The LG G4: A Review

One of the best features of the G4 is the cameras. Both the front and rear have been substantially upgraded over the G3, producing some really great crack results pictures are detailed and sharp and the HDR really adds some great dynamic range to the images. It's not perfect, it's a little slower than the Galaxy S6 for example, and there aren't all as many functions as some would like, but the Pro mode does add a lot of options, such as shutter speed and ISO and focus to white balance and many more. Whether you prefer just like an auto point and shoot or a fully manual Pro mode, it does give you that capability.

The front 8 megapixel rear 16 megapixel and very fast L laser autofocus means it is extremely capable and as I say one of the best cameras on a phone I've used for a long time. Really is up there with the iPhones and Galaxy S6s of the world now in terms of price, the G4 does cost over twice what you can find the G3 for at the moment. It's most good retailers you can find those for just under 500 which is pretty reasonable for a flagship device now.

Most flagships no most new phones do often cost more than their predecessor's, and no phone is twice as good as the last generation. But to think that you could get the G3 which is very very good and very similar to this there isn't a huge amount of improvement on the G4 over the G3 for sort of 230-240 as opposed to this which is sort of 480-500. It really is worth considering actually the G3 uh surprisingly although if you do prefer having the latest and greatest Tech and all the new shiny bits and pieces then obviously the G4 will be the one for you.

But it's worth noting that it's still your predecessor is still pretty good value and uh although this is now comparable to the Galaxy S6 and 1 M9 for example in terms of price that um the competition is pretty strong. Speaking of competition I think that's one of the biggest challenges that the G4 faces being 5.5 in it sort of goes against the normal size phones as well as the fablet you know. You've got the Sony Z3, the Galaxy S6s HD2, one M9, OnePlus 1es iPhone 6 pluses uh and note 4 for example. It sort of goes against all of those you could compare it in against all those sorts of phones and it sort of just doesn't have that kind of wow factor for a 2015 phone that we're sort of used to.

I think the G3 in 2014 was had a lot more going for it than this one. Overall, the LG G4 is a pretty good phone. It's got a really good display, it's bright and sharp, it's uh got reasonable performance thanks to the upgraded processor and newer software and in terms of the software, it does come with quite a few pretty cool features and the UI is a lot nicer and more responsive to use than the G3.

So, the camera is also exceptional, battery is pretty solid. Overall, it's a pretty good phone for me though. The just a little bit uncomfortable to use may be different for you. You may have bigger or smaller hands which improves it. Uh but it just the corn stabbing a little bit. It's a little bit fat. It's not the back isn't the most uh uh attractive to look at although you may prefer the leather option which I think perhaps I may have preferred in hindsight. But, uh it's definitely capable micro SD and removable removable battery are definite selling points.

And that camera both cameras in fact are very very good. So, uh good phone solid if I had to give it a scroll which I don't like doing particularly. It be sort of a 7 and a half to an eight but you can't go wrong with it all. I would say though is that strangely enough the G3 the predecessor is still worthy of consideration.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi everyone welcome to the tech chat my name is Tom and this is my definitive review of the LG G4 now I thought the LG G3 from last year was a great phone not everyone agreed it did have some issues especially in regards to it was a bit slow and a bit laggy and a little bit unresponsive out the box it did improve if you were to root it install a third launcher and even the latest Android 5 lollipot update made it a lot easier and nicer to use but of course it still wasn't perfect it was dogged a little bit by the 2 GB of RAM and it just wasn't quite smooth and fast enough as you'd like for a 2014 Flagship now fortunately on the G4 we have a faster processor we have more RAM we have the latest software from LG and also Android 5.1 so everything is smoother nicer more responsive and overall a lot more pleasurable to use however aside from better per performance and an improved camera there's not a whole lot that's new with the G4 and in some areas like the design I actually think it's maybe taken a bit of a step back from the G3 it's just not quite as good but uh we'll go into that a little bit more detail but it's going to be really interesting to see how the gfor stands up against the 2015 competition and whether it does enough to live up to the success of last year G3 so let's take a look weighing 155 G and at 9.8 mm thick the G4 is heavier and chunkier than the G3 it's 1.5 mm wider too which means despite featuring the same 5.5 in screen the screen to body ratio is now 72.5% that's down 2.7% from the G3 last year so it's wider thicker heavier and has a lower screen to body ratio I'm not sure the GeForce design can really be considered an improvement as well as being bigger it's also less comfortable to use the sharper less rounded Corners dig into your hand and it's actually one of the least comfortable phones I've used in quite a while the PE opposite of the G3 if you recall my review of that I praise its ergonomics as a borderline fablet compared with the Note 4 and the iPhone 6 Plus for example unfortunately the G4 just isn't as comfortable to hold it's not uncomfortable exactly just it's not as great it's not as ergonomic as perhaps I might have expected following on from the G3 for one-handed use a fair amount of hand and finger gymnastics will be required so I think ideally it is a two-handed device on the front of the plastic chassis gorilla Glass 3 protects the 5.5 in display it's a bit of a shame we're not seeing the gorilla glass 4 however since that is featured