Gadgetory

hey guys this is Bailey Stein with Android Authority and today we'll be checking out the first affordable smartphone with an 18 by 9 display so this is the LG q6 you can think of it as a g6 mini as it takes much of what we love about the flagship g6 and puts it in a slightly smaller more affordable package the most exciting aspect of the q6 is undoubtedly the display I mean just look at it LG's full vision technology makes for minimal bezels on each side of the display until now displays with 18 by 9 aspect ratios and curved corners were reserved for much more expensive models the q6 display isn't just a winner and looks to as it makes the phone more compact and thus easier to hold the 5.5 inch 1080p IPS panel is a small step down from the G sixes by 0.7 inches but it's just enough to make the q6 organ amak while still having a large display you're really getting the best of both worlds here the display itself is better than we expected to contrast color reproduction and saturation are all great sunlight readability isn't the best but it's about as good as you're going to get unless you spend more you won't have to spend more for a nice design though at least not with the q6 the q6 shares many premium design elements with the g6 including a metal frame glossy back and solid build quality that doesn't mean that there aren't any compromises though this time around the glossy back is plastic instead of glass plastic has some advantages but here it scratches unbelievably easily this isn't a huge deal though is you can always just by a third party case a more significant compromise is the lack of the fingerprint reader when pretty much every other phone has a fingerprint reader even at this price we have to question LG's judgment the supposin substitute to this is face recognition but it's sadly doesn't work well in practice the future stops working when you're in a dark room recently shaved your face or even styled your hair differently you can get the q6 unlocked in either single or dual sim variants either way you'll get a microSD card slot in case the phone's built-in 32 gigabytes isn't enough LG chose to place the q6 of speaker on the back a somewhat odd choice given the size position on the g6 the speaker sounds really distorted too so you want to stick to headphones also not Lots though as there is still a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack so you won't have to mess around with dongles strangely the q6 uses microUSB instead of USB type-c a reversible standard that has been around for two years now that made it difficult for us to use the q6 day to day since we fully transitioned to the new standard those who haven't though might appreciate this well LG is an advertising fast charging on the q6 we were able to charge from zero to 50 percent in 45 minutes since our review unit does not support 4G LTE in the US we had to conduct our battery life test on 3G which likely inflated the results still you can expect about four hours of screen on time with a full day of moderate use that's pretty good but not all that surprising given that it's using a low end power efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 the 435 is pretty low-end but hey it's better than some mediatek chips out there combined with three gigabytes of RAM the LG q6 is still a very capable performer day to day you probably won't notice it's slightly slower performance unless you compare it directly to a more expensive phone you will notice a difference with a 13 megapixel app 2.2 rear camera though as the saying goes you get what you pay for one of the main issues we experience is the camera slower speed to capture images this caused some serious motion blur and some of our sample shots if you manage to keep a very steady hand during the capture though you can get some decent looking images color reproduction is very good and there's a good level of detail dynamic range could be better but it's no worse than competing options if you're just snapping the occasional pic for social media this camera will be just fine with that said if you take a lot of important photos you may want to consider spending a bit more for something better the camera really struggles in low-light as is typical at this price there's a bunch of digital noise and color reproduction takes a considerable hit you can record videos at up to 1080p but video quality is not very good so please don't turn out very well either frankly the 5 megapixel F 2.2 front-facing camera produces blurry and poorly colored shots moving on to software the LG q6 ships with Android 7 point 1.1 Newgate with LG's UX 6.0 layered on top so you're getting the same exact software that's on the flagship LG g6 if you've used LG's UX recently you'll know that it's not that different from stock Android it's a very clean experience with only a few minor design tweaks to keep things fresh for example there's no app drawer by default the settings menu is organized by tabs and system apps have their own designs you can really take advantage of the q6 this 18 by 9 display with nougats split-screen multitasking feature there's plenty of vertical space for two apps so you can comfortably browse the web while also watching a YouTube video we are sure many users will appreciate this balanced approach to software as it has left a solid polished experience that can't be said about all phones in this price category so it's nice knowing you get exactly what you expect if you're in India you can purchase the LG q6 now for 15,000 rupees that's about two hundred thirty four dollars but we're not sure when this phone will make it to the States color options include black platinum and gold there's also a slightly lower end q6 a and a slightly higher end q6 plus we expect that these devices will offer similar overall experiences to wrap up we are very impressed that LG was able to bring their full vision display technology to such a low price point the displays 18 by 9 aspect ratio along with the phone's minimal bezels truly makes the q6 stand out from its competitors we also really like the compact size and clean software experience however the phones lack of a fingerprint reader unimpressive cameras and other minor issues just make it tough to recommend the phone over competing options if you're ok with its flaws and really want the display though you'll be happy with the LG q6 and that will be all for this video please be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and hit that Bell button to get notified when we release new videos also be sure to check out the Android Authority website is where your source for all things Android