- This is LG's new G7 ThinQ.
And while that name is absolutely awful,
this phone itself is actually really important.
(upbeat house music)
It's kind of a restart for the company.
LG has said that going forward,
it's not just gonna release phones
just because Samsung is putting out phones at the same time.
Instead, LG's gonna take more time
and make its new hardware count.
The G7 is the first product designed
under that new philosophy.
It's got a notch, good cameras, and some AI smarts.
But ultimately, the G7 isn't as good as it could've been
or needed to be to truly compete.
The G7's overall design has a lot
in common with last year's V30.
There's glass on both sides, curved edges,
and a nice, refined look.
It's IP68 water resistant and there's an actual power button
on the side this time, so the fingerprint sensor
around back doesn't push in anymore.
There's also a dedicated Google Assistant key,
which I have found way more helpful
and more convenient than Samsung's Bixby button.
You can press it to bring up Assistant,
or hold it down to open Google Lens
and learn about the things around you.
Now I still really wish I could remap
this button to do whatever I want, but just like Samsung,
LG's not letting you do that yet.
We've asked and it sounds like
it's a possibility for the future.
The front is dominated by a 6.1-inch IPS LCD display
and it's got a resolution of 3120 by 1440.
Now it doesn't have the same
perfect blacks and contrasts as OLED,
but the LCD screen is colorful, it's crisp,
and it's easy to read, even in direct sunlight.
There's a special super-bright mode that cranks brightness
all the way up to 1,000 nits for a few minutes.
Overall, I have no complaints about this display whatsoever,
but I don't love that notch.
See, this phone looks a lot like the iPhone X,
but on the iPhone X that notch houses Apple's Face ID system
and there's nothing that fancy or sophisticated on the LG.
Sure, you get a little bit more screen
by pushing your notifications to the corners,
but that's really the only upside I've seen.
Now, if the notch really bugs you,
LG lets you change the top of the screen to black
or other colors if you want to kinda hide it
and that's fine, but all of this just makes me wonder
why this phone has a notch to begin with.
Around back, LG is staying on brand
and sticking to its familiar dual camera setup.
That combines a primary F1.6 aperture camera
with a secondary super-wide lens
that's got a 107 degree field of view and F1.9 aperture.
Now, that's not quite as all-encompassing
as some of LG's previous super-wide lenses,
but I am still a huge fan of the creative flexibility
you get with this combo.
I just find myself using that wide perspective
more often than I would a portrait lens,
or some gimmicky monochrome black and white sensor.
Huawei now puts three cameras on its phones,
but none of them give you this view.
Now, when it comes to overall picture quality,
these cameras are good, but don't measure up to the Pixel 2,
Galaxy S9, Huawei P20 Pro, or iPhone X
in terms of detail and image processing,
but for the first time in years,
LG's front-facing camera is finally decent.
The eight megapixel sensor produces selfies
with good sharpness and nice, even exposure.
But the thing is, all of this ThinQ AI camera stuff
that LG's been hyping is pretty mediocre.
When you open the camera app, you can tap the AI cam icon,
and the camera is gonna analyze what's in the frame.
It'll try to figure out what you're pointed at.
Is it a flower, is it an animal?
And when it knows, it'll try to make adjustments
so you get the best possible picture.
That might mean adjusting settings
like contrast or color balance or saturation.
It'll boost blues in the sky, make flowers more vibrant,
and try to make the food you're shooting
look a bit more appetizing.
In these straight-forward examples,
the AI can help snap a decent photo
without making you adjust settings yourself.
But the AI's guesses at what the camera is pointed at
are often bad and wrong.
You'll focus on various subjects
and you'll see words flash on the screen
to show what the AI thinks that it recognizes.
So it might correctly identify a dog, for example,
but then you'll see a stream of unrelated,
very dumb suggestions appear alongside the right one.
And when that happens, you'll wonder
if the LG is making bad decisions
that could make your image worse and not better.
So for most cases, just use standard auto mode,
or manual if you want full control.
LG is also known for best in class sound,
so the G7 retains the headphone jack
and Quad DAC of its predecessors.
And those give you amazing audio
if you've got the right hi-fi headphones.
New this year is support for DTS:X, 3D surround sound,
which is aimed less at audiophiles
and more at people who just want their Netflix
to feel more immersive.
So the G7 doesn't have stereo speakers,
but LG put a lot of work into the single one on the bottom.
It's called a Boombox Speaker and it's designed
to use the inside of the phone
as a kind of resonance chamber
so your music can get super loud.
You can feel every base note and drumbeat
vibrate the phone in your hand as you use it,
which is kinda neat,
though it does make the G7 feel a bit hollow inside.
Now, LG says the Boombox Speaker
sounds best placed down on a table, and that's true.
It's way louder than most other phones today.
But a single speaker only takes you so far,
and it's very easy to cover up with your hand by accident.
Day-to-day, the G7 is fast and a great performer
thanks to the Snapdragon 845 processor
and four gigabytes of RAM inside.
You also get 64 gigs of storage
plus a micro SD card slot if you need more room.
But LG's own software is still a weak point for the G7.
As just one example, every time you download a new app,
you've gotta resort the app launcher
to keep things in alphabetical order, every single time.
So I think LG either needs to try harder at software,
or just make the change to stock Android.
Now, the G7 runs Android Oreo out of the box
and LG is promising it's gonna do a better job
at software updates this year.
We know how this works, I'll believe it when I see it.
But Android P is optimized for this new wave
of phones that have these notches,
so hopefully once that's available,
LG gets it out fast.
Now, I found battery life to be somewhat
disappointing during my testing.
The G7's 3,000 milliamp-powered battery
is smaller than last year's LG phones'
and many of today's flagships',
especially for phones that have screens that are this big.
If you're using the phone a lot, you're gonna have to find
more power at some point in the day.
That's just the truth of it.
The bundled charger does juice up the G7 very fast,
and it supports both wireless charging standards,
but neither of those things makes up
for having a small battery to start with.
(smooth house music)
So if LG was hoping to blaze some new path
and revitalize its mobile business with the G7 ThinQ,
I don't think this is gonna get the job done.
The trouble really starts with that godawful name.
There are people who will buy this phone no matter what,
and that's because of its fun camera and amazing audio.
They'll be happy.
But this isn't some grand reinvention of LG's phones.
I'd say the G7 is pretty iterative,
and it looks a lot like an iPhone.
So when you stack the G7 up against
2018's best smartphone contenders,
it's hard to find one feature or standout thing
that'll make this device a surefire hit.
No, it's not a $1,000 phone like the iPhone X,
but it's not much cheaper either.
So it might very well have the same fate as its predecessors
and send LG back to the drawing board again.
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