on phones like the Galaxy S6 it's also worth noting the G4 doesn't have the oleophobic coating on the screen like the G3 did it's a relatively minor point but it means the G4 is a bit more susceptible to fingerprints and smudges so first impressions aren't brilliant but the G4 does have a few tricks off it sleeve that may just win me backr first of all it's the removable back cover available in gold or or metallic gray plastic like this one with a brushed metal effect and subtle diamond pattern or a rather more interesting and actually more expensive leather option regardless of whether you opt for the plastic or leather the best part is that it's removable ticking it off reveals a micro SIM card slot a Micro SD Port that supports cards up to 248 GB in size that's 2 terab in capacity as well as a removable 3,000 milliamp battery fewer and fewer phones offer these features so it's great to see here introduced on the G2 the rear but buttons have become a regular feature on LG's Flagship phones so on the back of the G4 we have the volume and the power buttons the volume is textured in contrast to the smooth power button so you can work out which you're pressing from just from the FI although you do get used to it I still find it's a little bit unwieldly to use I often find myself smudging the camera lens because I've gone a bit too high above these buttons is the new 16 megapixel camera flanked by a laser auto focus and an LED flash below is the speaker unfortunately still relegated to the back corner and on the base we have a micro USB 2 Port microphone and 3 and 1/2 mm Jack as a result of the volume and power being on the back both sides are completely clear of any buttons at the top we have an IR emitter and a noise cancelling microphone onto the front software buttons mean there are no capacitive buttons taking up the bottom bezel just an LG logo at the top we have an 8 megap front camera cool speaker and the usual light sensors and LED notifications light the front bezels have a very small very subtle diamond pattern effect it's a small version of the diamonds found on the back cover which I think gives it an almost carbon fiber look one of the most interesting aspects to the design though is the subtle curve that LG have added to the G4 dubbed the slim Arc it's not nearly as pronounced as the curve found on the LG G Flex phones and it's barely noticeable looking at it straight on but viewed from the side you can see there is definitely a slight curve so presumably this curve may help reduce the reflectivity the reflections you see on the screen because it is curved in a little bit it also may help if you place it down on the desk cuz the screen goes in a little bit maybe less of the screen is touching it and perhaps if you're using you know to call someone since the mic and the speaker is a little bit more optimally SP optimally placed for your ear and mouth it may also slightly improve core quality but in reality in my experience it doesn't really make any difference if you view side on you can just notice it it's kind of cool to look at but I don't really see any real world benefit or fundamental difference for having that curve it's a nice it's a nice effect it's a cool design but that's pretty much it the G4 features a big 5.5 in Quad HD display that translates to 538 pixels per inch meaning it's incredibly crisp and sharp using what LG describ as a quantum display the IPS LTD display looks really nice too whites look white without any hint of warm yellow or cool blue which you can often find on other phones colors therefore are generally quite natural and vibrant it's brighter than last year g32 producing around 450 nits with brightness set to Max it's not quite as bright as the iPhone 6 or Galaxy S6 but still pretty good and usable in bright sunlight viewing angles are also pretty good colors retain their vibrancy even at quite acute angles but you do notice quite a significant drop in brightness when viewed off center from around 30° upwards so although it's the same size and same resolution as the G3 display it is a fair bit brighter and the colors are a fair bit punchier and more Vivid so it's a definite Step Up in terms of the display despite not offering the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 like the HTC 1m9 or even the LG Flex 2 for example the G4 uses the slightly less powerful 1.8 GHz 64-bit hexacore Snapdragon 808 this is a decent upgrade from the 801 chip in the G3 but it's also not going to win any speed Awards that's fine though it handles everything well and even intensive games run smoothly the G4 scores just over 45,000 on The nut2 Benchmark a solid score but does Trail the Galaxy S6 is 61,000 and the HTC 1 M9 is 52,000 so your initial thoughts maybe well why haven't they included the Snapdragon 810 and although I don't know for sure other than guessing it maybe to do with the cost or manufacturing issues there is an upside I did find some minor throttling and overheating with the 810 found in the HTC 1m9 and so it may not be entirely bad thing for the G4 to use the 808 instead although the M9 did score higher on the benchmarks the 808 is still the second fastest chip Qualcomm offer and is very very capable alongside this is 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of built-in storage although only 22.6 GB are actually usable the G4 also supports micro SD cards up to 2 terabytes that's significantly more than the 128 GB on the G3 in terms of the user interface although previously described as quite cluttered and maybe even a bit cartoony looking the G4 introduces the LG ux4 software on top of the latest Android lollipop 5.1 this makes the G4 much more responsive than the G3 was when it was released it retains its fairly distinctive look but it feels more grin up overall the combination of the new software and faster Hardware means the G4 is for most of the time very fast and responsive only occasionally has it slow down for me when watching some videos or uh browsing some intensive websites on Chrome generally though any slowdown can be fixed with a clear all of the apps but coming from the Galaxy S6 the G4 is noticeably less responsive and apps are a bit