- What is going on, Tech Squad?
Andru Edwards here, editor-in-chief of gearlive.com,
and you guys have been asking me for my final review
of the LG G6, especially since the launch of the Samsung
Galaxy S8, so that's what this video is going to do.
It's going to give you my final thoughts, my review
of the LG G6, one of the best phones you can buy right now.
Now, of course, I also do have my full Samsung Galaxy S8
and S8 Plus reviews upcoming as well.
And outside of the smartphone game,
I just got in the Dell 30-inch OLED monitor.
I'm gonna do a review on that, and I've also been compiling
some really cool Netflix hacks.
So if you're a Netflix subscriber,
you're gonna wanna stay tuned for that one as well.
So be sure to hit that subscribe button down below
and tap on the bell icon if you want a notification
whenever a new video drops here on the channel.
But without any further delay,
let's jump in to my LG G6 review.
The LG G6 was the first major flagship phone
you could buy here in 2017,
and it's definitely worth your attention.
And this is basically one of the first of the new designs
of phones where they're really doing
a great job at getting rid of the bezel.
On the side here on the LG G6,
the bezels are almost non existent.
Then you have a thin strip
at the top and bottom of the phone.
What that means is you're able to fit a bigger screen
in a smaller body than you're used to seeing.
In the LG G6's case, you're looking
at a 5.7-inch LCD panel in a phone
that's significantly smaller than the iPhone 7 Plus,
which only has a 5.5-inch display.
And I'm actually really happy with the display on the LG G6.
It's bright, it's sharp.
It has great color accuracy as well.
I even like that the four corners of the display
are slightly curved, too.
It just gives it a nice visual appeal
when you're using the phone.
Now, LG says that those curves actually help
protect the screen from cracks
since it's further away from the edges of the phone.
And by the way, speaking of watching content
on these amazing displays, big shout-out to Plex
for sponsoring this video.
If you're unaware, Plex is a service and an app.
You can download it to an iPhone from the App Store
or to an Android device from the Google Play Store,
and it allows you to stream content
stored on your home network.
It's super simple to use, super simple to set up,
and it's free.
There is a paid version called the Plex Pass,
and that gives you early access to new Plex features,
lets you watch content offline,
gives you mobile sync, cloud sync, and camera upload
and so much more.
I'll leave the link down below to Plex
and where you can download it as well as where you can
find out more about the Plex Pass.
The aspect ratio on the G6 is 18 by nine or two by one
for people who want to be super literal about it,
but all the 18 by nine number really does is convey
the difference between 16 by nine and 18 by nine.
Basically, the phone is a little longer
than the displays that we're used to seeing.
So if you think about how much time
you spend on your phone looking at lists,
whether it's a vertical list of tweets or Facebook updates,
Instagram, basically any social network, YouTube,
you're usually looking at list of content or you're reading
a webpage that is basically a list of words.
So a longer display actually makes it easier
for you to see more content on the screen at one time.
This display also supports both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision
for high dynamic range content,
and it looks really nice.
It's actually really impressive to get HDR
out of something that you can hold in your hand.
The narrow body points to the other useful innovation
of the G6 which I mentioned earlier;
that is, that the bezels are tiny,
bordering on nonexistent on the sides.
Now, they're not literally missing
like they are on the Galaxy S8,
and I'm still not sure which side of the fence
I fall on this, but I think I actually prefer having
a flat display with extremely small bezels
than a curved display where there's no bezel at all,
but then you get the phantom side touches
because it's pretty impossible not to touch
a display that curves around the side.
And those rogue edge touches are not a problem
I've experienced in any of my time using the G6.
It should also be noted that the front display is protected
by Gorilla Glass 3, as is the cover of the rear camera,
but the rest of the rear body is actually Gorilla Glass 5.
So this phone feels really sturdy.
It doesn't feel like something I'm going to drop and break.
Beyond the screen, the rest of the G6 is impressive as well.
The body sports an all-glass design on the front and back,
which I think makes the phone look great.
There's a slight curve on the back,
which feels nice in the hand, and the glass does show
fingerprints depending on which color you get.
There's no camera bump here,
which I thought I should mention.
LG was pretty excited about that.
It's never bothered me when a phone has had a camera bump.
I don't know why so many reviewers put
so much time and energy into talking about that
when I've never heard a general consumer,
just any friend or family member of mine,
ever complain about the bump on the back of their phone.
It's only reviewers that seem to have a problem with that.
I've never had a problem with it, but if you do,
the LG G6 has no camera bump at all.
Right below that camera,
you've got the power button and fingerprint sensor hybrid.
All in all, this phone looks great
and feels great in the hand.
The LG G6 is also IP68 water and dust resistant,
and at this point, water resistance is a feature
you should expect on pretty much any flagship device
from any major manufacturer.
And it's actually one of the things I didn't appreciate
about the Google Pixel, so hopefully, Google Pixel 2
is also a water resistant device.
There's also a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack for what it's
worth, so you can use standard headphones
or headphones that plug into that USB-C port and the bottom.
