Gadgetory

this is LG's new g7 thin queue and while that name is absolutely awful this phone itself is actually really important it's kind of a restart for the company LG is said that going forward it's not just gonna release phones just because Samsung is putting out phones at the same time instead LG's gonna take more time and make its new hardware account the g7 is the first product designed under that new philosophy it's got a notch good cameras and some AI smarts but ultimately the g7 isn't as good as it could have been or needed to be to truly compete the g7 s overall design has a lot in common with last year's v30 there's glass on both sides curved edges and a nice refined look it's IP 68 water-resistant and there's an actual powered button on the side this time so the fingerprint sensor around back doesn't push in anymore there's also a dedicated Google assistant key which I found way more helpful and more convenient than Samsung's bixby button you can press it to bring it up assistant or hold it down to open google lens and learn about the things around you now I still really wish I could remap this button to do whatever I want but just like Samsung LG's not letting you do that yet we've asked and it sounds like it's a possibility for the future the front is dominated by a 6.1 inch IPS LCD display and it's got a resolution of 31 20 by 1440 now it doesn't have the same perfect blacks and contrasts as OLED but the LCD screen is colorful it's crisp and it's easy to read even in direct sunlight there's a special super-bright mode that cranks brightness all the way up to a thousand nits for a few minutes overall I have no complaints about this display whatsoever but I don't love that not see this phone looks a lot like the iPhone 10 but on the iPhone 10 that notch houses Apple space ID system and there's nothing that fancy or sophisticated on the LG sure you get a little bit more screen by pushing your notifications to the corners that's really the only upside I've seen now if the notch really bugs you LG lets you change the top of the screen to black or other colors if you want to kind of hide it that's fine but all this just makes me wonder why this phone has a notch to begin with around back LG's staying on brand and sticking into its familiar dual cameras that combines a primary F 1.6 aperture camera with a secondary super wide lens that's got a 107 degree field of view and F 1.9 aperture now that's not quite as all-encompassing as some of LG's previous super wide lenses but I'm still a huge fan of the creative flexibility you get with this combo I just find myself using that Y perspective more often than I would a portrait lens or some gimmicky monochrome black and white sensor Huawei now puts three cameras on its phones but none of them give you this view now when it comes to overall picture quality these cameras are good but don't measure up to the pixel to galaxy s 9 y YP xx Pro or iPhone 10 in terms of detail and image processing but for the first time in years LG's front-facing camera is finally decent the eight megapixel sensor produces selfies with good sharpness a nice even exposure but the thing is all this thin qai camera stuff that LG has been hyping is pretty mediocre when you open the camera app you can tap the AI cam icon and the camera is going to analyze what's in the frame it'll try to figure out what you're appointed at is it a flower is it an animal and when it knows it'll try to make adjustments so you get the best possible picture that might mean adjusting settings like contrast or color balance or saturation it'll boost blues in the sky make flowers more vibrant and try to make the food you're shooting look a bit more appetizing in these straightforward examples the AI can help snap a decent photo without making you adjust settings yourself but the AI is guesses at what the camera is pointed at are often bad and wrong you'll focus on various subjects and you'll see words flash on the screen the show at the AI thinks that it recognizes so it might correctly identify a dog for example but then you'll see a stream of unrelated very dumb suggestions appear alongside the right one and when that happens you wonder if the LG is making bad decisions that could make your image worse and not better so for most cases just use standard auto mode or manual if you want full control LG is also known for best-in-class sound so that g7 retains the headphone jack and quad act of its predecessors and notice give you amazing audio if you've got the right high five phones new this year is support for DTS X 3d surround sound which is aimed less at audio files and more people who just want their Netflix to feel more immersive so the g7 doesn't have stereo speakers but LG put a lot of work into the single one on the bottom it's called a boombox speaker and it's designed to use the inside of the phone as a kind of resonance chamber so your music can get super loud you can feel every bass note and drum beat vibrate the phone in your hand as you use it which is kind of neat though it does make the g7 feel a bit hollow inside now LG says the boombox speaker sounds best placed down on a table and that's true it's way louder than most other phones today but a single speaker only takes you so far and it's very easy to cover up with your hand by accident day to day the g7 is fast and a great performer thanks to the Snapdragon 820 5 processor and 4 gigabytes of RAM inside he also gets 64 gigs of storage plus a microSD card slot if you need more room but LG's own software is still a weak point for the g7 that's just one example every time you download a new app you've got to restore the app launcher to keep things in alphabetical order every single time so I think LG either needs to try harder at software or just make the change to stock Android now the g7 runs Android Oreo out of the box and LG's promising it's gonna do a better job at software updates this year we know how this works I'll believe it when I see it but Android P is optimized for this new wave of phones that have these notches so hopefully once that's available LG gets it out fast now I found battery life to be somewhat disappointing during my testing the g7 s 3000 milliamp hour battery is smaller than last year's LG phones and many of today's flagships especially for phones that have screens that are this big if you're using the phone a lot you're gonna have to find more power at some point in the day that's just the truth of it the bundled charger does to stuff the g7 very fast and it supports both wireless charging standard but neither of those things really makes up for having a small battery to start with so LG was helping to blaze some new paths and revitalize its mobile business with the g7 thin queue I don't think this is gonna get the job done the trouble really starts with that god-awful name there are people who'll buy this phone no matter what and that's because of its fun camera and amazing audio they'll be happy but this isn't some grand reinvention of LG's phones I'd say that g7 is pretty iterative and it looks a lot like an iPhone so when you stacked the g7 up against 2018 s best smartphone contenders it's hard to find one feature or standout thing that'll make this device or short buyer hit no it's not a thousand dollar phone like the iPhone 10 but it's not much cheaper either so it might very well have the same fate as its predecessors and send LG back to the drawing board again hey thanks so much for watching be sure to check out our new YouTube channel verge science a lot of people worked very hard to make this happen and it's full of awesome videos so check it out