Review: LG G2
Welcome to the third of four phone reviews in a single week.
LG is trying to make an impact in the smartphone market. Their weapon of choice is the LG G2 provided to me by Telus which is meant to be their answer to those who would rather get phones from Korean competitor Samsung. How does it stack up? The first thing that you notice is the 5.2″ screen which is huge, sharp, and bright. In my mind, it puts it on par with the Galaxy S4 from Samsung. The case feels solid but it and the screen does attract fingerprints. Though I will note that like the Samsungs that I have tested lately, the fingerprints on the screen are not noticeable when the screen is on. The next thing that you notice is the location of the buttons. On the back of the phone there are the volume buttons and the power button. There are no other buttons on the phone. It makes it look very clean and stylish. Plus it’s functional as that’s where your finger naturally wants to rest when you’re talking on your phone.
The phone comes with 32GB of memory and you can’t upgrade it. The other thing that you can’t do anything with is the battery. It’s non-removable. But the upshot is that the battery lasts for well over a day in normal usage which is very impressive. If you want long battery life from an Android based phone, this is the phone for you. Speaking of Android, it comes with Android 4.2.2 and it’s highly customizable. Starting with the lock screen, there are a number of shortcuts like the phone, messages, camera and more. You can customize this, and utilize the convenient nature that this feature introduces. Another feature that I appreciated was the guest mode that allows you to set up a mode that someone else can use without getting access to your stuff. That’s a feature that I wish that more phones would have. There’s also QSlide, which is a multitasking feature exclusive to LG phones. It allows you to run two apps simultaneously.
The phone feels very fast as apps popped up instantly compared to some other phones I’ve tested recently. That likely is due to the 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Processor that LG has decided to use. In terms of connectivity, it comes with WiFi, NFC, Infra Red, and LTE. When it comes to the latter, I got 21Mbps downstream and 12Mbps upstream using Speedtest.net. That’s pretty speedy.
In terms of the camera, the rear camera is a 13MP shooter with the ability to do 1080P video. Here’s a still picture taken at Pearson International Airport. Click the picture to see it at full size:
This was taken in light conditions that were constantly changing because of the cloud cover. All things considered, it wasn’t bad as it shows the phone can cope very well with these sorts of conditions. Next is the video. It was shot at 1080P so you want to display it in full screen and at 1080P to see it as it was recorded:
The sound quality was good. But the one thing that was a bit of a downer was the fact that the phone auto-focused constantly. I couldn’t figure out how to turn that off. But other than that, the video quality was good.
My verdict? The LG G2 is a great alternative to the usual phone suspects. It has a great screen, great battery life, a guest mode that you’ll find useful, and it is fast. You should take a look at this smartphone and compare it to the Galaxy S4. If you do, I think you’ll have a tough decision as to what phone to buy. It is $199 on a two year plan from Telus or $650 outright. A very good price for a very good phone.
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