Gadgetory

LG knows a thing or two about building an impressive smartphone from the original Optimus G to Google's Nexus 5 to the pixel packed g3 the company's legacy is substantial but still it always seems to be a step behind the competition in some way or another with its 2015 flagship LG looks to change that and it just might I'm Michael Fisher with PocketNow and this is our video review of the LG g4 small confession I'm huge into leather smartphones and while we've also checked out the plastic and ceramic versions of the g4 it's the leather one I've spent the most time with and I'm glad above all a smart phones hardware should be comfortable and the soft full grain leather on our braun g4 is just that minimizing the harsh corners and giving the slightly curved phone nearly the same high-end feel as the Moto X though it's a shame LG didn't follow Motorola in going with a metallic side rail to bolster its premium cred the result is exposed corners on the g4 which are already starting to discolor from what I can only guess is denim dye from taking it in and out of gene pockets the center stitching seems durable enough though doing a nice job of accentuating the rear key control collective while also providing a comfortable anchor point for the finger and look that beautiful back cover comes right off meaning you can swap it for another flavor if you want also rather than follow the competition in eliminating expandable storage and a removable battery LG has retained both for the g4 making it the most extensible flagship on the market sadly last year's g3 battery doesn't fit even though it looks like it should but this year's pack is just as beefy 3000 milliamp hours for the global version 2900 for the t-mobile US variant that battery powers a 5 and a half inch quad HD display that builds on last year's successes and ferrets out some of the shortfalls the new so-called quantum dot IPS screen is more colorful offers more contrast and most importantly it's 25% brighter than the g3 it still wouldn't be my first choice for outdoor use in direct sunlight samsung's galaxy a six gets much brighter but it's definitely an improvement over last year and in moderate light it's got some pretty beautiful colors going on power up that big display with the push of the rear key or a double tap on the cover glass and you get a look at android 5.1 with LG's new interface which looks a lot like LG's old interface you get a smart notice widget dead center of the homescreen that flashes occasional bits of info it'll now let you know if a certain app is drawing too much memory or battery power in the background which is nice but it doesn't do that often enough more on that in a second and mainly it just serves to give you long-winded weather forecasts it still doesn't go far enough to supplant the Google now service it emulates same for the smart settings suite which lives on the leftmost homescreen and offers automatic functions based on your location it's nice to have your phone turn on Wi-Fi automatically when you get home for instance but it doesn't do much more than that and in my testing it had trouble knowing when it was and wasn't home this is non final software so hopefully that will improve with time and speaking of improvements while this skin looks a lot like previous generations it's well if it were a car I'd say it drives different while the g3 often felt like it was over burdened trying to push too many pixels and getting really hot doing it the g4 is solid and slick in everything from the lockscreen animations to the dual window functionality thoughtful features like the notification toggle and resizable keyboard are still here also LG has thrown in more color than last year and softened some of the previous versions sharper edges on the whole I like these changes but I also think the skin lacks cohesion it feels like I'm using one phone one second and another the next at the end of the day I don't think the LG UI brings enough benefit that I'd choose it over say stock Android but it's also pleasant enough that I wouldn't go out of my way to replace it either the LG UI is fine nothing more nothing less if you're looking to be impressed look no further than the camera the specs tell us it's a 16 megapixel sensor with an F 1.8 aperture and a 1 / 2.6 sensor size optically stabilized across three axes to correct for up to two degrees of motion and the result of all that lingo bomb is this excellent photos as Adam Lane noted in a pocket now feature post the g4 isn't without the usual smartphone handicaps namely digital noise and aggressive artificial sharpening but these defects really only show up beyond 100 percent zoom at normal sizes the g4 camera performs admirably even against the fabled king of smartphone cameras the Lumia 1020 colors are rich with good dynamic range in contrast and the wide aperture combined with optical stabilization means that even as the Sun gets real low the camera keeps it school instead of hulking out in a near dark room I shot the same photo with five phones on automatic settings and the g4 produced the best of the bunch for a quick photo you can double click the volume down button to launch and snap but with such a short time to get focused these shots aren't the greatest to really fine-tune for exactly the picture you're looking for LG gives you the most elaborate suite of manual controls we've seen on Android out of the box complete with a level gauge histogram and raw support so any effect you can dream up you can probably execute the lustre fades a little bit in video mode it's not bad but in full HD the auto focus and exposure tend to wander a bit colors get a little washed out and the framerate is kind of choppy too the g4 does offer UHD recording and a slo-mo mode for what it's worth switch on over to the front and well I can't speak for Adam lane but this is definitely the best selfie I've ever taken whether it's thanks to the 8 megapixel resolution the beauty face post processing or the ease of taking a photo with a hand gesture the g4 has become one of my favorite selfie snappers combine that with the quick response time and easy-to-use viewfinder on the main shooter and you've got a smartphone camera that outstrips much of the competition Bravo LG we've tested the g4 on t-mobile us between New York and Boston for a week and as a phone it's great the slight curve of the chassis combines with that soft leather backing to make the g4 very comfortable to talk on and reception seems to be on point with t-mobile's network only disappointing in super dense urban areas like midtown Manhattan or very rural settings like the Blue Hills reservation in Massachusetts for conference calls the speaker phones rear firing placement is a bummer but at least it's loud and that goes for music and sound effects and games to which the Snapdragon 808 processor runs with aplomb any concerns I may have had about the 808 vanished by the end of my first day with the device it's very smooth really though most modern processors can run even high demand games the real performance measure is in the daily grind how it feels on the day-to-day here the g4 shines in most areas but despite its three gigs of ram it suffers in memory management put simply and crudely multitasking on Android lollipop sucks because apps left in the background are often forced to close or hibernate if you do almost anything else in the foreground which obviously has implications for everything from fitness trackers to podcasting apps this isn't LG's fault it's androids problem but this is an Android phone and it's too frustrating not to mention that aggressive memory management doesn't do much for battery life either while I was able to get to about four-and-a-half hours of screen on time over an eight-hour day that hasn't been consistent probably thanks to phantom apps sucking up milliamps in the background when I got into a habit of closing all background apps on a regular basis battery life improved do this and the g4 battery will almost definitely last you a full day while it's handy to be able to swap out that battery it would also be convenient to fast charge it as you can on most new phones sadly there's no quick charging built into the g4 so you'll have to wait about an hour and 45 minutes to take it from zero to a full tank well powered off despite those shortcomings the LG g4 is modern its powerful and it comes in trims for the showy as well as the conservative it retains the customizable hardware that many of its competitors have left behind and it packs a whopper of a camera if you're looking for an alternative to the Galaxy S six that doesn't sacrifice photo quality or you want a phone that lets you change up its look while you're swapping in a fresh battery the g4 is the smartphone for you and it's almost certainly the best LG smartphone of all time for more on the LG g4 check out Adam lanes camera shootout at pocket now and be sure to stay tuned here on YouTube for our Galaxy s6 and HTC One m9 comparisons coming soon til next time this has been michael fisher with PocketNow captain to phones on twitter grateful that leather isn't just for motorcycles and Motorola's anymore thanks for watching everyone we'll see you next time you