Gadgetory

hey what is up guys I'm Kip EHD here and it's been a long time coming waiting for the next Nexus why am I even talking about that well this is the LG g2 aka the almost Nexus let me explain let's go back a second to the Nexus 4 when I first saw it I said my review that this is the perfect combination between the previous Nexus the Galaxy Nexus and LG's current flagship at that time which was the lg optimus G and that's naturally what happens when Google picks LG for the hardware partner for the Nexus LG adapts something that they're already making into something that works with what Google wants so in terms of design a lot of that nexuses points came from the current LG flagship at that time the Optimus G now flash forward to 2013 where the next Nexus is right around the corner the hardware partner for Nexus is still LG and this is LG's current flagship the LG g2 so you can think of this as the sort of almost Nexus a peek into what we'll probably see running stock Android 4.4 KitKat in a couple of weeks on a Google event stage and you can also see in this device what LG thinks it takes to take down the Galaxy s4 as the most popular Android phone right now and as it turns out a lot of that involves copying what Samsung did with the Galaxy s4 first of all though there's no way around it this phone is an absolute beast on paper a lot of people don't realize it but this phone flat-out wins the spec war right now if that's what you're into is a mighty Snapdragon 800 chip inside a 2 gigabytes of RAM 3000 milliamp hour battery in the United States a 5.2 inch 1080p edge-to-edge display and a 13 megapixel optically stabilized camera in other words it's a beast I know we say specs don't matter that much but it's kind of hard to deny that a device with these types of internals is going to perform well but we'll get to that in a second what's really unique though about this LG g2 is the actual design of the device and the button layout you may have noticed that there are no buttons on the top or on the right hand side or on the left-hand side or on the bottom of the device all of the buttons on the lg g2 are on the back so it's interesting choice it really keeps the phone feeling sleek and clean and after a few quick days of actually using it this I got used to it pretty quickly which may seem weird but what's nice is when you're holding the phone your hands tend to fall nicely in line with those buttons on the back even if you don't have massive hands like me I know I have big hands but I've let other people try it and the first reaction is usually well at least my fingers are right where I hold it they land right on the buttons everything else about the design though is still similar to the Galaxy s4 that it's aiming at they have a similar footprint similar shape similar curvature and even very similar materials though the g2 adds this metal band all the way around all the edges of the phone in an effort to feel I guess a bit more premium and both devices also have a removable back coated with that super glossy plastic that I'm personally not really a fan of we can always add a case or a decal to the back like I did with my s4 later but the g2 manages to have a slightly larger 5.2 inch HD IPS display with it's much thinner bezels and on-screen buttons instead of Samsung's physical ones and this display by itself is excellent for a smartphone brilliant brightness so it's viewable just about anywhere plus a super high pixel density very good color reproduction for an IPS display and good scratch resistant glass on top of everything literally like a boss anyway there are some other minor things about this hardware like the downward facing speaker which is pretty good and kind of loud but also kinda tinny and fires audio sideways when the device is in landscape mode and there's also this hilariously long TV antenna on the Korean version to get better reception for the preinstalled TV watching apps or you can use it to freak people out in the street if you want to convince people you have an insanely weird looking phone from the 80s or something but let's get back to those buttons for a sec when the display is off you can actually hold down those back buttons you can use the volume up button to quickly open LG's Notes app or the volume down button as a shortcut to open the camera which is a nice touch and speaking of the camera it's a strong point on this device which gives me a glimmer of hope for a great camera on the next Nexus the camera on the lg g2 here is fantastic like it takes great pictures and video and it's thanks to that sensor the glass and the optical image stabilization so the software thanks to LG's skin is a little bit ugly and I'm not a fan of the viewfinder at all but you can see exactly what they tried to do here it's almost as if they said to their software engineers hey you see that Samsung Galaxy s4 camera feature your job is to build that into our camera boom it's in they have dual shot they have the photosphere mode everything is here it's like Samsung added everything but the kitchen sink at the end of the day the photos it takes are really quite good they're top-notch I'd say the camera here is top three Android smartphone cameras I've ever used although that may of course change very soon but yeah I've been impressed with the photos it takes in any kind of light indoors or outdoors and it opens the camera and takes all these photos very quickly thanks to that software shortcut and the well immense power of the Snapdragon 800 so that's what matters to a lot of people and it's going to get these shots really quickly and taken in great quality so the long story short here is that from my experience this is a potentially incredible device ruined by awful LG software but yet gives me hope for the future at the same time because if the next Nexus physically looks anything like this I'm going to be a very happy person but all the biggest downsides for this device come from that LG skin on the top of Android it's Android 4.2 with this incredibly large LG UI on top of it that I happen to think looks quite ugly inconsistent even a little bit tacky or Goudy I mean there's unnecessary animations all over the place distracting delays in the amount of time it takes for things to happen or to do things changes just for the sake of changes and overall just a ton of things that need to be cleaned up and that's just a simple way of putting it I mean the first time I pull down the notification draw I think my jaw was on the floor at how bad it looked really I think they can do a lot better in this department but what's crazy is the biggest Pro is the Snapdragon 800 doesn't even break a sweat this phone is consistently fast and it seems like the skin doesn't weigh it down at all maybe the skin isn't really all that heavy after all or maybe the Snapdragon 800 is just that much of a beast but it lasted all day with this crazy power - thanks to the 3000 milliamp hour battery so even if you are lost in the software and it takes you forever to do what you want to do because of all the animations or changes you can still rest assured that it'll keep doing exactly what it's doing all day at lightning speed thanks to that chip that's for sure this phone is a Reimer but if i was to consider using the g2 full-time I would really wish it was a lot lighter a lot cleaner and I mean ultimately a lot closer to stock Android like a Nexus so at the end of the day the lg g2 really is quite an interesting device obviously the biggest difference between it and just about any other device out there is the buttons on the back and when people first see this for the first time you're going to think it's insane why would anyone have buttons on the back of their phone that just doesn't make sense on day 1 and day 2 of owning the phone you might still think that but on day 3 4 & 5 you start to get to know where the buttons are on day 6 7 8 9 10 you really start to get used to it and I've been using this one for a bit now and I don't even look at the buttons anymore and I'm totally used to having them on the back of the phone so that's pretty cool but either way the next Nexus won't have those buttons like we've said but ideally this is probably the body of the next Nexus what we're looking at right here anyway thank you for watching this has been a quick LG g2 full review if you were to give a thumbs up below if you enjoyed it very much more coming up soon especially this weekend next thank you for watching and I'll talk to you guys in the next one peace