Ok so here goes my review of LG G2. I already know it will be long but That's because that's how I like reviews to be!
The whole post is done on my LG G2! :-)
1-Background
I'm coming from a LG nexus 4!
Why change it!?
I adore the feel and smoothness of vanilla android but lately I started to feel bored! It's quasi-featureless, although cyanogenmod and paranoid android fix that partially!
Besides the relatively poor battery life and camera as well as low storage and small screen made me make up mind!
Why G2!?
I loved LG nexus 4 much more than my old Samsung galaxy nexus! LG made a better job in my opinion! I loved the build quality and the feel, I hated amoled screens, I hated touchwiz, I wanted the biggest screen possible while still being able to use it single-handed, I wanted big battery and good storage!
I also felt tired of all this rom/kernel flashing! I couldn't really enjoy my phone! So I wanted something that works very well out of the box without the need to constantly flashing and modding!
What fits all that!?
Definitely a 32GB LG G2!
2-General thoughts
In general I like this phone a lot! The design is smart and distinctive! I like the back buttons! The phone feels good in hand with a great size and weight! Feels sturdy! BUT beware! This phone is extremely vulnerable to drops being nearly besel-less! See androidauthority's drop test! I used the phone naked for like 2min and directly installed the cover! I don't need sdcards or removable battery since it's more than enough!
3-what I like
-screen is amazing! Great color reproduction although they tried to make it amoled-like but it's still less saturated and whites look better! Size is wonderful while still being pocket and single-hand friendly!
-i like soft buttons although they use screen estate but navigation is much faster and feels more natural! Once rooted . Removed these completely and now I'm using something like Pie (LMT launcher from Xda)
-battery life is great! It gets better once removing bloatware and installing greenify and greenifying apps like Facebook and others! For example I'm now 4 hrs on battery, screen on for 1h:25min, music play for 10min, autosync always on as well as gps and I'm still on 84%! I just love it!
-knock on
-fast charging (around 1.5h to fully charge)
-customizable launcher which allows themes and icons change!
-Guest mode
-this one is awesome, I can't think about it without smiling: if you are owning any app and you get a phone call, it will not leave the app but rather it will display a small undisturbing dialogue box on top of the screen from where you can either ignore, close, answer or mute!
This is awesome especially when playing full screen games! I used go crazy when getting a phone call during playing fun run or perfect kick because it quits the game and make me lose the game! Now no more!
-performance is great! Especially in heavy tasks relatively to nexus 4! The phone definitely gets hot during heavy usage like any other high end smartphone but not to an annoying level!
-still camera is great! Definitely better than any nexus camera!
-android development on xda is relatively good! Also porting nexus 5 roms is relatively easy!
-LTE
-USB OTG
-the fact that I changed dpi without breaking any single LG app except camera unlike touchwiz where most apps appearance would be messed up!
Using Xposed framework and app settings module can fix this!
-G2 settings (xposed module in play store) gives some nice improvements!
-quick memo is a very nice way to take screenshots and annotate term!
-default LG apps are really customizable and quick remote is nice!
-miracast: from my nexus 4 i couldn't mirror my screen on my Samsung smart tv as i was able on my wife's s2! Now i can!
-can switch to old good list view in settings instead of tabs view
4-what I dislike
-qslide is nice but without being able to run every app in that mode it will be nearly useless!
-sound level is a little bit on the low side! Not as loud as the nexus 4!
-surprisingly automatic brightness is kind of annoying! It takes relatively long time to respond and transition is slow and not smooth! What I mean is that it looks like if the screen is kind of flickering even when increasing or decreasing!
It's not a deal breaker and I can easily live with it! Also 3rd party apps like lux (forgot the whole name) can easily fix this!
-as every non-nexus android phone there are some stuttering and slowness here and there!
Also it's not that frequent and I can live with it!
-unfortunately once in a while LG launcher might refresh/restart kind of the same way old htc sense did! When it happens it's kind of annoying but it doesn't happen frequently!
I'm trying to study the causes although I already bought nova launcher and any other 3rd party launcher will solve this issue!
-video recording and hence video watching is pretty annoying due to the breathing effect (continuous trial to autofocus) even if you and the object you are shooting are stand still! So each like 5sec tries to autofocus!
Of course a software update can fix this!
-LG official updates will surely be rare! Very rare!
However i can't really find a useful feature that I miss now from my nexus 4 4.3 android!
-no spell checker!!! WTF Lg and samsung! Both omitted this from vanilla android which was maybe the most feature I used when typing! So now excuse me if I have any mistakes :-P
If someone didn't get me, I mean that red zigzag line that shows under wrongly spelled words and the ability to simply click on it and choose the right word between suggestions!
Finally battery update: I'm now on 5h:20min on battery and 2h;40min screen on and I'm on 67%! Still stock but only rooted!
