Gadgetory

LG makes a return with its newest flagship the LG g4 makes some subtle changes to what was already an impressive phone from last year but are those subtle changes enough despite the drastic changes we've seen with other manufacturers now everything sounds great on paper offering some of the best of the best specs with some so far really great reviews specifically about the camera and the screen now with that being said and pricing isn't too bad as I anticipate this to be $200 on contract here in the United States and $600 off contract just like the g3 from last year now as my followers know I really do test these in world world situations and present them to the average consumer as best I can so I'm here to help you make a purchase decision welcome everyone to jim's review room getting right into it the g4 touches big phone territory with a 5.5 inch display not the biggest screen considering the note 4 comes in at 5.7 inches but not the smaller screen as the galaxy s6 and HTC m9 comes in at five point one and five inches respectively now the dimensions are also on the screen coming in at five point nine inches tall three inches wide and what possibly some would say hearing this may be an issue a thickness of nine point eight millimeters now indeed side by side with most other phones it is just slightly thicker but because of the edges being tapered normal real-world experience your palm will actually sense the phone as being thin well that's slight bulge in the middle where your hand cups you really won't even feel it matter of fact having this in my pocket didn't feel much difference either and this shouldn't be much noticeable to the average consumer to be honest and for those who never owned a bigger phone having this in my pockets sitting down getting up never did the phone feel like a brick in my pants but aesthetically here this is all plastic construction although the removable back plate of mine is called metal craft it still feels like again plastic now I personally like to look though that is different and more modern but it just doesn't feel as nice as I expected but LG is being very smart here offering very premium back plates specifically real cowhide turn into leather with different dies now I haven't been able to obtain one but from the announcement of LG they have used nothing but the most premium leather that they could find so that should feel really interesting but on the sides and top virtually no buttons just an infrared transmitter for changing your channels here on your TV which I absolutely love and on the bottom is a micro USB port for charging and transferring data from your phone to PC and vice versa and last year before going into the hardware and performance the rear has your volume and power buttons again for the average consumers out there at first it is unusual but I quickly became accustomed to this after a few days of use now in the very bottom house to this speaker in which it's loud enough and despite being on the rear your hand cups when holding the phone it doesn't truly block out that one speaker now more importantly here on the back is this camera that everyone has been talking about it features a crazy low one point-eight f-stop allowing for tons of light to enter into the camera sensor in turn providing better low-light performance as a 16 megapixel camera with superb optical image stabilization more so than my Samsung Note for preventing blurry photos from shaky hands and lasses the focusing system provided by LG using lasers to measure distance offering faster zooms and pinpoint accuracy or so they claim overall it's a super fast camera minimal to no lag at all with those burst shots in pulling up photos in gallery mode right after taking a photo here was not an issue at all even on the back side of the phone here with the screen off pressing the volume button down twice brings up the camera right away and it takes a photo allowing you to never miss a shot now here's a few photos I've personally taken around the city with zero editing and I'll admit the g4 does take more accurate photos with what the real world looks like the color palette is nearly identical to what you would see in person now this review isn't a direct comparison with these Samsung Note 4 but it's the only phone that I currently own at the moment and it's always nice to have something to compare to now with that being said Samsung does provide a warmer photo with a bump in color saturation now some may prefer this right out the box while others prefer again the more natural style but one thing I did notice I wish the g4 would do a bit better was its sharpness now photo after photo I ensure this was in focus and in the right areas as they note for but yet it's still not sharp where there are the supermarkets or outdoors looking at some buildings colors looked great for the most part in regards to accuracy but the sharpness was a bit lacking I haven't decided to shoot down at the flat ground to ensure the focusing isn't aimed sporadically and still you can see the evidence in the photos now the only other issue that I found in regards to the photo quality was the overblown highlights now if you look at the clouds and this photo but details are lost comparing that to again the note 4 you can see the details are retained now you also see some of this fool with very bright light sources as well and although there's slightly blown out at night it's the night photos in general where the g4 really shines that most areas are very well lit and colors do look great dark areas have minimal amounts of noise present and this photo here of this church is a perfect ample now in auto mode just like the rest of the photos that I've taken so far not the best picture in the world considering it's an auto again but compared to the note 4 look at that sky more noises on the Samsung and the overall picture just looks more grainy when compared side-by-side now one of the biggest positives about the g4 there's manual mode you can adjust practically anything in manual mode like a full-blown DSLR from shutter speed ISO levels aperture etc and you just can't adjust saturation or sharpness though which is odd however the g4 even allows you to shoot in RAW files removing the compression