Gadgetory

20-17 has been an interesting year for smartphones I mean if I were to roll back the first device that I looked at this year was the LG G six followed by the Galaxy S eight plus from Samsung the one plus five and the recently announced one plus 5t the Galaxy Note 8 the Google pixel - you know these are expensive devices that come with a fantastic displays excellent cameras great build quality and design and a few exclusive features that make each device stand out from one another but not everyone has the money to go out there and get the latest and greatest from Apple Samsung Google or LG there are consumers who are looking for cheaper alternatives that will necessarily break the bank yet offer similar features that these flagship 600 ala plus smart phones come with the good news is that there are a lot of smart phones under the sub $400 price range that come with all the essential features that consumers require so today I'm going to be taking a look at a smart phone from LG it's called the q6 and it's priced at $300 now what makes a smart phone stand out from the competition is the design and just a way how it's built plus you know the resemblance to its bigger brother the LG G 6 so let's talk about the q6 right after message from our sponsor we capture our experiences to remind us of the past with fantastic visual quality but what about the sound it helps to piece together the moment and now you can with the Sennheiser AM be a smart headset that doesn't just record the audio it lets you feel and relive your environment because the microphones pick up sound just like you would the end result is a stunning capture of 3d audio so you can visit the past again check out in son Heiser and be a smart headset linked below all right so the q6 comes with some very impressive specs out of the box so you're getting a 5.5 inch full HD plus display in an 18 by 9 aspect ratio and we'll talk about that shortly we get a snapdragon 435 CPU 3 gigabytes of RAM 32 gigabytes of internal storage that surprisingly can be expanded via microSD great edition LG you also get a 3000 milliamp hour battery and it comes out of the box with Android 7.1.1 now interestingly Amazon is selling the exact same smartphone for 229 as a prime exclusive and I'm assuming it's gonna come with Amazon based apps pre-installed but either way this looks like a solid smartphone for the price but how does it hold up really well actually let's start with the design and right off the bat the q6 reminds me of the LG G 6 which is a slightly more expensive device that comes with a higher resolution display faster CPU and a slightly better build quality but the q6 isn't too shy from that everything from the curved edges to the smooth metal frame construction screams quality and I'm surprised at what LG was able to offer at this price point however the rear side of the phone is covered in plastic material rather than glass so it can scratch up easily and pick up grease so a case or skin is highly recommended oh and did I forget to talk about the headphone jack yeah so LG has included one with a q6 which is amazing and I know that might sound silly but take a look at the pixel 2 or the new iPhone those expensive devices lack an essential feature that a lot of consumers embrace so I'm glad that LG has included that on the q6 especially for the price now the lack of a fingerprint sensor is a disappointment especially since competing smart phones from Nokia honor motorola within the same price range featured that type of authentication LG could have added one of the back and I really missed it coming from the pixel too but if you really care about security look towards the Nokia 6 or the honor 7x the price similarly to the q6 and they offer a built-in fingerprint reader LG has implemented face recognition to unlock the device which is an hit or miss sometimes depending on lighting conditions plus it's not as secure as a fingerprint sensor let's switch gears and talk about that display LG managed to fit a 5.5 inch IPS LCD panel on the q6 and it looks really good in person here's a comparison shot to the pixel - that sports a slightly smaller 5 inch display and interestingly both these devices are almost identical in terms of dimensions the minimal bezels are certainly a welcoming change on the q6 because the taller screen yields a lot more screen real estate plus it helps a lot with multitasking and you can also get to experience native 20 M by 9 content without those huge black bars at the top and bottom while the resolution is only 1080p it's more than enough for content consumption but it should complement longer battery life however I did notice that the panel was a bit too over sharpened at first it didn't bother me that much but after comparing it to the pixel two's display which features a 1080p resolution it's noticeably disturbing I'm not exactly sure if this is a hardware limitation or software but as far as I know there's no way to adjust sharpness within the settings so do keep that in mind the IPS LCD display exhibits great colors with good contrast there were no signs of color shift which shouldn't be surprising since it is an IPS screen after all rather than Emeline it's not to over saturate it like samsung's offerings yet it doesn't come with the deepest blacks which I'm okay with but sadly I wasn't pleased with the image displayed on screen due to the over sharpness that I talked about earlier and you know what I think I'm being a little too critical with the screen on the q6 because I've been spoiled by high resolution displays found on flagship smartphones like the pixel 2 and the Galaxy Note 8 so if you know switching back to the q6 it really is noticeable to me but if you're coming from something like a 720p display or a 480p display this is definitely worth an upgrade because the screen is just awesome it's an 18 by 9 display as I mentioned earlier you get a lot of vertical screen real estate and of course the colors do pop but LG if you're listening to this I would love if you guys could you know include a software update where we can tweak the sharpness levels so yeah that'd be much appreciated the software experience out of the box is unfortunately not the best LG's stock skin on top of android 7.1.1 is by far the worst that I've come across on an Android device I said the same