[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”72″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]F[/mks_dropcap]ull disclosure, I really like LG’s handsets, from their really great looking G5 and topped by their unusual decision to launch their V10 model the same year, LG seems to be on a roll to make a really good smartphone build. I can imagine what a hard follow up that’s going to be this year with some stellar releases from all mobile phone manufacturers across the board. How does LG stay relevant ? With the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the HTC 10 , 2016 is the year anyone can be spoiled for choice and LG’s answer this year, naturally, is the G5.
LG came up by putting their stock into radicalizing their design by constructing a “modular” system, similar to what we saw with Google’s Project Ara. I have to give them full credit and admire their spunk for trying something different in an era of smartphones where design seems to not change drastically with incremental hardware upgrades. It’s an interesting device but if you’re going by user experiences, that’s a different story. When LG follows up from “See the Great” to “It’s good when you play more”, there seems to be an emphasis on the marketing shtick rather than usability and have decided to go with “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” formula, that’s not necessarily a good thing. LG have made a good smartphone but will it be good enough is another question
With having decided to go with “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” formula, LG have made a good smartphone but will it be good enough in a year of great smartphones?
Let’s talk Design
Without the battery in it, the LG feels, empty. There’s hardly any feel to the weight of the phone, the same premium feeling you would get when you pick up the leather G4. It’s curvy, sleek around the edges but the metal finishing on the device seems to give it a plastic appearance more than anything. Tactile aspects aside, the phone overall is supremely minimal, a volume clicker now on the side instead of the front and SIM tray on the other, it’s a very welcome move when LG realized front volume controls don’t seem to work for most. The touch sensor however retains its position right below the camera.
The pièce de résistance with what makes the LG’s modular system or as LG likes to call it , “Friends”. I like to call it “The G5 and friends show.”
The sensor is superb. Lightning fast as expected but if you do tap it wrong and it doesn’t detect the print it goes to knock or keycode mode instead. I have large fingers and this was an annoyance I had to put up with. And now the pièce de résistance with what makes the LG’s modular system or as LG likes to call it , “Friends”. I like to call it “The G5 and friends show.” It’s not truly modular since you’ll be swapping modules that enhance but not upgrade the phone’s functionality.
It works like this. Along the side of the handset is button that you’ll barely notice. Pressing it ( with some effort ) will release the bottom bezel of your phone and the battery pops out, attached the bottom. Now I have to mention that this is where I start to see a problem here. Most consumers love to not over complicate things but this particular method to snap the battery out may give the impression that you’re very close to breaking the battery.
About the battery, yes the LG does have a 2,800 mAh battery, smaller by the likes of the S7 and HTC 10, but of course it does come with USB-C and that means quick charging 3.0 is involved, plus it’s removable. I travelled with it playing music from the microSD card for five hours and it phenomenally stayed at 75% at the end of it. The battery will charge completely within the hour and you can use it for a quick juice charge for 50% within 20 minutes.
Battery recharge times again are something that can make you say, “The Future is now!”
You can then use the battery to attach it to other “friends” or modules as it were. We were supplied with a camera grip for our review but there are other modules that will be released in due time. The phone is out on retail and I did enquire on whether the other modules besides the camera are supplied and they weren’t too sure themselves on availability or the initial price offering for each module. For now the camera module is bundled with the phone on purchase.
The G5 will allow you to use several modules to that one thing they’re designed for specifically. It’s always a great idea to put DAC on your phone but while B&O definitely made a punch targeting the discerning audiophile, I wouldn’t see the common consumer go for it first hand.
The camera grip ( LG Cam Plus ) which we had adds a bigger battery capacity up to an additional 1,200mAh to the G5’s current 2,800mAh. The module also includes, a separate shutter button for photo and video, a dial to zoom. Other modules include the DAC module that runs on tech by Bang and Olufsen allowing you to get 32 bit audio and a extra headphone jack. You can see where this is going. The G5 will allow you to use several modules to that one thing they’re designed for specifically. It’s always a great idea to put DAC on your phone but while B&O definitely made a punch targeting the discerning audiophile, I wouldn’t see the common consumer go for it first hand, to top it off, it’s going to be really hard to get me to let go of the excellent V10 and HTC hasn’t made it any easier by providing DAC internally on their device as well.
In fact, I’d hate to say it, I personally just don’t see what LG were trying to accomplish by going modular with their current flagship. Especially pricing the phone in a price bracket as their competitors yet offering enhancements on sale for a device that should have offered everything as a single functional unit. What left me disappointed is that it felt that LG were aiming to do something phenomenal but their initial module release package left me underwhelmed. The LG Cam Plus in this situation is a module that helps you make the shooting process easier by giving you a grip and battery and additional buttons but in no way does it increases functionality.
LG’s modules feel more like a beta of first generation tech that will hopefully get better with every iteration but this isn’t it.
And will these modules you purchase be backward compatible with the G6 possibly? It’s a question that LG may need to answer to give the G5 a compelling reason to buy. LG says they will allow third party users to build their own modules that can support the G5 but how this will be executed and distributed depends solely on how well the G5 sells. This is a concern again, especially after I had amazing experiences with LG’s G5 and V10, one thing that was lacking was customer support. The excellent leather back case was great but not for someone who would have sweaty palms. It took nearly a year to acquire a back up case and it had to be done through LG’s online store. No retailer had this case. I can’t imagine how it’s going to be when modules are involved.
