LG G4 review
LG's leather-wrapped G4 is no dominatrix, but it does dominate
Highs
- Bright screen with gorgeous contrast
- Excellent camera performance
- Shooting in RAW and Manual mode
- Removable battery and MicroSD card slot
- Leather battery cover rocks
Lows
- Still made of plastic
- UX features are a mixed bag
- Battery life is average
- Speaker quality is weak
The LG G4 is the best smartphone of 2015, and it’s camera is so good that it often outperforms the iPhone 6 Plus.
The Nexus 5 and G3 proved that LG could play with the big boys, and the G4 expands on that notion, improving features that optimize the user experience in tangible ways. With an impressive camera and more user-friendly software, the G4 makes a strong case for being the dark horse smartphone that could make waves and surprise many in 2015.
Curvy, not flexy
LG likes curves. Every phone it launches seems to stick to that design philosophy, and the G4 essentially maintains its predecessor’s overall look. The contoured back is the same angle, and while slightly taller and wider, the G4 doesn’t deviate from the angular top and bottom. The corners are less rounded and the edges slope outward just enough to give it a slightly inverted look upon closer inspection.Unlike Samsung, LG hasn’t abandoned plastic, nor a removable back. The back is made of a metal and plastic compound mixture, except it’s clear this cocktail is skewed toward the latter. A patterned design is etched into the metallic and ceramic backs to add some flair. Since gold is in vogue these days, LG got into the act and dipped into that as well, along with white and dark gray versions.
The removable back does serve more than a functional purpose for what lies underneath (battery, SIM and MicroSD), since it’s also used as a way to personalize and augment the phone’s appearance. The full grain leather battery covers are a stylish turn for LG — in a good way. At its launch event in New York, LG noted that it used the same vegetable tanning process for its leather that luxury brands like Louis Vuitton and Coach are known to use. Using full grain, rather than genuine leather, also makes the G4 is more durable, so fading and age give it character. Brown, black, beige, and sky blue versions are already confirmed, along with the yellow and crimson red versions shown in New York.
Related: LG G4 vs. Galaxy S6
Having all these back cover options means they can be swapped, so it would be no problem to buy a white G4 and tack on a blue leather battery cover later. My review unit didn’t include one, but after some hands-on time with a few of them in New York, I was impressed. The leather is smooth and silky soft. Every detail of the leather backing, right down to the stitching, is well executed. I would likely switch to the black one when given the chance, personally.
Under the hood
Playing it safe, LG opted not to go with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor, which has been dogged by concerns over excessive heating. Instead, it’s the Snapdragon 808 chip that’s inside — which is still a powerful hexa-core processor, though LG hasn’t really explained why it made the change other than to say the chipset is “optimized” for the G4’s features.
There’s no doubt the G4 is the best handset LG has made to date.
There
is 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage to help the cause, along
with a 16-megapixel rear camera with improved optical image
stabilization (OIS) and a color spectrum sensor – more on that later.
Interestingly, LG chose to go with a Micro SIM card slot, rather than
use the Nano SIM the iPhone and other Android
phone manufacturers are starting to embrace. There is also a MicroSD
slot (not present on competing phones) that is technically capable of
supporting up to 2TB cards.I don’t know if the Snapdragon 810 processor would’ve made a notable difference in the G4’s performance, but I had little to complain about with the 808. The phone is brisk, speedy, and dependable. I had no problem doing anything I would normally do on a smartphone. Streaming video was fine, downloading and uploading content was fine, and switching between multiple apps was fine. The phone did get a little hot, but never to a point where I had to question why.
Compared to the Samsung Galaxy S6, which uses an octa-core processor, I didn’t notice a drop in overall performance. Both were equally fluid in the same respects, so LG may, in fact, be on the right track in suggesting users wouldn’t notice anything unusual. It’s also easier to compare the two because neither relies on gimmicky features, like they did in the past. Hardline smartphone users may notice intricacies and quirks that might set the G4 back, but I suspect the average person will carry on without missing a beat.
If I did have something to point a finger at, it would be the speaker, found on the rear. It’s easily among the weakest links of the phone’s design, and while the G4’s curved back helps the sound escape when laid flat, fidelity is not in the same league as the HTC One M9.