The G6 feels fast, thanks to the combination of the Qualcomm
Snapdragon 821 processor, four gigabytes of RAM,
and a nicely optimized version of Android 7.0 Nougat.
Many were worried that the Galaxy S8 would be faster
since it's running that faster Snapdragon 835 processor,
but in real world use, between the two phones,
I haven't felt much of a difference at all.
What I do have a problem with, though,
is the storage capacity on this thing.
The LG G6 only ships with 32 gigabytes of storage space,
which I think, in 2017, just isn't enough
for what we do with our phones these days.
Thankfully, the phone storage is expandable
by way of a Micro SD card slot,
so I highly recommend picking up a Micro SD card
and of course, as you guys probably know by now,
I'm a huge fan of SanDisk cards.
I use SanDisk flash storage on all my devices
like my camera, my smartphones, my Nintendo Switch as well.
The cool thing about their newest card for smartphones
is that they actually support the A1 storage standard.
And SanDisk actually played a huge part
in creating the A1 standard, making it the perfect companion
for adoptable storage, combining the on-board storage
of the device, that 32 gigabytes, with the SD card itself.
The end result of the A1 standard, though,
is much faster app launching,
as well as quicker processing of accompanying tasks,
including audio, graphics, saved profiles,
and in-app permissions.
So not only are you increasing
the storage capacity of your device.
You're also increasing the speed at which it performs.
I'll leave a link down in the description below
to the SanDisk 256 gigabyte ultra premium edition A1 card,
which you can pick up at B&H Photo, and of course,
if you live outside of New York State, you can order it
from B&H Photo tax free.
Now, if you don't want to commit to a 256 gigabyte
MicroSD card specifically for your device,
there's also this cool little guy
that SanDisk makes as well.
This is SanDisk USB Type-C Dual Drive.
What makes this cool is that on one side,
you've got a USB-C port, which easily plugs in
to the bottom of any USB-C device,
but then on the other side, if you flip it over,
and it's got a standard full-size USB-A port.
So this device is 128 gigs in storage.
So what that means is you can use this device
to move content off of your phone to a computer
or from a computer to a phone
or from one phone to another phone
as long as it has USB-C making it super easy to store
your content and take it with you anywhere you go.
So I'll leave a link to the USB-C Dual Drive down below
as well, but that's two ways that you could improve
the storage situation on the LG G6,
because what comes in the box, only 32 gigs,
I just don't think that's enough.
On the back of the LG G6,
you'll find the other main feature.
It is the dual camera setup.
Dual 13 megapixel cameras are what they put into the G6.
The pictures that they take are just a step below
what you'd get with a Galaxy S8 or the iPhone 7 Plus,
but the quality is still very respectable.
The main camera is a standard zoom lens with a 78-degree
field of view, and the second camera
is a wide-angle lens with a 125-degree field of view.
You can switch between the two instantly
by tapping on the tree icon within the camera app,
whether you're snapping photos or shooting video.
My favorite feature of the camera, though,
isn't so much about the hardware
but the software in the camera app itself.
You can basically choose a double-square interface
where, when you're taking pictures,
half of the display is your viewfinder,
and the other half shows you
a preview of the pictures that you just took.
On front, you've got a five-megapixel selfie camera
with a wide-angle lens,
which allows you to fit more people into the frame,
and it actually has the same feature that the rear camera
has where you can tape and go back and forth
between close-up and wide-angle.
But on front, it's more of a software trick,
because it doesn't have two front cameras, obviously.
All in all, what LG has here is a really solid phone
that will likely have some difficulty
when a buyer's comparing it to the Samsung Galaxy S8
and its pretty impressive Infinity display.
That said, I think that the LG G6 is the best
Galaxy S8 alternative on the Android side,
and, like I said earlier, I think I performed the function
of having a flat display with no rogue touches.
It feels less delicate, and it still looks fantastic.
And the other thing, and this goes for any phone
with this longer 18 or 18 and a half by nine screen ratio,
after using this phone for about a week,
it was really tough to go back to phones
where they had the 16 by nine aspect ratio.
You get used to seeing more stuff on the display itself,
so this form factor is definitely the future of smartphones.
I expect we'll see the next iPhone adopt this,
as well as the next Google Pixel and phones from HTC.
As the first major flagship phone launch of 2017,
I think LG did a tremendous job with the LG G6.
I highly recommend this phone
if you're looking for something
to replace an older model that you might already have.
It really is a tossup between this and the Galaxy S8,
unless you're really into that Infinity display.
My only major complaint about the phone is the fact
that it only has 32 gigabytes of storage space
out of the box, but again, you can fix that
by buying a MicroSD card.
Like I said, the Galaxy S8 review is coming soon.
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Drop a comment below letting me know
what you think of the LG G6.
Is it something you consider,
or are you more about the iPhone side of things?
Is it all about the Samsung
and that great Infinity display for you?
Let me know down there,
and I'll meet you for further discussion.
Thank you so much for watching, as always, guys.
I appreciate your support.
I'm Andru Edwards, and I'll catch you in the next video.
(uptempo rock music)