Gadgetory

so this is the LG V 30 we had a pre-production unit for about two months and we've had the real deal production model for about one month I wanted to sort of do a review one month later of the phone and this phone goes way under the smartphone radar it gets over shadow session in the Android world by the Samsung's and now the pixels of the world but LG does what LG does really well and they made an incredibly solid phone that takes almost every flagship box that perhaps you're not thinking about when it comes to buying a new smartphone and I think part of that blame goes to LG the general thought process is that the G line is their flagship the g5 and this year the g6 and the V line was kind of something secondary the perhaps sat below it and that's never been the case the V line has been their flagship but based on the marketing you wouldn't really know it and there's a lot of things to like here I think the things that I like the best about the phone are on the back and this is the cameras and the cameras are incredible this generation on the V 30 it's like a lot of phones there are dual sensors here it's got one that's a regular 16 megapixel sensor with an F 1.6 aperture and optical image stabilization the other one though it was ultra wide it's 13 megapixel with F 1.9 and these things take incredible pictures just in auto mode and what LG's done with the software it's nothing short of almost incredible there are 15 modes for pictures and video inside of this phone there's even a separate mode just for food one of my favorites though is actually the cine profile it's kind of like what we're shooting with right now on our sony a7s 2 it's a flat profile if you go back later to edit and post fraction you can tweak the colors and bring out a lot of things it's really cool to see that built into a phone I guess there's gonna be one knock LG kind of hid features inside of other modes so inside of the cine mode for example we've got kind of a smart zoom where if you taps an area on the screen you can move a slider up and it'll zoom in right on that area it's really cool effect if you don't know that it's there it can be next to impossible to find but if you're just gonna shoot pictures in auto mode predictably the pictures are going to look beautiful I was really surprised at how good things looked in the low-light you're shooting outdoors obviously things are gonna look good almost every situation that through it this phone pictures looked awesome this is one of the best camera setups out there and they don't have that a that unsightly camera hump it's it's it's it flush so nice work LG on the camera front so screen is also a big deal when it comes to phone this is an area where I think it gets out shadowed by the note and the Galaxy s8 and USA plus but the lg screen is really good it's a six inch P OLED panel with a slight curve to it and it's almost bezel free it's got like a about an 82% screen to body ratio it's 1440 by 28 a that's that stuff you'd expect LG says the ratio is 18 by 9 I don't know why the companies don't just call that two-to-one it supports both HDR formats and things look really good on it it's not as poppy and vibrant as a Samsung displays they new to the colors a little bit which mean watching things like TV shows and movies that are usually a little more muted I think look better watching YouTube for example and YouTube does a lot of processing to make the colors kind of pop a little bit more preferred kind of the Samsung screen this is a really nice middle ground and the fact that it's OLED the blacks are really black I had some concerns early on about brightness but I had no issues at all in direct sunlight with auto brightness turned on when I say that I mean to go out in direct sunlight it's gonna detect it it's gonna kick the brightness all the way up so you don't have to do it yourself overall though in almost every way that I use the phone and looked at the screen it shined did a really nice job so if you were gonna take one knock on the v30 it might be the way the phone feels if you're used to the flagships of last generation I've been playing with the flash stripped of this generation you used to having kind of a hefty foam that's got a lot of weight to it built of very premium materials you pick up the V 30 it is definitely not that it almost feels too light to even feel like there's a battery inside and there is a battery inside this is not users replaceable that's a slight knock-on it's a little bit plasticky it doesn't feel as premium as what Samsung's our devices are and what the pixel devices are which is surprising especially on the pixel 2 XL because it's it's based on this phone and if you picked up LG stablemate the g6 that phone felt way better to me maybe it's a weight thing and I'm sure it's subjective after using the phone for a little while I got totally used to the lightness up in the way it felt but if you switch phones a lot or you shop cross shopping in a store and you're holding different device in your hands don't let the weight of this fool you it's a premium phone in perhaps a less premium package those good-news-bad-news when it comes to durability on the v30 we're actually using it with our phantom 4 in the controller we didn't secure it well enough obviously didn't have a case and it fell from about three and a half feet face-first onto the screen you'd think the screen was gonna be cracked the phone is covered front and back and Gorilla Glass 5 the screen was totally fine like nothing happened but oddly the back part that didn't touch the concrete was completely shattered everything still worked though the fingerprint reader still worked and the camera was fine just the back got completely cracked up the hardware side is pretty much what you'd expect from this generation flagship at the snapdragon 835 it's got Adreno 5 4 v and 4 gigs ram maybe 40 gigs a ram isn't gonna be enough in a year at least for right now I had no issues and that brings me to LG's software I still don't like lg software I don't like the way they separate the menu buttons I don't like the way they made things really granular I like the broader settings you've got in stock Android I even liked with Samsung's on the software side more but I think said that the UI here does not slow the experience down it's not laggy it's not buggy and you often times get used to it I solved a lot of my issues with just putting a Nova Launcher on and I was able to deal with the settings menu and how it looks like but it's not buggy it's not laggy at all so personal preference I didn't mind it especially after I threw nova on here and kind of made the phone look the way I wanted it to look also on the software side it's based on 7.1 - released as a filming LG said Oreo will be coming but it's like a big shrug emoji when that's going to happen so assume you're gonna have nougat for probably quite a while I do like that they put the fingerprint sensor where they belongs on the back and not next to the cameras it's also a button so you can actually push it in I really like that as well I kind of got used to having a power button on one of the sides of the phones I would have liked that here but LG's got that sort of double tap to wake it up and that kind of served in its place and speaking of the double tap and to wake it up not necessarily the seamless segue always-on this boy I think does some of the best always on display here so it's here it works it's not gonna tell you the song that's playing I like the pixel will but it works it's functional and it's slightly customizable other things you'd expect to be good or good here namely battery life my usage is gonna be wildly different from yours but I'm still around 40% buy-in to the day so that gives me about a 20% buffer to kind of do anything else that I might do on a heavy day like watch a lot of video watch a TV show or do an unnecessary amount of social media so if using the V 30 you might want to pair it with an Android wear watch like for example the Casio protrek smart who actually spawned to this video to make it possible it's a pretty awesome watch first of all if you've ever been a fan of Cassio's like g-shock this is an incredibly durable watch that is meant to handle the elements whether it's cold warm underwater whatever you want this watch can handle it so my favorite feature it's got built-in low-power GPS it's not gonna drain your battery at all one push of the button is gonna launch Google Maps you know exactly where you are thrown so take those maps offline if you want battery life is absolutely outstanding it's got almost two screens built-in you've got one that's black and white to say battery and one that's that full-color screen take advantage of Android wear 2.0 looking for a smart watch that's gonna be smart for your active lifestyle I'll put a link down below to check out to the Casio protract smart so what do you guys think about the V 30 I haven't been this overly positive about a phone I think in a while there really isn't that much to not like about it you guys pick one up are you debating picking one up did you skip it completely I kind of like to know why I'm in the comments down below give the video a thumbs up you always appreciate it so next time I'm drown Ranger you