slower to load still it's an improvement over the G3 and for the vast majority of the time works brilliantly for some reason it seems like fewer and fewer phones these days have a double tap to wake feature but for fortunately the G4 does and it works really well you can even double tap on empty areas of the screen to put it back to sleep following its introduction in the G3 you can keep your phone safe using a knock code as well instead of a normal password go to settings lock screen and then select screen lock from there tap not code and then you can tap the square between three and eight times in a pattern you will remember this works well for my experience although I would still recommend keeping the code relatively simple so it doesn't become too annoying or too much of a hassle trying to wake up your phone every time time another interesting feature are the smart settings customize one of three categories home away and accessory for each you can select specific sound profiles turn on Bluetooth and even automatically open the music app when headphones are plugged in I can maybe see why you might want to try this but it seems a bit too much hassle to set up I'd rather just swipe down from the top and enable or disable Bluetooth that way for example rather than relying on these geop specific settings it's a nice idea but I'm not entirely sure how useful it is every day what is more useful though is the smart notice which is the large widget you can find at the top of the main home screen and it's actually one of the most useful default widgets I've ever seen it provides the usual weather time and temperature information for example but it also has a small message underneath that sometimes forecasts the weather but also it's been quite useful as at one point the smart notice reminded me that the Spotify app which I had been using a few hours earlier was in fact still running in the background and actually using 2% of the battery every hour even it's in its background idle State I never knew this before and in the future I will make sure to close Spotify fully when I'm finished using it but small things like this that actually really useful I never knew that that was actually draining my battery so smart notice is actually a really nice addition to the UI moving on from smart notice to Smart bulletin if you go to the left of the home screen so swipe right where on other phones you may find news feeds such as the blink feed on the HTC1 and Flipboard on the Galaxy S6 on the G4 you'll find the new smart bulletin this is a slightly more useful kind of information feed that includes updates and info from the health app your upcoming events from the calendar recently played music and a range of Smart tips for using the phone you can edit the list of what comes up and even add more by downloading them from the LG Smart World multitasking comes in the form of the Dual window feature tap the recent app buttons and then dual window to view a list of compatible apps tap two apps to open them in dual Window mode for example you could open the web browser and messages at the same time you can adjust the divider between them giving one app more space over the other and it's a pretty good use of the large 5.5 in screen although it is a fairly common feature on a lot of larger screen phones these days now the cameras on the front and the back of the G4 have been fairly significantly improved over the G3 which itself was a pretty good camera and actually introduced the laser autofocus system so this Builds on that success and actually is one of the best camera phones I've ever used gaining 3 megapixels the G4 rear camera now boasts a 16 map Optical image stabilized camera with laser autofocus LED flash and is capable of recording video in 4K resolution LG claim its f1.8 aperture lets in 80% more light than the f2.4 on the G3 in addition this sensor is also 40% larger this all helps the camera capture brighter and more detailed pictures in video it also reduces noise in low like photos I left hdr on for all these photos as I found it took a genuinely brighter and more Vivid picture even though HDR does take one or two seconds to process it does a decent job of improving the dynamic range of an image however it didn't always work perfectly and sometimes certain subjects in an image like this sign were still too dark but I'd still recommend leaving it on whether you prefer a simple point and shoot camera UI or access to more advanced options like the focus shutter speed white balance and ISO settings you can tailor the camera app to suit you from the top left of the viewfinder the three dots reveal simple Auto and manual options each offering more options and settings than the last is pretty impressive how much you can change to take really specific and high quality shots one of the most interesting aspects of the GeForce camera is its ability to capture images in the Raw format as well as a standard jpeg you can select to take pictures in raw which is great for post-processing and editing although it does produce a slightly larger file size video is just as impressive with the ois helping to keep video Smooth you have the options to record an up to 4K resolution as well as higher frame rates for slow motion videos the front camera has also received a big upgrade over the G3 now boasting a whopping 8 megapixels that's up from 2.1 this ensures pcks and selfies are rich and it also has like most phones through these days one of those slightly ridiculous beautify sliders which makes your face when you're taking a selfie look like you've plastered Foundation all over it it's not for me but uh it's sort of there if you want to use it and presumably some people do orse they wouldn't keep including it inside the G4 is a removable 3,000 milliamp battery the same size as the G3 but battery life is actually a bit better than the G3 thanks to more efficient hardware and the latest software being a bit more optimized I ran the geekbench battery rundown test which which gives a good indication of battery performance by itself the results don't mean much but when you compare it against the competition it gives you a good idea of what kind of