LG G6 quasi-review

[Mira Yurizaki]

I recently got an LG G6 and spent a few days with it. While it would be better to give it another few days, I feel like the phone's given me 90% of the impression it needed to give me to say things about it. Like the review I did on the Sony Bravia XBR49X800D, I won't go over any technical aspects in detail or any benchmarks. There's a dozen reviews out there already on the G6 to cover those aspects if you wanted. What I want to cover are the takeaways I got so far.

 

As a starting reference, my last phone was the LG G4.

 

Build Quality

I feel like I've been living under a rock because this is the first smartphone that I've purchased with a metal frame. Well, technically second if you count that week stint I had with an iPhone 5S. The strange thing is I can feel a difference and to me it feels like a "glass brick." I say that endearingly though, because the phone does feel solid and you could hurt someone if you chucked it at them. But weight wise, it doesn't feel any different from the G4. Overall though, I don't have any nit-picky things to say other than when I first saw it, I sort of scoffed it as copying the iPhone in terms of industrial design.

 

But hey, the iPhone works. More or less.

 

Setting up

This was one of the things that I had a hiccup with, and it's mostly due to Verizon, my carrier. Despite reporting a good signal to the cell network, it wouldn't activate until I rebooted the phone and tried again. Otherwise, the setup procedure was more or less painless. I had to keep my other phone on though since Google 2FA is always fun and I have the authenticator on the G4. However, transferring control of the authenticator from the G4 to the G6 wasn't all that bad. Ditto with the Microsoft one I have too.

 

One thing I thought was handy was that the OS knew what apps I installed on the G4, so it redownloaded them. Since I don't have anything back up to Google or Verizon, any data they did have was still on the G4. But that was solved with a native backup utility.

 

Android User Experience

I suppose this is where other reviewers would talk about the stock home app and whatnot, but I use Nova Launcher, and you can find a dozen videos on LG's UX 6.0. Ditto with the keyboard (I stick with GBoard... as it's called now). And I don't believe Android N (7.0) has had any major UI changes aside from notifications (Part of me misses the button for "Clear All"). So what can I talk about here?

• Aside from the iPhone 5S, this is my first time with a phone that had a fingerprint reader. I must say it's nice and simplifies things a bit. Getting it to read your fingerprint is a bit awkward though, since it wants your finger pad, sides, and tip and trying to look at what it wants while pressing your finger against the sensor can be an exercise. It took me a few tries to get it to read the fingers I want to use. But once you have it set up, it's very quick. As soon as I press my finger against it, it quickly scans it and within less than a second the phone's up.
  • I probably missed the memo, but using a fingerprint seems to be integrated for logging into certain apps as well. Maybe this was an Android 6.0 feature. But hey, it makes logging into those apps easier.
  • Also in some sense, the feature I can deal without. I assigned my Fitbit Blaze as a trusted device, so as long as it's next to the phone, I can swipe to unlock.
• I haven't really noticed any hiccups or slowdowns, despite Settings telling me the phone somehow has used 3.5GB out of the 4GB of RAM.
• I do like the comfort view mode where it lowers the blue lighting, but I wish you could set a schedule.
• I've yet to use Google Assistant for anything. I rarely used Google Now.

One thing of concern is that I couldn't find an option to encrypt the device, only my SD Card, and there's nothing that tells me the phone can be encrypted or is encrypted.

 

That taller screen

Within minutes of using it, I looked at the G4 and immediately went "something's off..." in a bad way against the G4. The one thing I do like having the taller screen for is it allows your keyboard to take up less relative space. This sometimes becomes a problem with chat programs or some websites I use. Most of the apps I've used support the wider/taller aspect ratio by default, and I think anything built with Material Design should. The only applications that are hit and miss are of course, games. Well, and videos. The screen's brightness is good as well. I can keep it at about 20%-40% indoors. I haven't really tried outdoor reading, but in the shade, 40% seems to work well.

 

It does support HDR, but it's about as good as my TV's, which is considered "entry level" for that feature. Speaking of which, it handled my "Gold standard" 4K HDR video with no frame drops, except for a second or two in the beginning.  That video by the way is no slouch. On top of being 4K HDR, it's 60FPS with a bitrate of up to 80Mbps (I wonder how it'll fare with my 400 Mbps "why" sample).

 

Oh, and there is one thing that the phone's screen does that every phone needs to do: be readable in every orientation with polarized sunglasses. I can view the phone with polarized sunglasses either in portrait or landscape mode!

 

Thermals

This is an important aspect I'm finding more and more. If your phone starts to get too warm to use, it becomes a problem

• The only time it got hot was during the initial set up when it was trying to download the internet.
• I've noticed at times the phone is running noticeably cooler for the same tasks that I do on my G4. Especially for games. Though this might be either because the G4 had trouble toning down clock speed or the Snapdragon 808 really sucked.
• Speaking of which, where I work has a spotty cellular zone. With the G4, it would warm up a bit if I tried to do get anything from the internet if it wasn't getting a good signal. The G6 doesn't seem to do this.
• Yes I know the G6 has a heat pipe, but the difference I'm talking about feels around 10C, if I were to take a stab at it. I don't think a puny heat pipe should be able to do that... but what do I know?

Battery Life

I think this is unfair coming from a phone with a little over a year under its belt and I really only had one day of "typical" use with it. After taking it to work with me, it survived with a little under 50% left on the battery. Keep in mind, this was also with the cellular network cutting in and out. The G4 would've dropped down to 20%-30% by that point. It looks like the "Doze" mode is working as advertised. Also running 3DMark Cloud Gate on battery, I noticed the CPU didn't crank up to full speed until the physics test (my battery life dropped about 1-2% from it).

 

As a point of reference to my "typical" usage, it involves a few minutes here and there of checking emails, Skype messages, and the occasional Facebook. The chat room in my Skype can get pretty... chatty.

 

Speaking of which, I ordered a few things to help with my transition to USB Type C, including a few Micro B to Type C adapters and a charging dock. One of the concerns I had was if the charging would still be good or if LG's Fast Charge still works. And much to my surprise, I can use the phone's charger with the adapters and it'll say it's Fast Charging.

 

Camera

This is where I'm a little hesitant to say I had a "sidegrade". The G6's camera is definitely not an upgrade to the G4's. For one it's missing the laser autofocus, for another it has a smaller resolution with a smaller sensor. The camera software also seems to be hit and miss with the auto feature. But that may just be a problem with any phone. The one thing that is a major feature that I like is the wide-angle lens.

 

However, I feel like I should keep my G4 around just because I feel like its camera and software is just a hair above the G6's. Though if I wanted to take a wide-angle shot, the G6 will win hands down.

 

How about that Galaxy S8?

I got to play around with the S8 at a Verizon Store while I was seeing if they had any G6 accessories. I don't really care for Samsung in particular, but I can tell you from my "if I had a fresh set of eyes" opinion of the G6 vs S8 is I would take the G6. I found the side swipe feature gimmicky and the more trapezoidal shape of the phone weird. Plus the finger print reader is in a spot that doesn't make sense at best, forces a particular hand orientation (i.e., it's only useful for left handed use) at worst. It's also up in the air whether or no the Snapdragon 835 will be worth the wait since the 821 is still plenty fast for today's applications. It might give you better battery life, but if you're already reaching for the charger or a power pack by mid day, it won't help.

 

Overall takeaway

If you're shopping for a new Android flagship now, I'd say take the LG G6.

[The Sloth]

before buying any LG phone i suggest everyone wait, lg has been known for multiple issues such as bootloop( really big one that plagued lgg4, lgg5,lg v10, few v20, leg flex line), gps, screen light bleed and lots more.