Currently, Verizon sells two Windows Phones. Well, in the mid-range. They still sell the HTC One M8 for Windows. You can still find a Nokia Lumia Icon in some places, both of which are amazing phones.

But we have two brand new Windows Phones on Verizon now, the Microsoft Lumia 735 and the LG Lancet. The phones are very similar in that they use similar chipsets and have the same RAM and storage. They’re different since the Lumia 735 has a camera with better specs and the Lancet has a 64 bit processor, but we’ll get to that later.

I’m extremely excited about the LG Lancet. It’s LG’s first try at Windows Phone since Windows Phone 7 and so far, I think they’ve done a pretty good job.

LG Lancet vs Microsoft Lumia 735: Specs

	LG Lancet	Microsoft Lumia 735
CPU	1.2 GHz Quad Core Snapdragon 410	1.2 GHz Quad Core Snapdragon 400
GPU	Adreno 306	Adreno 305
Display	4.5″, 480p, 218 ppi, IPS LCD	4.7″, 720p, 312 ppi, AMOLED
Body	129.80×64.80×10.70 mm, 143 g	134.7×68.5×8.9 mm, 134 g
Camera	8 MP, 3264×2448, 0.3 MP Front	6.7 MP, 2848×2144, 5 MP Front
Video	1080p - 30 fps, Front VGA	1080p - 30 fps, Front 1080p - 30 fps
Aperture	f/2.7	f/1.9
Storage	8 GB, Expandable to 128 GB	8 GB, Expandable to 128 GB
RAM	1 GB	1 GB
Battery	2100 mAh	2200 mAh
Price	$120	$192

Last year when I reviewed the Nokia Lumia 735, I found it to be the best mid-range Windows Phone on the market. I’ve found others that are on par with it, such as the Lumia 640 XL and the Yezz Billy 4.7; however, once I got my hands on the Lumia 735 again, I fell in love with it all over again.

You’ll also notice that the Lumia 735 has an f/1.9 aperture. It was the first phone to have such a large aperture, gaining little publicity for it. Certainly not the publicity that the Samsung Galaxy S6 got for being the second phone to have such a large aperture.

Now, LG makes a start in the Windows Phone 8.1 market. They can hold the title for making the first mainstream Windows Phone to use a 64 bit processor, the quad core Snapdragon 410. Windows Phone in its current form does not support 64 bit processors, so it’s currently running at 32 bit. We’re going to get into that later in the benchmark section, since we’ll see that the LG Lancet actually provides quite a bit better performance than the Microsoft Lumia 735.

LG Lancet vs Microsoft Lumia 735: Rear Camera

Normally, I tell people that specs are the least important thing about a smart phone camera. Software is the most important thing. That’s not necessarily the case here.

First, let’s start with the resolution, the most overrated feature of a smart phone. A 4K UHD display is 8.3 MP; however, if you take your photos at 4:3 (as you should), it’s between 5 and 6 MP. That means that anything above 6 MP has to be scaled down to fit the display, so there’s no difference in the resolution here, except that you’ll get just a bit more quality when you zoom in on the 8 MP photos taken with the LG Lancet than you will with the 6.1 MP photos taken with the Microsoft Lumia 735; however, if you don’t zoom or crop, the quality is the same, assuming your display is 4K or less.

Aperture is important. The aperture is the opening of the lens, so a larger aperture allows more light to enter the lens. The LG Lancet has one of the smallest apertures I’ve ever seen on a smart phone, so I’m not expecting great low light performance. The Microsoft Lumia 735 is f/1.9, so I’m expecting great low light performance.

One thing I was excited to see about the LG Lancet is that LG has their own camera app, LG Camera. Many brands that don’t make a lot of Windows Phones only use the stock Camera app. LG does not.

I did find that the LG Camera app is fairly slow while I was taking photos, so that is an issue. With most phones, as long as you tap to focus, the phone will snap the photo right away. The LG Lancet lags.

While the Microsoft Lumia 735 runs Windows Phone 8.1 Update 2 (as does the LG Lancet), it still uses Lumia Camera Classic, rather than the Lumia Camera 5 app that is used by the Lumia 640, 640 XL, 830, 930, Icon, and 1520. Because of this, we don’t have features like Rich Capture. This week, I’m going to be publishing a comparison of the two camera app because the pictures that they take are very different.