battery life you could expect from a full charge it took 5 hours and 14 minutes to fully run down which is a pretty good score by comparison the iPhone 6 Plus only lasted 12 minutes longer the Galaxy S6 was slightly better at 5 hours 50 and the HTC 1 M9 was definitely below average at 3 hour 38 a good performance then from the G4 and the score is reflected in my experience of using it after a full day of pretty typical use messaging web browsing emails and YouTube videos I'll still have around 30% of this charge left so I'm confident to say it will last a solid day maybe a day and a half with power saving mode enabled although the G4 likes any sort of quick charging or wireless charging capability it does have that removable battery which I think is a genuinely useful feature aside from the standard battery saver function that you can select to come on as a certain battery percentage which as you would expect dims the screen and reduces the processor speed a bit the only other option within the settings for extending battery life is enabling game Optimizer hidden away in the battery settings is an option to enable game Optimizer which changes the video quality of demanding games to help preserve as much battery as possible but enabling it didn't really appear to do much though in a good way games didn't look any worse and there wasn't any npal drop in frame rate so unless you come across an incredibly intensive game and you are seeing some lag perhaps turn it off but otherwise I'd leave it on to extend the battery a bit more call Quality is reasonable if a little tinny but it's serviceable the G4 does support VTE or voice over LTE if you're in a country and on a network that supports it but unfortunately I don't and I can't so I can't test that for you in terms of sound quality from the speaker the speaker is of course once again located on the back lower left corner so unfortunately the speakers aren't great the sound quality is just sort of passable but I would recommend you use headphones with the 3 and a half mil Jack on the bottom because the G4 does support high quality audio so with a good pair of headphones or earphones you can actually get quite an impressive uh sound out of the G4 just don't use a speaker if you can help it so in conclusion in some ways the G4 feels like a bit of a step back from the G3 it's kind of odd how a phone can be wider fatter thicker heavier and even less comfortable to use than its predecessor it seems a bit of a step back in terms of design of course other than questionable design changes the G4 is overall a better phone performance improvements through the software optimizations and just faster Hardware mean it doesn't have any of those responsive issues any of those lag issues that we did see with the G3 when it was launched and so for that reason alone it is obviously a better phone and much nicer to use but it's worth noting that some people on the forums and then on the internet generally are noting that they have some sort of response issues with the touch on the screen there finding that the not code that the double tap doesn't work for them and sometimes their fingers aren't registering uh Taps on the phone now I haven't actually experienced this myself but it seems to be fairly widespread so it may be worth if you do buy one of these to check that everything works quite well and give it a good go see if everything works and if it doesn't then perhaps you'll Discover it quickly enough that you can uh return it exchange it or some other way but uh it's worth noting that and just be aware that maybe for you uh as some others have been suffering from some slight technical issues with the phone now for me one of the best features of the G4 are the cameras both front and rear have been substantially upgraded over the G3 and actually produced some really really crack results pictures are detailed and sharp and the HDR really adds some great dynamic range to the images it's not perfect it's a little slower than the Galaxy S6 for example and uh there aren't all as many functions as some would like but the pr mode uh does add a lot of options a lot of settings that you can choose from shutter speed and ISO and focus to white balance and uh many more so whether you prefer just like an auto point and shoot or a fully manual Pro mode it does give you that capability and the front 8 megapixel rear 16 megapixel and very fast L laser autofocus means it is extremely capable and as I say one of the best cameras on a phone I've used for a long time and really is up there with the iPhones and Galaxy S Galaxy s6s of the world now in terms of price the G4 does cost over twice what the you can find the G3 for at the moment it's uh most good retailers you can find those for just under 500 which is pretty reasonable for a flagship device now most flagships no most new phones do often cost you know there's a premium over the last generation of course and no phone is twice as good as the last generation but to think that you could get the G3 which is very very good and very similar to this there isn't a huge amount of improvement on the G4 over the G3 for sort of 230 240 as opposed to this which is sort of 480 500 it really is worth considering actually the G3 uh surprisingly although if you do prefer having the latest and greatest Tech and all the new shiny bits and pieces then obviously the G4 will be the one for you but it's worth it's worth noting see that it's still you know it's predecessor is still pretty good value and uh although this is now comparable to the Galaxy S6 and 1 M9 for example in terms of price that um the competition is pretty strong and speaking of competition I think that's one of the biggest challenges that the G4 faces being 5.5 in it sort of go goes against the normal size phones as well as the fablet you know you've got the Sony Z3 the Galaxy s6s HD2 one m9s OnePlus 1es iPhone 6 pluses uh and note 4 for example it sort of goes against all of those you could compare it in against all those sorts of phones and it sort of just doesn't have that kind of wow factor for a 2015 phone that we're sort of used to I think the G3 in 2014 was had a lot more going for it than