LG G4 - More than a refresh?
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,852 words · ~9 min read
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phones you know what I love about them I love how they fit perfectly in that
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handy little pocket in the front of my box or shorts for storage the pleasing
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vibration sensation from incoming calls is more important than reproduction
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anyway and furthermore oh sorry just a secondus minus that's not a pocket what
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that's not a pocket no there's not enough space what do you mean there's not supposed to even be enough space in
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there to store a phone well maybe you just have a very small problem going on
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down there hey
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Corsair delivers real MEC or nothing with their new strafe mechanical
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keyboard featuring genuine german-made cherrymx key switches click right here
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to learn more I don't really know where to start with the LG G4 so I guess I'll
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lead with a drop a like if you want to see me take my electric unicycle review
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to the next level by adding aerial footage to the selfie stick footage we
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already have and I think that's all the stalling I can get away with here's the
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problem I usually sit down to script my review with two or even four pages of
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notes mostly complaints for a mobile device video Point form today I have
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half a page which is actually a really good sign for the G4 which I've been
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using as my daily driver for a little over a week so let's kick off with specs
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and I'll start with the processor controversy the G4 is a $600 phone off
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contract so it has the top-of-the-line qualcom Snapdragon 810 CPU right wrong
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while it's unclear whether the reason was one of cost reduction or one of
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thermal control LG has opted for a Snapdragon 808 which features the same 4
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a53 cores for lower power background tasks but two fewer high performance a57
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cores something that in theory damages performance in heavily multi-threaded
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workloads but based on some fascinating
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testing done by Android authority may actually not affect real world results
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that much thanks to the 808's far lesser
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thermal throttling the rest of this phone is pretty standard Fair though on
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paper at least adreno 418 GPU 3 gigs of
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ddr3l memory 32 gigs of internal storage
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Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the 5.5 in
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IPS display active noise cancellation for phone calls a 16 megapix rear and 8
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megapix self camera a 3,000 mAh battery
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with Quick Charge 2.0 allowing a 60% charge in about half an hour dualband AC
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Wi-Fi and an FM tuner which I see I got
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you there the FM tuner is a little unusual these days actually but some
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folks will appreciate it specifically those with low cap data plans who don't
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want to use the micro SD expansion slot to hold up to 128 gigs of extra music or
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anything else and yes that is another one under the removable backing which is
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available in plastic and leather other options not to mention the of course
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dbrand skinned one that we have on ours is the aforementioned SD slot contact
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points for optional Chi wireless charging rear plates and ah that 3,000
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milliamp battery is removable something we used to take for granted on the
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Android side but that Samsung did away with on the Galaxy S6 and as we dig away
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under the skin of the G4 we can actually find some other things that make it more
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than just another G3 for starters while
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the G3 had a 1440p IPS display I
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criticized it at the time because there were phones with 1080p displays that
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smoked the G3 in spite of its extra resolution in important use case
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scenarios like standing Outdoors thanks to their high contrast ratios not this
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time the G4 screen has gotten some serious upgrades including integrating
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the touchscreen and LCD panel into a single layer for better color
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reproduction and utiliz in quantum display technology not to be confused
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with quantum dot which requires a separate layer and thicker bezel to
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improve color reproduction with LG quoting 98% DCI coverage increase image
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brightness substantially and crank contrast to the point where I forgot
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sometimes that I wasn't using an AMOLED display all of this without affecting
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battery life and it looks really good I
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still don't think 1440p is necessary in a handheld but at least besides the
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extra strain on the GP to power it in games and whatnot there is no drawback
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now so let's talk day-to-day use ergonomics of the phone are a strong
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point considering its size I generally have trouble with anything above 5 in if
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you know what I mean but it seems like I'm not the only one out there who feels
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like whether it's by Merit of its gently curved shape oh yeah I guess I forgot to
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mention that the screen is very subtly curved or the positioning of all of the
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physical buttons so up down and lock on
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the rear of the phone it's some how less unwieldly for me than most 5 and 1/2 in
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devices and we probably have to give LG's Optimus ux software layer some of
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the credit here though some stuff like double touching to wake which really
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does help with the size has been so well
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received that others have adopted it and
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while there's definitely more bloat than even Samsung's latest iteration of touch
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whz I didn't find any of it particularly objectionable in no particular order I
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liked the contextual information smart notice widget on the home screen
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by default it's visible enough to be convenient with weather upcoming
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birthdays contact suggestions and other updates but not so in your face that
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it's annoying the clipboard for copy pasting is awesome the accessibility
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options continue to be outstanding for LG dual window is Handy for multitasking
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and little touches like smart settings let you customize some behaviors like
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Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on and off if you want but otherwise completely stay out
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of the way and you don't have to to look at them at all and additionally most
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importantly I didn't notice any performance chugging which used to be my
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primary complaint about these skins so kudos for that and on the subject of
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Kudos let's get into the best thing about the phone finally the camera check
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out this selfie I took yeah baby what a great C no sorry while the front-facing
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camera is actually good and that selfie aside from the stupid face I making is a
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pretty good one it's the rear camera that truly rocks here it's laser focus
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mechanism and built-in color spectrum sensor enable the GeForce 16 megapixel
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camera to consistently nail the most
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important things about cell phone camera pictures focus and white balance giving
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surprisingly great results in auto mode but throwing in raw shooting and then
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surprisingly fine manual control for the shutter bugs out there as well and while
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I could criticize the camera apps slow
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startup time uh double touching volume down to launch the camera is good and
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video recording it just took a picture
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and video recording is excellent as well
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the preview window is very fluid and doesn't resize when you switch modes and
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thanks to three-axis image stabilization it's surprisingly easy to get Rock Solid
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footage out of it with all the usual modes including Ultra HD at 30fps and
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slow-mo supported so the conclusion here
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is pretty simple the G4 does a lot of things right and did nothing to offend
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me the horrendous rear-facing speaker notwithstanding unlike Samsung and Apple
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LG doesn't have their own Flagship class mobile processor design so the G4 uses
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an off-the-shelf debatably not top tier
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CPU but honestly I felt like phones have been fast enough for a while now and it
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never felt like an issue to me the whole time I was using the device so congrats
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LG the G4 wins a recommendation for me
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as long as its buyers are willing to accept the relatively plasticky build
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quality that comes with the flexibility of a replaceable
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battery and on the subject of the replaceable battery some of you are
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probably wondering what exactly that sexy carbon fiber skin that I have on
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the back of the phone in all of our b-roll is that my friends is a Precision
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cut skin from dbrand Skins there are
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buds over there and man do they ever do a great job of these things you know the
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funny thing about it is is my first dbrand spot that I ever did I was
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talking about how how precisely they managed to get the fit so that it really
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did look like a piece of the phone and remarkably they have actually managed to
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improve it quite a bit since then as you guys probably noticed in the b-roll you
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canot see the seam in spite of the fact
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that that vinyl wrap actually doesn't even go around the edge of the back
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plate it stops right at the edge of it you just cannot find the seam once you
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put the phone together so if you guys are interested in check checking out
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some of the cool stuff they do whether it's for phones tablets they even do
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laptops game consoles game controllers head over to the link in the video
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description so check out dbrand.com and
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uh yeah pick it up they're actually very reasonably priced and they're Canadian
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companies so of course we love our Canadian Canadian Bros actually didn't
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realize they were Canadian until sometime into the relationship and I was
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like oh no way they're in Toronto and it was awkward because I was in Toronto and
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he was like hey why didn't you visit us I was like yeah so there you
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go so I guess that's pretty much it guys if you disliked the video bam I think
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