LG G2

LG G2 is LGs super-smartphone to compete against the top models like samsung galaxy S4, HTC One, Sony Xperia Z, iphone 5. LG G2 comes with top hardwares, impressive display, great battery life, good camera and its design, is also not bad. G2 is made in a fingerprint magnet plastic shell and it doesnt give a premium look of its price and theres no option for expandable memory.  The placement of the physical controls to the phone’s rear is unique but odd.

BUILD / DESIGN

The very first thing to we note on G2s design is the placement of the physical controls to the phone’s rear. Aligned vertically, the volume up, power, and volume down buttons sit in the direct center of the phone, right under the camera lens. This lets LG keep the sides of the phone nice and clean and the keys are right where you rest your fingers when you hold the device (definitely, not for all!). For some this button alignment benefits some, while others feel really awkward. But, LG has included features like double tapping the screen to wake the device and onscreen volume controls for most of the apps.

LG has built G2 with a 5.2inch display, but kept the device as small as possible. With dimensions of 138.5 x 70.9 x 8.9 mm, LG G2 is smaller and thinner than what one expect for a screen of this size, but still its a big phone! LG G2 is made of better felt quality plastic than Galaxy S4 and is more comfortable to hold than HTC One. The plastic body of LG G2 makes it look cheap and is a fingerprint magnet.

LG has ditched the hardware keys for software navigation buttons. The bottom edge of the phone has a 3.5mm headset jack, micro-USB port and a speaker and microphone. The back is non-removable and there is no microSD card slot.

DISPLAY

The front of LG G2 is dominated by the huge 5.2inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) IPS LCD display, with a pixel density of about 424 ppi. The display is a stunning feature of G2. Blacks are black, whites are white and the color saturation is simply the best. 

The LG G2 screen produces accurate colours that do not suffer from the oversaturation issues. Its definitely one of the best in the market. It is bright(not the best) and rich, provides great viewing angles and excellent sunlight legibility. But the auto brightness feature doesnt work well.

SOFTWARE / INTERFACE

The G2 runs on Android 4.2.2 with LGs custom interface and software. It changes the look and feel of the interface and also enables users to customise the phone according to their liking.

It contains a number of features that are designed to learn from users and allow for flexibility and customization, such as AnswerMe, customizable on-screen buttons, Plug & Pop, Guest Mode, Slide Aside, TextLink, etc. It also includes cool automated features like smart remainder and texting features.

The KnockON feature lets you forget about the button placement by using a double tap on-screen to unlock and activate the phone. Slide Aside lets you, swipe up to three apps to the side so they run simultaneously; using three fingers. Voice Mate is similar to Siri and S Voice, but it seems to be more or less a waste of time as G2 also has Google Now and Google’s own excellent voice actions, which are already great. Quick Remote is LG’s app for the built-in IR blaster and it lets you control your TV and entertainment console. QSlide allows an active app to shrink down and become transparent, while you work in another app or browse through the interface. Well, theres a lot more cool feature apps.

The LG G2 includes additional apps for Backup, File Manager, File sharing, a Dictionary, a Memo app, a Notebook app, Polaris Office Viewer 5, a Quick Translator app, LGs service related apps, LGs own app store-SmartWorld, a Task Manager, and apps for video editing. It offers Life Square(an app that collects your social media posts, call logs, messages, photos and videos). The LG G2 also allows wireless screen mirroring via Miracast to compatible devices.

LG G2 might not have a super cool interface, But it does make the user experience a pleasant one. Its loaded with a lot more pre-installed apps to assist the user. But, there- LG lost their mind and put about 62 pre-installed apps which could only be disabled(not delete!).

CAMERA

LG G2 sports an excellent 13MP rear and 2.1MP front shooter. It has a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass lens and can shoot 1080p video at  60fps. It’s one of the fastest smartphone cameras out there.

The LG G2s camera app offers a number of customization options. You can adjust exposure compensation, focus modes, ISO, white balance and more. There are a number of scenes to choose from, like Normal, HDR, Burst shot, Panorama, Portrait, Landscape, Sunset, Night and others. the shutter can also be activated using the volume buttons or by voice commands. The G2s camera app also adds a VR Panorama (virtual reality panorama or Photosphere), which stitches together different photos to create an almost 3D like view of the surroundings. It also offers 8X zoom, Simultaneous video and image recording, geo-tagging, face detection, LED flash, etc.

LG offers a unique Audio Zoom feature that allows you to focus on a particular source of sound while shooting(audio capturing quality isnt really good). Theres a Tracking zoom mode which shows you the area thats zoomed in while shooting in a separate window.

The G2 takes great pictures outdoors and in good lighting. Colour reproduction, contrast, white balance and detail were impressive. But under low light the LG G2s camera doesnt work fine as it misses out on detail though it does eliminate noise to a good level.

The LG G2s 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera takes good quality pictures and also does a good job for making video calls and supports 1080p video capture.

BATTERY

LG G2 is powered with a non-removable Li-Po 3000mAh battery, which does a fantastic job and separates G2 from the competition while considering battery life. Though it has a stunning 5.2inch display, the device would last a day for heavy users.

MEMORY

LG G2 comes with 32GB or 16GB built-in storage(32GB/16GB variants). Out of 32GB, 24.8GB is available as user memory. It has got 2GB RAM. For those who 32GB isnt enough; G2 is disappointment as there is no option to expand memory using microSD card.

PERFORMANCE

The LG G2 is powered by a 2.26GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800(Krait) quad-core processor with 2GB RAM, and an Adreno 330 chip for graphics processing. Navigation through the interface is extremely impressive and so is gamming and other app performances. With its top of the line hardwares, multitasking becomes smooth and impressive.

SPECIFICATIONS

Color

Black / White

CPU Speed

2.26GHz Quad core

CPU Type

Snapdragon 800 Qualcomm

Display

1920x1080 Full HD IPS Display, 13.2 cms (5.2)

RAM

2GB LPDDR3 800MHz

ROM

16GB/32GB

Network

(1x / EVDO Rev.A)

2G (GSM / EDGE)

3G (HSPA+42Mbps / HSPA+21Mbps)

Dimensions

138.5 (L) x 70.9 (W) x 8.9 (D)

Battery

3,000mAh / Embedded Li-Polymer

Audio

24bit x 192kHz Hi-Fi Sound

Camera 

13MP OIS (Optical Image Stabilizer)

8x Digital zoom

Sapphire Crystal Glass Lens 

Multi-point AF (9 Points)

Full HD 60fps Recording/Playback