this one so overall the LG G4 is a pretty good phone it's got a really good display it's bright and sharp it's uh got reasonable performance thanks to the upgraded processor and newer software and in terms of the software it does come with quite a few pretty cool features and the UI is a lot nicer and more responsive to to use than the G3 so the camera is also exceptional battery is pretty solid and overall it's a pretty good phone for me though the just a little bit uncomfortable to use may be different for you you may have bigger or smaller hands which improves it uh but it just the corn stabbing a little bit it's a little bit fat it's not the back isn't the most uh uh attractive to look at although you may prefer the leather option which I think perhaps I may have preferred in hindsight but uh it's definitely capable micro SD and removable removable battery are definite selling points and that camera both cameras in fact are very very good so uh good phone solid if I had to give it a scroll which I don't like doing particularly it' be sort of a 7 and a half to an eight but you can't go wrong with it all I would say though is that strangely enough the G3 the predecessor is still worthy of consideration so this has been my defensive review of the LG G4 I hope you've enjoyed it I've certainly enjoyed reviewing it if you have any questions or thoughts please leave them in the comments below and hopefully if you can subscribe you'll uh keep up to date with my latest videos and I'll be uploading a Galaxy S6 versus LG G4 camera comparison very soon so that's all the all is that's all there is to say thank you very much for watching please subscribe and check out the tech chap.com for more and of course follow me on Twitter at the tech Chap and hope you have a great day and hopefully we'll see you again soon thanks a lot cheershi everyone welcome to the tech chat my name is Tom and this is my definitive review of the LG G4 now I thought the LG G3 from last year was a great phone not everyone agreed it did have some issues especially in regards to it was a bit slow and a bit laggy and a little bit unresponsive out the box it did improve if you were to root it install a third launcher and even the latest Android 5 lollipot update made it a lot easier and nicer to use but of course it still wasn't perfect it was dogged a little bit by the 2 GB of RAM and it just wasn't quite smooth and fast enough as you'd like for a 2014 Flagship now fortunately on the G4 we have a faster processor we have more RAM we have the latest software from LG and also Android 5.1 so everything is smoother nicer more responsive and overall a lot more pleasurable to use however aside from better per performance and an improved camera there's not a whole lot that's new with the G4 and in some areas like the design I actually think it's maybe taken a bit of a step back from the G3 it's just not quite as good but uh we'll go into that a little bit more detail but it's going to be really interesting to see how the gfor stands up against the 2015 competition and whether it does enough to live up to the success of last year G3 so let's take a look weighing 155 G and at 9.8 mm thick the G4 is heavier and chunkier than the G3 it's 1.5 mm wider too which means despite featuring the same 5.5 in screen the screen to body ratio is now 72.5% that's down 2.7% from the G3 last year so it's wider thicker heavier and has a lower screen to body ratio I'm not sure the GeForce design can really be considered an improvement as well as being bigger it's also less comfortable to use the sharper less rounded Corners dig into your hand and it's actually one of the least comfortable phones I've used in quite a while the PE opposite of the G3 if you recall my review of that I praise its ergonomics as a borderline fablet compared with the Note 4 and the iPhone 6 Plus for example unfortunately the G4 just isn't as comfortable to hold it's not uncomfortable exactly just it's not as great it's not as ergonomic as perhaps I might have expected following on from the G3 for one-handed use a fair amount of hand and finger gymnastics will be required so I think ideally it is a two-handed device on the front of the plastic chassis gorilla Glass 3 protects the 5.5 in display it's a bit of a shame we're not seeing the gorilla glass 4 however since that is featured on phones like the Galaxy S6 it's also worth noting the G4 doesn't have the oleophobic coating on the screen like the G3 did it's a relatively minor point but it means the G4 is a bit more susceptible to fingerprints and smudges so first impressions aren't brilliant but the G4 does have a few tricks off it sleeve that may just win me backr first of all it's the removable back cover available in gold or or metallic gray plastic like this one with a brushed metal effect and subtle diamond pattern or a rather more interesting and actually more expensive leather option regardless of whether you opt for the plastic or leather the best part is that it's removable ticking it off reveals a micro SIM card slot a Micro SD Port that supports cards up to 248 GB in size that's 2 terab in capacity as well as a removable 3,000 milliamp battery fewer and fewer phones offer these features so it's great to see here introduced on the G2 the rear but buttons have become a regular feature on LG's Flagship phones so on the back of the G4 we have the volume and the power buttons the volume is textured in contrast to the smooth power button so you can work out which you're pressing from just from the FI although you do get used to it I still find it's a little bit unwieldly to use I often find myself smudging the camera lens because I've gone a bit too high above these buttons is the new 16 megapixel camera flanked by a laser auto focus and an LED flash below is the speaker unfortunately still relegated to the back corner and on the base we have a micro USB 2 Port microphone and 3 and 1/2 mm Jack as a result of the volume and power being on the back both sides are completely clear of any buttons at the top we have an IR emitter and a noise cancelling microphone onto the front software buttons mean there are no capacitive buttons taking up the bottom