thing for the LG G 6 and it's really disappointing that LG isn't taking any measures to clean up the clutter on their UI there are a whole bunch of LG apps pre-installed that takes up unnecessary storage space and most of them cannot be uninstalled now the beauty with every Android smartphone is that the user has the option to customize the UI to their liking for instance you can install any third-party launcher install G board and fiddle around with the settings to give the device some character and when you do that this phone is pretty amazing to work with LG is pretty bad when it comes to updating their software as well so the q6 is rocking Android 7.1.1 and I have absolutely no idea when Android 8.0 is gonna roll out to the smartphone so do keep that in mind if you do need a smartphone that can receive constant updates you might want to look somewhere else because LG solid no performance was respectable on the q6 remember this one is rocking a snapdragon 435 octa-core CPU that's clocked at 1.4 gigahertz so opening up abbis might take a few seconds and you might experience occasional stutters when navigating through that horrible UI but multitasking on the other hand works fast and that's thanks to the inclusion of three gigabytes of RAM if you're planning to use this device to check email browse the web watch youtube videos you'll be just fine except if you're into hardcore gaming the Cusick sports a 3000 milliamp hour battery and it charges via microUSB and not type C so keep that in mind it also sports Qualcomm quick charge 2.0 which is really nice I was easily able to power through a day and a half of use with just a single charge and there are a few contributing factors to this number one you've got a power efficient CPU and a 1080p display instead of a qHD panel plus the battery life always depends on usage so if you're a light user you can easily cruise through a couple of days no problem but if that usage intensifies expect shorter screen on times last step let's talk about the camera so the rear sensor is a 13 megapixel shooter with an F 2.2 aperture and the sensor can shoot 1080p video up to 30 frames per second now I basically left all the settings in auto mode with HDR turned on for the best possible results and as you can see the pictures are not the best but I guess I could give them a pass there's not a lot of detail in the shots and I think part of that had to do with the software processing the image from the sensor but there's also the dynamic range is not the best you can definitely expect the highlights to be blown out in some situations especially in harsh conditions you're not gonna get the best results the sensor also doesn't do a good job in low-light so I would highly recommend staying away from the smartphone especially if you're into a mobile photography but let's take a look at some more samples okay so I'm recording on the LG g6 this is the video test currently it's shooting at 1080p at 30 frames per second the sensor doesn't have optical image stabilization but I think there's some sort of software stabilization that's going behind the scenes and it does a pretty good job stabilizing the footage so there you go that's a close-up and you can check out how well it focuses I mean the sensor does try hard to stabilize the footage but it certainly looks pretty usable I'm not gonna say that it's the best come across on an Android smartphone but seriously for $300 this thing is I probably give it a pass not definitely bad but totally usable here's a here's my c100 well it doesn't focus it doesn't it doesn't want to focus obviously but maybe if I go to a closer subject like this it might you might have to tap to focus to get it in there there we go so the auto focusing is a little wonky with the q6 but yeah I'd like to hear your thoughts on the quality remember this is a $300 smartphone not $1000 my phone so yep well I guess it's about time to conclude my thoughts on the LG q6 I've had mixed feelings about this device I mean for one I really like the design and I'm really really appreciate LG for you know taking the time to implement an 18 by 9 display in a compact chassis and of course giving you that minimal bezels and a solid metal construction it really isn't awesome smartphone to hold in the hand but it's the rest of the stuff that makes me not want to recommend this to consumers out there for one it doesn't come with a fingerprint reader and that's kind of disappointing because the competition has that number two the speaker and I think I might have forgotten to mention this is that it's placed behind on the rear side of the smartphone so when you place this on your desk it's completely gonna mute the sound and distort it I would have preferred bottom facing the speaker's instead of you know this implementation so yeah I'm not really sure what went wrong there now the display is an appealing feature for the q6 but the over sharpening that's going behind the scenes just make content not that pleasing to watch but I think you know for regular consumers out there for just you know browsing the web or doing just normal things like making a phone call or texting messages shouldn't find the display to be that daunting it's just my personal opinion you know having spoiled by high-resolution displays I found this to be a little too much and I mean it's it's not to my liking but again this could be subjective maybe you could end up with liking display on the q6 but yeah that's just my take on the display the camera is respectable it's definitely not the best but you have to remember that this is a $300 smartphone and it's functional you know it gets the job done so what I would do is just not keep your expectations is high and you know expect results that could compare with the pixel - or some other flagship smartphones well that concludes this review of the LG q6 I'd love to hear your thoughts on this device especially for $300 are you willing to compromise on the camera the display lack of a type-c connector the lack of IP 6 sound water and dust resistant grating and of course a few other flagship features that you would expect on $1000 and smartphone yeah let me know in the comments down below I need over the Huracan acts thank you so much for watching make sure to subscribe for more similar content and we'll see you in the next one