Please note that in order to enlarge the images, simply click or tap on them. Don’t tap on them if you don’t have a touchscreen. That won’t enlarge them. To view the full size image, there is a link in the carousel.

LG Lancet	Microsoft Lumia 735

I think it’s pretty clear that the rear camera is better on the Microsoft Lumia 735. One thing that people get mixed up when they see pictures like this is whether the Lumia 735 is oversaturated or the LG Lancet is washed out. I can assure you that it’s the LG Lancet that’s washed out.

The LG Lancet also doesn’t seem to focus very well. I also noticed that there’s a lot of lag in taking the photo, so that might have been a problem in focusing, since there’s not much stabilization.

Low light is also better on the Microsoft Lumia 735. That was expected due to the f/1.9 aperture on the Lumia 735, which is much larger than the f/2.7 aperture on the LG Lancet.

LG Lancet vs Microsoft Lumia 735: Front Camera

OK, the Microsoft Lumia 735 has a better front camera. That’s going to happen. The Lumia 735 has a 5 MP front camera, which is plenty. The LG Lancet uses a 0.3 MP front camera, which is pretty much good for Skype and nothing else.

Clearly, the Lumia 735 is much better. The one that sticks out to me is the second from the top. You notice that my face is very dark in the photo taken with the LG Lancet.

It’s funny that the Lumia 735 is known as (and advertised as) a selfie phone. A 5 MP front camera certainly doesn’t make something a selfie phone. One thing I can tell you is that the LG Lancet is not a selfie phone.

LG Lancet vs Microsoft Lumia 735: Benchmarks

OK, we’ve determined that the camera on the Microsoft Lumia 735 is far superior to the LG Lancet, but a camera isn’t all that makes up a phone. What about the rest?

Well, let’s start with the battery. The battery on the LG Lancet is 2100 mAh and the Lumia 735 is 2200 mAh. Since the Lumia 735 has such a higher resolution display, I would expect better battery life with the LG Lancet. Not the case.

I did two separate battery tests on the Lumia 735, one with a dark screen and one with a white screen, since the Microsoft Lumia 735 is AMOLED.

LG Lancet	Microsoft Lumia 735 Dark	Microsoft Lumia 735 Light

As it turns out, battery life is much better on the Microsoft Lumia 735. What’s more surprising is that there isn’t much of a difference between the light theme and the dark theme.

Next up is processor benchmarks. This is the last chance for the LG Lancet to outperform the Microsoft Lumia 735. I believe it will.

The Microsoft Lumia 735 uses a 1.2 GHz quad core Snapdragon 400 processor, which depresses me because all mid-range Lumias use this last generation lower mid-range processors. The LG Lancet uses a 1.2 GHz quad core Snapdragon 410.

Now those of us that know that there’s more to the story than cores and GHz know that these are two very different chipsets. For one thing, the Snapdragon 410 is 64 bit and the Snapdragon 400 is 32 bit; however, Windows Phone 8.1 doesn’t support 64 bit processors, so the LG Lancet is running at 32 bit until Windows 10 Mobile ships.

Then there’s the GPU. The Snapdragon 400 SoC (system on a chip) that Microsoft likes to use is paired with an Adreno 305 GPU. The Snapdragon 410 uses Adreno 306. The LG Lancet has a better GPU and a lower resolution display, which allows for more power.

There’s also the fact that the Snapdragon 410 has a better architecture than Snapdragon 400. The Snapdragon 410 is ARM Cortex A53 and the Snapdragon 400 is ARM Cortex A7.

So let’s have a look at the benchmarks.

LG Lancet	Microsoft Lumia 735

As we can see, the LG Lancet is much more powerful than the Microsoft Lumia 735, even running at 32 bit. I’ll be anxious to see if there’s performance improvements when Windows 10 Mobile ships.

So there you have it. The Microsoft Lumia 735 is probably the better overall phone, having a better rear camera, better front camera, and better battery life; however, the LG Lancet is more powerful and it’s 40% cheaper, so that really makes up for the difference. I’d call them even.