bezel just an LG logo at the top we have an 8 megap front camera cool speaker and the usual light sensors and LED notifications light the front bezels have a very small very subtle diamond pattern effect it's a small version of the diamonds found on the back cover which I think gives it an almost carbon fiber look one of the most interesting aspects to the design though is the subtle curve that LG have added to the G4 dubbed the slim Arc it's not nearly as pronounced as the curve found on the LG G Flex phones and it's barely noticeable looking at it straight on but viewed from the side you can see there is definitely a slight curve so presumably this curve may help reduce the reflectivity the reflections you see on the screen because it is curved in a little bit it also may help if you place it down on the desk cuz the screen goes in a little bit maybe less of the screen is touching it and perhaps if you're using you know to call someone since the mic and the speaker is a little bit more optimally SP optimally placed for your ear and mouth it may also slightly improve core quality but in reality in my experience it doesn't really make any difference if you view side on you can just notice it it's kind of cool to look at but I don't really see any real world benefit or fundamental difference for having that curve it's a nice it's a nice effect it's a cool design but that's pretty much it the G4 features a big 5.5 in Quad HD display that translates to 538 pixels per inch meaning it's incredibly crisp and sharp using what LG describ as a quantum display the IPS LTD display looks really nice too whites look white without any hint of warm yellow or cool blue which you can often find on other phones colors therefore are generally quite natural and vibrant it's brighter than last year g32 producing around 450 nits with brightness set to Max it's not quite as bright as the iPhone 6 or Galaxy S6 but still pretty good and usable in bright sunlight viewing angles are also pretty good colors retain their vibrancy even at quite acute angles but you do notice quite a significant drop in brightness when viewed off center from around 30° upwards so although it's the same size and same resolution as the G3 display it is a fair bit brighter and the colors are a fair bit punchier and more Vivid so it's a definite Step Up in terms of the display despite not offering the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 like the HTC 1m9 or even the LG Flex 2 for example the G4 uses the slightly less powerful 1.8 GHz 64-bit hexacore Snapdragon 808 this is a decent upgrade from the 801 chip in the G3 but it's also not going to win any speed Awards that's fine though it handles everything well and even intensive games run smoothly the G4 scores just over 45,000 on The nut2 Benchmark a solid score but does Trail the Galaxy S6 is 61,000 and the HTC 1 M9 is 52,000 so your initial thoughts maybe well why haven't they included the Snapdragon 810 and although I don't know for sure other than guessing it maybe to do with the cost or manufacturing issues there is an upside I did find some minor throttling and overheating with the 810 found in the HTC 1m9 and so it may not be entirely bad thing for the G4 to use the 808 instead although the M9 did score higher on the benchmarks the 808 is still the second fastest chip Qualcomm offer and is very very capable alongside this is 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of built-in storage although only 22.6 GB are actually usable the G4 also supports micro SD cards up to 2 terabytes that's significantly more than the 128 GB on the G3 in terms of the user interface although previously described as quite cluttered and maybe even a bit cartoony looking the G4 introduces the LG ux4 software on top of the latest Android lollipop 5.1 this makes the G4 much more responsive than the G3 was when it was released it retains its fairly distinctive look but it feels more grin up overall the combination of the new software and faster Hardware means the G4 is for most of the time very fast and responsive only occasionally has it slow down for me when watching some videos or uh browsing some intensive websites on Chrome generally though any slowdown can be fixed with a clear all of the apps but coming from the Galaxy S6 the G4 is noticeably less responsive and apps are a bit slower to load still it's an improvement over the G3 and for the vast majority of the time works brilliantly for some reason it seems like fewer and fewer phones these days have a double tap to wake feature but for fortunately the G4 does and it works really well you can even double tap on empty areas of the screen to put it back to sleep following its introduction in the G3 you can keep your phone safe using a knock code as well instead of a normal password go to settings lock screen and then select screen lock from there tap not code and then you can tap the square between three and eight times in a pattern you will remember this works well for my experience although I would still recommend keeping the code relatively simple so it doesn't become too annoying or too much of a hassle trying to wake up your phone every time time another interesting feature are the smart settings customize one of three categories home away and accessory for each you can select specific sound profiles turn on Bluetooth and even automatically open the music app when headphones are plugged in I can maybe see why you might want to try this but it seems a bit too much hassle to set up I'd rather just swipe down from the top and enable or disable Bluetooth that way for example rather than relying on these geop specific settings it's a nice idea but I'm not entirely sure how useful it is every day what is more useful though is the smart notice which is the large widget you can find at the top of the main home screen and it's actually one of the most useful default widgets I've ever seen it provides the usual weather time and temperature information for example but it also has a small message underneath that sometimes forecasts the weather but also it's been quite useful as at one point the smart notice reminded me that the Spotify app which I had been