Gadgetory

what's up guys lon here from Android authority and the LG g5 is the successor to last year's g4 but it's really nothing like it for the most part the g5 is a completely different phone altogether and a lot of that has to do with the design now there's been a lot of controversy or confusion about the design of the g5 a lot of people are really curious if the phone is even really made of metal or is it made of plastic or a combination of the two the truth is the phone is made of metal it's a diecast unibody design but it's undergone LG secret treatment process that they call micro dicing which essentially puts a layer of primer and paint on the body of the phone sort of the same way a car or a plane gets painted that is basically what has happened here with the g5 so when you hold the phone you're not actually touching bare metal you're not going to get that same cold feel when picking it up in the morning like you would with a lot of other metal phones but the coating also makes the phone a lot less slippery in the hand the main benefit of the micro dicing process is that it allows LG to make the phone appear a lot more seamless so instead of having large plastic antenna lines running across the backside LG has been able to hide all that and the only places where you actually see plastic is along the chamfered edges which is a lot more inconspicuous than having large plastic antenna lines running across the back which can typically break up the continuity of a smart phones design LG definitely had some good intentions with this micro dicing process but if there was one drawback to it I would say it's the way it makes the phone feel because you aren't directly touching the metal or aluminum it doesn't feel like a metal phone so you don't really get to fully enjoy the fact that it is made of metal it's kind of like having a metal phone inside of a protective case and it's just something you have to wrap your head around when holding the g5 the overall build quality is still pretty top-notch though it's got a nice weight to it it's comfortable to hold and it's smaller than last year's g4 due to a smaller display which makes it a little easier to use in one hand the power button is still located on the backside in typical LG fashion but you'll notice the volume rockers have been moved back to a more traditional location on the left side which I personally like better because you can adjust the volume of the phone without having to pick it up off a desk anymore I just wish they weren't quite so flush with the body of the phone because it makes them a little harder to press and find by feel the power button also doesn't have the most satisfying click it feels very uneven and mushy and it's honestly one of the least premium feeling parts about this phone it does however double as a fingerprint scanner and the fingerprint scanner feels very Nexus like it only takes five to six taps to register a fingerprint and unlike other phones that use a power button or a home button as the fingerprint scanner you don't actually have to press the power button in order for it to read your fingerprint it'll unlock as soon as you rest your finger on it and it does it pretty quickly and accurately - on the bottom of the phone is a USB type-c port so that's nice to see especially for a mainstream flagship and flanking that is a microphone and a single bottom firing speaker speaker quality is actually pretty good it doesn't compare to front-facing speakers or anything but it's loud and produces a clean sound even at max volume and is one of the better single speakers I've heard on a smartphone in a long while the g5 isn't going to win any awards for the way that it looks but the g5 isn't about being the best looking phone it's about what this phone can actually do that makes it unique even though it's a unibody design you still have expandable storage built into the SIM tray for up to an additional 200 gigabytes and the bottom chin pops off with a simple press of a button allow you to remove and swap batteries on the fly this removable bottom chin also makes the g5 one of the first modular smartphones to hit the mainstream and it's really the most compelling part about this phone what the g5 LG is introducing what they like to call friends because not all these components are actually modules some connect directly to the bottom of the phone and some connect via bluetooth and there's only a handful of these friends right now but there should be more coming in the future right now the only module components are the camera grip which gives you physical controls for launching the camera taking a photo and zooming in and out it also gives you an extra 1,200 milliamp hours worth of battery life on top of the standard g5 battery the only downside to this camera grip is that it adds bulk and makes a g5 uncomfortable to use as a phone the other module is a hi-fi audio DAC that LG teamed up with B&O to produce for higher quality audio when using headphones this doesn't add bulk to the g5 in terms of width but it does make the g5 a slightly taller phone other friends for the g5 include a VR headset and a 360 degree camera that lets you take 16 megapixel 360 degree photos or 360 degree video and 2k resolution the display as I mentioned earlier is a smaller this year at 5.3 inches but it's large enough that things like YouTube movies and playing games is still a very enjoyable experience it's an IPS LCD with same resolution of 2560 by 1440 like last year's g4 it is slightly sharper due to the higher pixel density from the smaller screen but otherwise it's a pretty typical display that you would expect from LG it's super bright and easily visible outdoors the viewing angles are really nice and the color reproduction looks pretty spot-on they're vibrant without being overly saturated and the whites on this display are a very pure shade of white which is something I noticed about it almost immediately the g5 also carries an always-on display similar to the v10 but instead of a separate tiny display it's been incorporated into the main screen it doesn't have a ton of functionality but it can show you the clock incoming notifications or a signature or random message the problem with it is it's not very bright so if you're outdoors it's practically invisible this is probably due to the fact that it's an LCD and LG had to keep the brightness low to help conserve battery life with this being one of LG's biggest flagships of the year you can of course expect to get the latest and greatest specs so inside it's got the Snapdragon 820 Adreno 530 and 4 gigabytes of RAM and performance has been really snappy and fast the animations are buttery smooth it loads apps quickly multitask and plays high-end games extremely well I haven't