that you normally see with JPEG photos in turn allowing you to edit photos with greater flexibility more options to work with and yes the ability to sharpen your images then in Photoshop or a Lightroom and with that being said and despite those two areas of sharpness and slightly overblown highlights the image quality and color accuracy are still well-done on a phone in general it's only better if not one of the best ones out there due to its low light performance and features of manually controlling their shots and it wasn't talked about much the g4 is able to record video in 3840 by 2160 at 30 frames per second so yes viewers this can record video in 4k and it is very sharp and the colors look great in video mode more so than I believe versus the photos it takes but overall the video aspect works out well I also tested the image stabilization that's why you see me walking with the camera here it's a little bit shaky but video wise here it does ok but the optical image stabilization works darn well when taking photos but right now enough about camera since it was such a huge focus from LG I'm going to move behind the lid here for the time being the g4 offers what's sadly now some phones that don't even offer that's a removable battery I know there's debate on that but in my defense I have had phones too rechargeable keyboards and mice is fail after so many recharging cycles not everyone replaces their phones every few months saying some actually still buy old or used phones too but the other great option here is the expandable memory it's up to 2 terabytes that's with 80 who has a built-in microSD card slots again some others are not offering theirs as well but let's rotate you only make selling points here the screen 5.5 inches offering a flagship resolution just like last year of 2560 by 1440 that's 538 pixels per inch for an ultra sharp display there's no question about that but what's even more intriguing gear from my test is its color accuracy there's a 25% increase in brightness from the last model 50% increase in contrast and 56% improved color reproduction now my test when putting another device side-by-side really does prove the screen having brighter whites deeper blacks and the colors are just rich with accuracy so if you decide to purchase this or I already have one you know how good your screen is now as important and moving into the internal side of things LG features the latest Android as of this video that's android 5.1 but there is an LG overlay now it's not intrusive in my opinion it's not heavy or bloated to slow the phone down and overall it flows in my opinion nicely now under the hood LG went with the snapdragon 808 chipset with three gigs of ram which is no slouch either playing games watching movies on netflix to multitasking with its dual window mode all went without a hitch no dual window allows you to run two compatible apps simultaneously no other features unique to the g4 are it's smart notice under the weather widget here indicating unintentional apps you have in the background that may be draining your battery or something as convenient as reminders and weather forecasts later that evening now sliding all the way to the left here has your smart bulletin which I found pretty useful providing very much a summary for that day including LG's health app that tracks your steps a calendar of your current schedule and last I want to point out is these smart settings now LG provides this great mode that depending on your location settings will change automatically for you example if I leave the house here I can have the Wi-Fi signal turn off automatically or if I'm away from the house here I can have the volume levels up higher to compensate for that noise when you go into the city an additional feature that comes with the phone here is free and no third-party apps needed is free built-in tethering now you can make your phone a hotspots and have other devices around you connect to it that's something I personally need from time to time if I'm working remotely so with all this horsepower and power management the battery life is on par with other flagships from my experience under moderate amounts of use and this was on the day that I went up recording that video and taking all those photos that you've seen earlier and of course using the web the battery lasted a little over 24 hours with three of those hours and screen on time now if you come to the acceptance of recharging your phone every night there shouldn't be an issue per se and with my testing from a near dead battery using the supplied wall adapter here the battery recharges in exactly two hours and lasts about the battery here it does get slightly warm when playing games and doing some you know processor intensive tasks here as evidence when I first started using the phone and downloading all those app simultaneously but when you're video recording that's when it actually really gets hot but overall from my experience with this phone the feature that comes with this - the features retained that's the removable battery the microSD card slots quad HD screen offering tethering 4k video recording which others have yet to mention here the camera as well but more specifically the manual mode in RAW files just a name off some of the stellar offerings I believe makes this a very competitive phone for 2015 and actually now just coming to mind here that five and a half inch display it's actually built on a smaller footprint compared to other competitors on the market but anyways here with everything being said I believe it does overshadow some of its minor shortcomings as mentioned earlier in this review so I believe if you're in the market looking for a phone definitely look into the LG g4 and get that leather backing so hope this review helped you in some way be sure to comment below in this article or video and if you haven't be sure to visit jim's review rom-com as my website should be up sometime june of 2015 now if you like my work be sure to add me as well jim's review room onto Facebook Twitter Instagram or Google+ as you'll see some very good behind the scenes information and photos of the items that I'm reviewing again I'm Jimmy with Jim's review room calm and I'll see you on the next one why