using a few hours earlier was in fact still running in the background and actually using 2% of the battery every hour even it's in its background idle State I never knew this before and in the future I will make sure to close Spotify fully when I'm finished using it but small things like this that actually really useful I never knew that that was actually draining my battery so smart notice is actually a really nice addition to the UI moving on from smart notice to Smart bulletin if you go to the left of the home screen so swipe right where on other phones you may find news feeds such as the blink feed on the HTC1 and Flipboard on the Galaxy S6 on the G4 you'll find the new smart bulletin this is a slightly more useful kind of information feed that includes updates and info from the health app your upcoming events from the calendar recently played music and a range of Smart tips for using the phone you can edit the list of what comes up and even add more by downloading them from the LG Smart World multitasking comes in the form of the Dual window feature tap the recent app buttons and then dual window to view a list of compatible apps tap two apps to open them in dual Window mode for example you could open the web browser and messages at the same time you can adjust the divider between them giving one app more space over the other and it's a pretty good use of the large 5.5 in screen although it is a fairly common feature on a lot of larger screen phones these days now the cameras on the front and the back of the G4 have been fairly significantly improved over the G3 which itself was a pretty good camera and actually introduced the laser autofocus system so this Builds on that success and actually is one of the best camera phones I've ever used gaining 3 megapixels the G4 rear camera now boasts a 16 map Optical image stabilized camera with laser autofocus LED flash and is capable of recording video in 4K resolution LG claim its f1.8 aperture lets in 80% more light than the f2.4 on the G3 in addition this sensor is also 40% larger this all helps the camera capture brighter and more detailed pictures in video it also reduces noise in low like photos I left hdr on for all these photos as I found it took a genuinely brighter and more Vivid picture even though HDR does take one or two seconds to process it does a decent job of improving the dynamic range of an image however it didn't always work perfectly and sometimes certain subjects in an image like this sign were still too dark but I'd still recommend leaving it on whether you prefer a simple point and shoot camera UI or access to more advanced options like the focus shutter speed white balance and ISO settings you can tailor the camera app to suit you from the top left of the viewfinder the three dots reveal simple Auto and manual options each offering more options and settings than the last is pretty impressive how much you can change to take really specific and high quality shots one of the most interesting aspects of the GeForce camera is its ability to capture images in the Raw format as well as a standard jpeg you can select to take pictures in raw which is great for post-processing and editing although it does produce a slightly larger file size video is just as impressive with the ois helping to keep video Smooth you have the options to record an up to 4K resolution as well as higher frame rates for slow motion videos the front camera has also received a big upgrade over the G3 now boasting a whopping 8 megapixels that's up from 2.1 this ensures pcks and selfies are rich and it also has like most phones through these days one of those slightly ridiculous beautify sliders which makes your face when you're taking a selfie look like you've plastered Foundation all over it it's not for me but uh it's sort of there if you want to use it and presumably some people do orse they wouldn't keep including it inside the G4 is a removable 3,000 milliamp battery the same size as the G3 but battery life is actually a bit better than the G3 thanks to more efficient hardware and the latest software being a bit more optimized I ran the geekbench battery rundown test which which gives a good indication of battery performance by itself the results don't mean much but when you compare it against the competition it gives you a good idea of what kind of battery life you could expect from a full charge it took 5 hours and 14 minutes to fully run down which is a pretty good score by comparison the iPhone 6 Plus only lasted 12 minutes longer the Galaxy S6 was slightly better at 5 hours 50 and the HTC 1 M9 was definitely below average at 3 hour 38 a good performance then from the G4 and the score is reflected in my experience of using it after a full day of pretty typical use messaging web browsing emails and YouTube videos I'll still have around 30% of this charge left so I'm confident to say it will last a solid day maybe a day and a half with power saving mode enabled although the G4 likes any sort of quick charging or wireless charging capability it does have that removable battery which I think is a genuinely useful feature aside from the standard battery saver function that you can select to come on as a certain battery percentage which as you would expect dims the screen and reduces the processor speed a bit the only other option within the settings for extending battery life is enabling game Optimizer hidden away in the battery settings is an option to enable game Optimizer which changes the video quality of demanding games to help preserve as much battery as possible but enabling it didn't really appear to do much though in a good way games didn't look any worse and there wasn't any npal drop in frame rate so unless you come across an incredibly intensive game and you are seeing some lag perhaps turn it off but otherwise I'd leave it on to extend the battery a bit more call Quality is reasonable if a little tinny but it's serviceable the G4 does support VTE or voice over LTE if you're in a country and on a network that supports it but unfortunately I don't and I can't so I can't test that for you in terms of sound quality from the speaker the speaker is of course once