, LG’s chief designer Chul Bae Lee said that his "personal aspiration is to make the phone out of metal." But, he continued, that would have scuppered LG’s efforts to mitigate the G3’s larger screen size and he had to choose between the thin bezels or a metal construction; he couldn’t have both. Nevertheless, LG is trying to at least recreate the look and feel of aluminum phones like the HTC One with a new "metallic skin." It’s still plastic, only now it’s mixed with an added layer of anti-scratch and fingerprint-resistant material.

I can attest to the scratch resistance (and the inherent awkwardness) of the G3 after dropping it a couple of times, but it’s the immunity to fingerprints that is most striking. No matter how oily my hands were, the G3 simply shrugged off contact with them and maintained an attractively clean appearance. That’s a complete reversal from the unpleasant feel of the G2’s glossy plastics, which would accumulate markings and smudges like they were going out of style.

The G3’s design is an improvement over its predecessor, but it isn’t honest, because it’s trying to fake out the user. Using a similar brushed effect to the HTC One, this phone can definitely be mistaken for being made out of metal, and calling it metallic only exacerbates that confusion. The reality is that you get a phone halfway between the One and the Galaxy Note 3. The G3 reflects light and gleams as invitingly as a real aluminum handset, but retains the utilitarian feel of a plastic phone. The Note 3 showed that faux leather can still feel good in the hand (if not authentic), and LG is doing the same with its new faux metal. Initially I found this tradeoff acceptable, however I don’t trust the G3’s thin removable cover to maintain its sheen or refined appearance over the long term. Plastic’s more susceptible to warping and cracking than metal, and whereas the One promises to age gracefully, the G3 could start to look decidedly pedestrian after a few months of regular use.