LG G4 Review
Introduction
Here is my review of the new LG G4 after a few weeks using it. The review was done on an LG supplied device as part of their Try LG G4 program ahead of its full launch recently. I’ve tried to focus on the main points of the device, without being too technical as most people don’t/won’t care about that.
This is an extension of my first impressions piece I posted when I first received the phone.
Apologies this has taken so long for me to post from my initial 1st impressions, a busy work life has impacted on me actually getting this done!
Camera
After having opportunity to spend more time with the camera, I’d say it’s the best smartphone camera I’ve had the pleasure of using. It’s in no way ever going to replace an SLR, there’s no point in even making that comparison, but they say the best camera is the one you have on you, so for most people it’ll suffice.
The camera app itself launches very quickly, and can even be launched with a double tap of the volume down button on the back of the phone. The default behaviour for this is to automatically take a photo, but this can happily be turned off to prevent you from having to forever delete photos of your finger/legs/the floor.
An interesting feature for those selfie taking people out there, you can use a hand gesture to trigger the camera, show your palm to the camera, then make a fist and then release. This will then trigger a 3 second timer before the photo is taken.
Screen
The G4 has a great screen, bright enough to use on a sunny day outdoors and offers up really good reproductions of videos and pictures you have taken. That being said, I’m not sold on why anyone would need a screen resolution as high as 1440x2560 pixels (or 2K), especially on a screen of this size, Samsung are just as guilty of this on the S6, but that has an even smaller display! Personally I find a 1080p display more than good enough, HTC & Sony’s recent phones are a good example of this, and had LG gone with just 1080p it would have increased the battery life significantly. Which brings me nicely onto…
Battery life
The G4 is comes with a 3000mAh battery, this compares to the Samsung S6 with 2550mAh, and the HTC One M9 with 2840mAh. Basically the bigger the number, the more power the battery can store. I can’t comment on the battery lives of the other 2 phones mentioned, as I’ve not used them, but the G4 will last a whole day of the charger, I mostly ended up with around 20% at the end of the day, mixed use, music through Spotify, using a Bluetooth stereo headset, videos on YouTube, Twitter etc., taking photos and using Waze on the commute to and from work. Compare this to my Nexus 5 and I could barely get to the end of my work day before I’d need to plug the thing in…
Added to the fact you can change the battery yourself, as it’s removable, and the phone supports quick charging (although the supplied charger doesn’t, which seems a bit daft), and you shouldn’t find yourself being caught short with a low battery.
Software
After using the phone for a few weeks I found that some of LG’s changes to Android could be a little grating. The main one is how they’ve changed the notification shade (the bit you pull down from the top of the screen). On other Android phones I’ve used, this is normally a 2 stage process, first you get your notifications, pull down again and you get the power/radio toggles etc. LG have decided you want this information all the time, so you only ever the get the full blown version, which has the side effect of pushing any notifications all the way down the screen, so they start around half way down. The 2nd one is mainly cosmetic, but annoys me anyway. The ‘toast’ notifications are some weird bright blue colour, with white text on them.
Hardware
I like the build of the device, and the size, considering it’s 5.5 inch screen, is not much bigger than the Sony Xperia Z3. However, I cannot get used to the power button and volume control being on the back of the phone. Even after using it for nearly a month now, it just irritates me (and makes it really difficult to do anything with the volume when it’s in the car holder). You can double tap the screen to turn the device on and off, which mitigates the issue somewhat, but the double tap to turn off only works when using the LG launcher, and then only from the home screen. I did think I’d get used to it quickly, but I didn’t and haven’t, and for me it would be a deal breaker as far as considering this as a purchase, which is a real shame as I really like it otherwise…
The phone feels pretty snappy in day to day use, I didn’t notice any lag whilst using it so the processor is certainly up to the job of running the show without any issues.
Storage is 32Gb, and you can add your own microSD card (up to 128Gb).
Multimedia (Video and Audio playback)
For media consumption, this phone is great. Watching videos on the display is a pleasant experience, I myself watched a few films from my UltraViolet catalogue on a couple of train journeys I’ve made recently.
My phone didn’t come with a wired headset, so I’m not sure what sort of quality these would be, but they did give me a swanky LG Infinium HBS-900 stereo Bluetooth headset to test and aside from lacking a little in the bass department, the audio reproduction was good. The phone supports apt-X, which allows for better audio when listening over Bluetooth, should the headset you’re using support it. Most of the music I listened to was streamed from Spotify using their Extreme Quality setting.
Overall
I really like the LG G4, and if it wasn’t for the odd (in my option) rear button placement I could easily use this as a day to day phone. If you think you can (or already have for G2 and G3 users) get your head around the buttons on the back then go for it. You should easily get a whole days use out of it with normal day to day use, and if you can’t then you can buy an extra battery and swap it out when necessary, which is a good option to have.
I’ve not had chance to see it with a leather back so unfortunately can’t comment on those, but I’d imagine it would give a premium feel to the device, and make it look even better.
Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try and answer them for you.