noticed its phone slowing down whatsoever and it's probably one smooth its performing phones that LG has ever put out when playing games for extended periods of time or other heavy tasks it does eventually get warm to the touch especially with that metal body but it was nothing out of the ordinary or anything to get alarmed about and as far as regular everyday use it keeps its cool just fine as far as battery life goes it's got a 2800 milliamp hour battery inside which is a decent size although with flagships I typically like to see at least 3000 milliamp hours or larger but it's been enough to get the job done I'm not getting the greatest screen on time numbers what's green on time ranging anywhere between 3 to 4 hours but with normal usage I can comfortably make it through a full day without hunting for a charger midway through the day it does have Qualcomm quick charge 3.0 which makes it really easy to fill up or top off but even better than that is the fact that the battery can still be swapped out for a fresh one if you really want to take your phone from em to full as quickly as possible even with this revamp design and change in build quality it's pretty awesome that LG still managed to figure out a way to keep the core features of their smartphone intact so last year LG did a dual camera setup with the v10 on the front facing cameras but this year LG decided to bring that dual setup to the rear of the g5 the main lens is a 16 megapixel sensor with optical image stabilization and an aperture of f-18 and the second camera is a wide-angle 8 megapixel sensor at F 2.4 the wide-angle camera is easily by far my favorite thing about the g5 it's totally awesome and a lot of fun and even though it's lower resolution than the main sensor I actually found myself using it more because I just love how the photos turn out and you can really see how much of a difference it makes over the standard angle of the main camera you can easily switch between the two cameras within the software by either tapping the two icons on the top of the camera interface or it'll automatically switch cameras for you when zooming in and out the camera software is still pretty much the same as it was on the g4 or the v10 you can keep it as simple as you want with a simple or auto modes or if you want full DSLR light controls over the settings such as white balance ISO and shutter speed you can still do that with the manual mode picture quality has pretty much been exactly what I expected from a company like LG the photos from the g5 are some of the sharpest and most well detailed photos you can get from a smartphone the color reproduction is very pleasing to the eye and with that F 1.8 aperture you can get some really clean looking depth of field especially with close-ups or macro shots there doesn't seem to be a ton of crazy over sharpening going on but I do notice that the camera has a tendency to really crush shadows in a lot of daytime shots but the HDR mode does a solid job of compensating for that it also doesn't over saturate the colors so pictures still come out looking pretty natural low-light performance is decent but it's definitely not the best that I've seen it can over expose a lot with the highlights and there's a very noticeable amount of noise reduction going on especially in nighttime shots also because the g5 doesn't have that laser autofocus anymore it doesn't focus quite as quickly in low-light as far as the front-facing camera goes it's an 8 megapixel sensor with F 2.0 aperture and it takes pretty good selfies whether it be during the day or at night if you're into that sort of thing now the software is actually pretty interesting it's running Android 6.0 marshmallow with LG's usual skin but it's changed quite a bit for the g5 and is probably the cleanest and least intrusive that LG's UI has ever been it's got a much nicer looking color scheme with the white and light green colored accents in the notification shade and Settings menu by default the settings menu is still a four panel setup that have always found difficult to navigate but LG gives you the option this time around to switch to a more traditional ListView that falls in line more with what you normally get on stock Android many of LG's features like smart bulletin and qslide apps are all still baked in but they're not quite as in-your-face as before and smart bulletin is actually off by default but they are there if you dig deep enough into the settings to look for them one feature that LG got rid of is the dual window feature which was kind of a strange decision since a lot of people really like that feature but considering that Android and will be bringing this feature natively it may not be that big of a deal the biggest change the LG software is the lack of an app drawer with a new launcher which makes it feel more iOS like and if you've never used an Android phone without an app drawer before you might find it to be a little bit jarring at first obviously if you don't like this change you can easily swap it out with a third-party launcher like the Google now launcher or if you want to stick purely to LG software LG recently released their home 4.0 launcher that's available for download in the smart world application to bring back the app drawer pricing for the LG g5 is pretty typical for a flagship smartphone it ranges anywhere between six to seven hundred dollars off contract depending on carrier with options to finance the cost through each respective carrier the g5 is a step in a completely new direction for LG it offers a brand new metal design a very impressive dual camera setup and it's modular capabilities makes it one of the most unique smartphones we've seen in a long time while other manufacturers are focused purely on making a good smartphone LG wanted to create a product that stood out and they've certainly been able to do that without sacrificing features like expandable storage and a removable battery so even though this is a very different phone from what we've seen from LG in the past they've still managed to stay true to themselves but the most intriguing part about the g5 isn't what it's capable of doing now but rather what it's capable of doing in the future and that alone makes the g5 one very compelling smart phone as always thank you guys so much for watching this video I hope you enjoyed this review of the LG g5 if you did please give it a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and check us out on social media like Twitter snapchat Instagram all that good stuff and check me out on Twitter as well all of that is linked down below and if you want to see more hear from us at Android Authority make sure to check out the website at Android or D calm because we are your source for all things Android