Software
LG has taken a restrained approach to its software this year, like Samsung. Running on Google’s Android Lollipop 5.1 operating system out of the box, LG’s UX 4.0 user interface features are blended in so everything remains simple. The idea was to include features that make life with the phone easier. Some of LG’s better ideas include faster scrolling through the Gallery app and Event Pocket, an app that can unify calendars from various apps into one place. Those who live and die by their calendars may find this a convenient way to aggregate Facebook event invites with details that can be dragged and dropped from other messaging apps.Smart Notice is supposed to be more personalized and contextual, offering more than simple weather and traffic updates. By learning my habits, it would ostensibly know that I don’t have to commute to work (I work from home), and prioritize weather and phone usage alerts instead. Perhaps it needed more time to get to know me, because I found it to be too predictable every day, regardless of where I was or what I was doing.
The Quick Help widget is found as a question mark next to Smart Notice. It’s designed to be a mini search engine for the G4 itself, but for whatever reason, none of the queries I tried yielded results. Simple things like “calendar” and “color spectrum” drew blanks.
This might be the best smartphone camera
The G4’s camera is unquestionably its crowning feature — And it should be, considering that it sports a 16-megapixel sensor, an f/1.8 aperture lens with OIS 2.0 built-in, and a color spectrum sensor. The latter feature is unique to smartphones, and its purpose is to measure the ambient lighting conditions from both the source of the light and where objects are reflected in the scene. This is on top of the sensor’s ability to capture more realistic color tones.
The G4 has one of the best smartphone cameras on the planet.
These
features, coupled with the excellent controls in Manual mode, give the
G4 one of the best smartphone cameras on the planet. Focusing is very
quick, particularly when conditions are bright enough for the lens and
sensor to lock on. The Depth of field capturing is impressive, despite
the lack of any real optical zoom. And yes, color composition is superb,
producing not only vibrant images, but consistently good ones that
maintain their tonality after being transferred or shared.Low-light shooting is perhaps the best available on any smartphone at this point and time, but there is a catch. LG keeps things basic with three distinct shooting modes: Simple, Auto, and Manual. The first two are very similar, except that Auto shows the heads-up display options. White balance, ISO, and shutter are automatically chosen, like any other smartphone camera does. LG claims that users can still expect better results because the color spectrum sensor is still doing its thing. This is generally true, but to fully appreciate what the camera and sensor are capable of, it’s best to learn the Manual mode.
The photos the G4 captured were impressive across the board. Being able to shoot in RAW was even better, given how much extra detail the sensor was able to take in.
Video capture in 4K or 1080p is fine. You can’t really tinker with image settings before shooting a clip though. I tried to set up a low-light video clip by toggling the different metrics, but once I tap record, everything went automatic, so it was all for naught.
Battery life
Samsung got some flak for not going with a removable battery, whereas LG may earn praise for sticking with it. That’s subjective, of course, since replacing a battery isn’t something every user feels the need to do. The 3,000mAh battery inside performs well enough, but I wouldn’t consider it to exceptionally good. Basic usage saps little, but once more intensive tasks come into play, the juice starts dripping noticeably.Not to say that the G4 guzzles battery life because it’s not that bad, it’s only that intensive tasks seem to take more out of the processor than LG lets on. For example, streaming video remotely via Plex chomped on my battery life by a noticeable margin. Even when I initially set up the phone, I lost 20 percent in less than two hours because of everything that had to be downloaded and installed. Overall performance is fine, but for very intense processes, the G4 fares no better than its competitors.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt the G4 is the best handset LG has made to date, not just because of the components, but also because of the thoughtfulness that went into it. Little things, like a brighter screen with better contrast, prettier interface, and useful software tweaks, stood out because I interacted with them every day. For me, the curved back and edges made it easier to pick up the phone off the table, as well, and hold it. The Knock On double tap to wake from sleep has always been a useful feature. Double pressing the volume down button to instantly launch the camera was great for snapping selfies.I can forgive the plastic design because real leather is an alternative. If not for that, I would dock LG for taking the easy way out. Using real leather in a way that doesn’t cut corners sends the right message, much like the other moves made with the G4. Whether or not consumers will take it to heart and splurge for the G4 is going to be interesting to watch, but we haven’t been this impressed with a smartphone, and it’s camera, for some time.
Highs
- Bright screen with gorgeous contrast
- Excellent camera performance
- Shooting in RAW and Manual mode
- Removable battery and MicroSD card slot
- Leather battery cover rocks
Lows
- Still made of plastic
- UX features are a mixed bag
- Battery life is average
- Speaker quality is weak
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