Gadgetory

year-to-year upgrades are always tricky are you really getting your money's worth or is this only minor iteration LG has made some pretty big changes to their G Series phone and now it's time to see what's new and improved I'm Juan Carlos back now for PocketNow and here's part one of our LG fight the g5 versus the g4 LG's newest flagship features an interesting mix of top-tier specs and novel features immediately looking at the older g4 this is a completely different design language we've been seeing subtle curves from LG since the first flex and now instead of a gentle concave bend to the screen we've got convex tapers to the forehead and chin screen size has also shrunk from 5.5 inches on the g4 to 5.3 inches on the g5 the new LG screen is smaller it's a little thinner it's not as wide but it is ever so slightly taller than the g4 it replaces it's the first generation of a whole new design language the g5 is built out of more premium materials and covered in a fancy paint it feels nice in the hand but there were a number of LG fans who were fond of the leather backs available for the g4 even though the g4 has a larger screen that leather back was a little grippier helping it stay in the hand a bit better there's also a nice symmetry to the rear of the g4 that single camera sensor flanked by flash and laser focus lining up with the power button and volume rocker it's an experience which is wonderfully evolved over several phone generations the g5 s dual camera setup in circular power button gives off something of a surprised look we trade summer ergonomic benefits to the fingerprint sensor on the back is wonderfully placed but LG fans have been trained to look for volume controls back here - I also ran into some issues shooting the camera test is returning the volume rockers to the side of the phone made it easier to misfire the camera especially lining up ground level shots are bracing the phone on a surface lastly for design while the battery door is a novel solution for building a rigid phone the g5 has a few rough seams running around that chin not only can you not unsee them I find they're pretty good at trapping Pocket lint though the g5 s action on swapping the battery feels a lot nicer than ripping the back panel off of a g4 in comparing performance we shouldn't be surprised at the Qualcomm 820 powered g5 andele outperforms the Qualcomm 808 powered g4 both of these phones are running marshmallow the g4 using LG's older stock UI the g5 I had to install Nova Launcher as the ATT review unit we have doesn't have a simple fix for returning the app drawer navigating through the UI one probably won't notice significant differences in sliding through home screens or pulling notifications I do notice better and more communicative responses to screen taps on the g5 though this helps a lot with multitasking especially when running the phone hard the g4 will more often halt just a fraction of a second long enough to make a question whether the phone properly registered your input gaming is another area where the g5 wins for having a more powerful processor I'm still having issues with graphics intensive titles like Marvel future fight but other graphics heavy games like asphalt 8 load faster and play smoother on the newer phone these displays are pretty similar in actual operation both feature quad HD resolution and the point two inch diagonal difference doesn't make for a radically different usage experience the g5 actually has a slightly lower screen to bezel ratio on that front face the g4 making more efficient use of the front panel while LG says they've improved the quantum IPS LCD tag I can't see much difference in the high brightness modes when using the phones in daylight the g5 of course comes with a handy always-on display which can deliver helpful at-a-glance information like time and notifications this is a touch more helpful than the g4 sliding gesture which takes just long enough to wake the screen you might as well have just turned the phone on moving to the cameras this battle is also interesting for how similar these two phones perform to be sure the g5 s crazy wide-angle second camera bring some fun flexibility to the table but the main cameras are nearly identical in our tests similar sensor sizes exact same resolution similar image stabilization similar focusing performance similar lens distortion without labeling we'd be hard-pressed to point to any identifiable differences between the photo output from both of these phones the g5 does save a higher-quality video file in nearly 50 megabit per second UHD video over the 30 megabit per second video on the g4 a color and contrast are improved but LG hasn't included any new controls for manipulating that video neither phone has exposure controls neither phone can shoot 60 frames per second HD video neither phone can change metering video quality has improved but the look of the video from both phones will still look fairly similar for both being full auto shooters and audio playback is another area these two compete against each other closely speaker performance is very similar though a consumer would make the decision in which position they prefer the speaker to fire bottom firing on the g5 rear firing on the g4 headphone audio quality is also very similar on both devices generally good tone and a fairly flat EQ though I would probably describe both phones as being somewhat plain or dull what's disappointing to see on the g5 is a noticeably less powerful and feeding your headphones maximum output is lower than the g4 and the noise floor is slightly higher though the g4 is more prone to Distortion LG was really hedging their bets on the standalone DAC unit for the g5 improving audio quality as playback here will probably feel like a step backwards for most consumers it makes the news at the Bang & Olufsen DAC not shipping to North America doubly frustrating testing battery life between these two phones should be handled with a touch of skepticism the g4 we're using is almost exactly a year old with its original battery facing a brand new phone on its first week of charging looking at our video test streaming 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi on 50% brightness the g5 drains 7% of its battery putting it lower mid-pack on this test while the g4 drained 8% well that doesn't seem like much of a difference as a standalone benchmark real-world performance is better on the g5 both phones are running lean by dinnertime but I'm likely to have more run time left on the g5 even though the battery is 7 percent smaller than the g4 though we lose overall capacity the g5 does seem to employ more efficient hardware so let's wrap this up if you're on the g4 is the g5 a worthwhile upgrade your Lee updates are tricky comparisons the g5 introduces a new design and fun features like dual cameras in a modular base but the g4 shows it still has some teeth left in this fight besting the g5 and headphone volume matching main camera performance and display technology while not falling too far behind in battery life even on a year old battery as with many of these comparisons if you're coming from our first generation G flex or a g3 the g5 is an easy phone to recommend but folks on the g4 you can likely stay put unless better processor performance is absolutely necessary of course this wasn't the only phone in LG stable last year and the g5 faces even tougher competition from the fab side of the equation which we'll cover in our next comparison video as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for our full LG g5 coverage we've produced a full phone review and the most in-depth camera review available on the internet and hit that thumbs up button for a little extra positive reinforcement for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos back now you can chat me up on Twitter and Instagram is some gadget guy and I will catch you all on the next comparison