Cheers!
The whole post is done on my LG G2! :-)
1-Background
I'm coming from a LG nexus 4!
Why change it!?
I adore the feel and smoothness of vanilla android but lately I started to feel bored! It's quasi-featureless, although cyanogenmod and paranoid android fix that partially!
Besides the relatively poor battery life and camera as well as low storage and small screen made me make up mind!
Why G2!?
I loved LG nexus 4 much more than my old Samsung galaxy nexus! LG made a better job in my opinion! I loved the build quality and the feel, I hated amoled screens, I hated touchwiz, I wanted the biggest screen possible while still being able to use it single-handed, I wanted big battery and good storage!
I also felt tired of all this rom/kernel flashing! I couldn't really enjoy my phone! So I wanted something that works very well out of the box without the need to constantly flashing and modding!
What fits all that!?
Definitely a 32GB LG G2!
2-General thoughts
In general I like this phone a lot! The design is smart and distinctive! I like the back buttons! The phone feels good in hand with a great size and weight! Feels sturdy! BUT beware! This phone is extremely vulnerable to drops being nearly besel-less! See androidauthority's drop test! I used the phone naked for like 2min and directly installed the cover! I don't need sdcards or removable battery since it's more than enough!
3-what I like
-screen is amazing! Great color reproduction although they tried to make it amoled-like but it's still less saturated and whites look better! Size is wonderful while still being pocket and single-hand friendly!
-i like soft buttons although they use screen estate but navigation is much faster and feels more natural! Once rooted . Removed these completely and now I'm using something like Pie (LMT launcher from Xda)
-battery life is great! It gets better once removing bloatware and installing greenify and greenifying apps like Facebook and others! For example I'm now 4 hrs on battery, screen on for 1h:25min, music play for 10min, autosync always on as well as gps and I'm still on 84%! I just love it!
-knock on
-fast charging (around 1.5h to fully charge)
-customizable launcher which allows themes and icons change!
-Guest mode
-this one is awesome, I can't think about it without smiling: if you are owning any app and you get a phone call, it will not leave the app but rather it will display a small undisturbing dialogue box on top of the screen from where you can either ignore, close, answer or mute!
This is awesome especially when playing full screen games! I used go crazy when getting a phone call during playing fun run or perfect kick because it quits the game and make me lose the game! Now no more!
-performance is great! Especially in heavy tasks relatively to nexus 4! The phone definitely gets hot during heavy usage like any other high end smartphone but not to an annoying level!
-still camera is great! Definitely better than any nexus camera!
-android development on xda is relatively good! Also porting nexus 5 roms is relatively easy!
-LTE
-USB OTG
-the fact that I changed dpi without breaking any single LG app except camera unlike touchwiz where most apps appearance would be messed up!
Using Xposed framework and app settings module can fix this!
-G2 settings (xposed module in play store) gives some nice improvements!
-quick memo is a very nice way to take screenshots and annotate term!
-default LG apps are really customizable and quick remote is nice!
-miracast: from my nexus 4 i couldn't mirror my screen on my Samsung smart tv as i was able on my wife's s2! Now i can!
-can switch to old good list view in settings instead of tabs view
4-what I dislike
-qslide is nice but without being able to run every app in that mode it will be nearly useless!
-sound level is a little bit on the low side! Not as loud as the nexus 4!
-surprisingly automatic brightness is kind of annoying! It takes relatively long time to respond and transition is slow and not smooth! What I mean is that it looks like if the screen is kind of flickering even when increasing or decreasing!
It's not a deal breaker and I can easily live with it! Also 3rd party apps like lux (forgot the whole name) can easily fix this!
-as every non-nexus android phone there are some stuttering and slowness here and there!
Also it's not that frequent and I can live with it!
-unfortunately once in a while LG launcher might refresh/restart kind of the same way old htc sense did! When it happens it's kind of annoying but it doesn't happen frequently!
I'm trying to study the causes although I already bought nova launcher and any other 3rd party launcher will solve this issue!
-video recording and hence video watching is pretty annoying due to the breathing effect (continuous trial to autofocus) even if you and the object you are shooting are stand still! So each like 5sec tries to autofocus!
Of course a software update can fix this!
-LG official updates will surely be rare! Very rare!
However i can't really find a useful feature that I miss now from my nexus 4 4.3 android!
-no spell checker!!! WTF Lg and samsung! Both omitted this from vanilla android which was maybe the most feature I used when typing! So now excuse me if I have any mistakes :-P
If someone didn't get me, I mean that red zigzag line that shows under wrongly spelled words and the ability to simply click on it and choose the right word between suggestions!
Finally battery update: I'm now on 5h:20min on battery and 2h;40min screen on and I'm on 67%! Still stock but only rooted!
Cheers!