How about that screen ?
I always loved LG’s impressive display tech and continuing with the G5, there’s little to fault with their screen making it the best yet that they put on a flagship. It’s not 4K just yet, I expect to see the G5 to become a 4K display but it’s still on Quad-HD IPS LCD panel. It’s also smaller and the pixels are tightly packed from 5.5 ” to 5.3 making it really sharp and crisp. I personally prefer the LG’s natural colors while this boils down to taste since I can see some going for Samsung’s more vibrant colors that pop. Auto brightness also helps, it was a nagging issue I had with the G4 until it got fixed in an update but the G5 should deal with this easily in bright daylight but you compromise on color quality in doing so. LG has also taken it’s always on screen and optimized it so that doesn’t hit the battery too hard, notifications are displayed without the need to turn on the screen just like the V10’s second screen.
The software’s got a bit of an update
LG hasn’t had the best software experience in terms of design and it does take some time getting used to. The G5 does come with Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 along with all the optimizations that Google put in albeit it’s been skinned by LG as expected with LG UX 5.o. It’s not the best skin especially if you’re coming from vanilla android, more so HTC seems to offer complete customization with their display and that’s put a stump on LG but it’s not as bad as it was with the G4.
Up until recently, LG seemingly pulled a Huawei and didn’t include the app drawer and it left me annoyed since I liked that feature to organize my apps and keep the screen minimal. The latest update from LG brings back the drawer which I can imagine might have been forced upon LG with suggestions to make it an optional feature. You will find yourself with a bloat problem with LG’s own software, for their music player, emails and app store it couples facebook and instagram as well which it stalled my updates when I first started using the phone.
Besides that the experience is the same that’s now faster and smoother.
A performer just the way you expect it to be.
The G5 comes with the standard internals you’re familiar with. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 powered by 4GB RAM, an Adreno 530 GPU and a fixed internal storage of 32 GB with expandable memory up to 2 TB. It makes the G5 a great performer and you’re not going to notice any weird quirks that prop up. I played a game of Sonic and an emulator and it ran smooth. Videos look great and sound great too. On testing it with a fully charged battery, this was with the LG Cam Plus module, the scores are below just making it sit right below the iPhone 6S but in terms of real world performance you’re absolutely sorted.
The call quality is of course stellar and their speakers hold their own but it’s very likely you won’t be using the phone speakers for any music listening, but you can sure can trust the alarm to wake you up, it’s loud.
The camera you know and love is now better
With LG winning me over last year with their G4 and V10 cameras last year. There wasn’t a doubt that this would be the reason I stick with the brand. The ability to shoot RAW for me as a photographer takes big priority and I can speak for some who feel the same way. LG has taken a step further this time around with the G5 and the camera is top notch. There are now two sensors, one being the regular 16 MP lens and a second wide angle lens giving you a much wider field of view.
135 degrees to be exact and how much does that impact you photography, well turns out it does a lot.
Here’s a reference picture I shot on normal mode.
And now here’s the wide angle,
Pretty impressive in my opinion, keep in mind the wide angle being 8 MP doesn’t give the same clarity but it’s something I can see myself using for outdoor shots, group pictures and shooting city vistas and landscapes. The 16 MP camera gives no surprises, natural true to life colors and the laser autofocus hits it on the nail though it suffers in low light however change that to manual mode and when you’re in full control of a shot and it really helps. Here’s a shot at night in auto mode,
Now shot in RAW on manual and you get to keep more details and throwing out the noise
The camera does have a few gimmicks but it does almost everything right and loads amazingly quick so you don’t have to worry about missing a moment. I do however can say that the Samsung Galaxy S7 has a faster loading time in this regard. The selfie camera isn’t bad either, it’s much wider though HTC 10 now commands a better selfie camera. Additionally video shooting’s a sitch but like most devices, shooting on 4K UHD will warm your device over extended periods of time.
Do you want the LG G5 ?
I have my issues with the idea, the LG G5 is presenting, it’s a great idea just not executed well and if it’s shielded for time and shelf life. That said, the phone by itself is a great device, it’s on par with the other android devices that have come out this year and it even set forth on setting the standard differently and I have nothing but applause for them. But it’s a great device in a world of devices that just seem to do a bit more. The HTC 10 blew my expectations completely and even have RAW functionality now to take LG’s camera to task and even outrank Samsung Galaxy S7 by getting all the basics right. The G5 just seems to not hit that high note as a follow up and their software, as much as I’m patient with, needs a long overdue overhaul. The “friends”/modules just attract my scrutiny considering the LG is priced at AED 2,499 and the price of the other modules still remain unlisted. If there’s a slight possibility that there will be more modules besides the DAC module that provide better functionality, it would work but for now that remains unlikely.
Consumers are still bound to buying one device fits all, not one device and several modules to do something better.
The G5 hits the mark but that’s just it, it needs “friends” to do more and that doesn’t seem very friendly.