again located on the back lower left corner so unfortunately the speakers aren't great the sound quality is just sort of passable but I would recommend you use headphones with the 3 and a half mil Jack on the bottom because the G4 does support high quality audio so with a good pair of headphones or earphones you can actually get quite an impressive uh sound out of the G4 just don't use a speaker if you can help it so in conclusion in some ways the G4 feels like a bit of a step back from the G3 it's kind of odd how a phone can be wider fatter thicker heavier and even less comfortable to use than its predecessor it seems a bit of a step back in terms of design of course other than questionable design changes the G4 is overall a better phone performance improvements through the software optimizations and just faster Hardware mean it doesn't have any of those responsive issues any of those lag issues that we did see with the G3 when it was launched and so for that reason alone it is obviously a better phone and much nicer to use but it's worth noting that some people on the forums and then on the internet generally are noting that they have some sort of response issues with the touch on the screen there finding that the not code that the double tap doesn't work for them and sometimes their fingers aren't registering uh Taps on the phone now I haven't actually experienced this myself but it seems to be fairly widespread so it may be worth if you do buy one of these to check that everything works quite well and give it a good go see if everything works and if it doesn't then perhaps you'll Discover it quickly enough that you can uh return it exchange it or some other way but uh it's worth noting that and just be aware that maybe for you uh as some others have been suffering from some slight technical issues with the phone now for me one of the best features of the G4 are the cameras both front and rear have been substantially upgraded over the G3 and actually produced some really really crack results pictures are detailed and sharp and the HDR really adds some great dynamic range to the images it's not perfect it's a little slower than the Galaxy S6 for example and uh there aren't all as many functions as some would like but the pr mode uh does add a lot of options a lot of settings that you can choose from shutter speed and ISO and focus to white balance and uh many more so whether you prefer just like an auto point and shoot or a fully manual Pro mode it does give you that capability and the front 8 megapixel rear 16 megapixel and very fast L laser autofocus means it is extremely capable and as I say one of the best cameras on a phone I've used for a long time and really is up there with the iPhones and Galaxy S Galaxy s6s of the world now in terms of price the G4 does cost over twice what the you can find the G3 for at the moment it's uh most good retailers you can find those for just under 500 which is pretty reasonable for a flagship device now most flagships no most new phones do often cost you know there's a premium over the last generation of course and no phone is twice as good as the last generation but to think that you could get the G3 which is very very good and very similar to this there isn't a huge amount of improvement on the G4 over the G3 for sort of 230 240 as opposed to this which is sort of 480 500 it really is worth considering actually the G3 uh surprisingly although if you do prefer having the latest and greatest Tech and all the new shiny bits and pieces then obviously the G4 will be the one for you but it's worth it's worth noting see that it's still you know it's predecessor is still pretty good value and uh although this is now comparable to the Galaxy S6 and 1 M9 for example in terms of price that um the competition is pretty strong and speaking of competition I think that's one of the biggest challenges that the G4 faces being 5.5 in it sort of go goes against the normal size phones as well as the fablet you know you've got the Sony Z3 the Galaxy s6s HD2 one m9s OnePlus 1es iPhone 6 pluses uh and note 4 for example it sort of goes against all of those you could compare it in against all those sorts of phones and it sort of just doesn't have that kind of wow factor for a 2015 phone that we're sort of used to I think the G3 in 2014 was had a lot more going for it than this one so overall the LG G4 is a pretty good phone it's got a really good display it's bright and sharp it's uh got reasonable performance thanks to the upgraded processor and newer software and in terms of the software it does come with quite a few pretty cool features and the UI is a lot nicer and more responsive to to use than the G3 so the camera is also exceptional battery is pretty solid and overall it's a pretty good phone for me though the just a little bit uncomfortable to use may be different for you you may have bigger or smaller hands which improves it uh but it just the corn stabbing a little bit it's a little bit fat it's not the back isn't the most uh uh attractive to look at although you may prefer the leather option which I think perhaps I may have preferred in hindsight but uh it's definitely capable micro SD and removable removable battery are definite selling points and that camera both cameras in fact are very very good so uh good phone solid if I had to give it a scroll which I don't like doing particularly it' be sort of a 7 and a half to an eight but you can't go wrong with it all I would say though is that strangely enough the G3 the predecessor is still worthy of consideration so this has been my defensive review of the LG G4 I hope you've enjoyed it I've certainly enjoyed reviewing it if you have any questions or thoughts please leave them in the comments below and hopefully if you can subscribe you'll uh keep up to date with my latest videos and I'll be uploading a Galaxy S6 versus LG G4 camera comparison very soon so that's all the all is that's all there is to say thank you very much for watching please subscribe and check out the tech chap.com for more and of course follow me on Twitter at the tech Chap and hope you have a great day and hopefully we'll see you again soon thanks a lot cheers\n"