2017 has been an interesting year for smartphones I mean if I were to roll
back the first device that I looked at this year was the LG G6 followed by
the Galaxy S8 plus from Samsung the one plus five and the recently announced
oneplus 5t the Galaxy Note 8 the Google pixel 2 you know these are expensive
devices that come with a fantastic displays excellent cameras great build
quality and design and a few exclusive features that make each device stand out
from one another but not everyone has the money to go out there and get the
latest and greatest from Apple Samsung Google or LG there are consumers who are
looking for cheaper alternatives that will necessarily break the bank yet
offer similar features that these flagship 600 ala plus smart phones come
with the good news is that there are a lot of smart phones under the sub $400
price range that come with all the essential features that consumers
require so today I'm going to be taking a look at a smart phone from LG it's
called the q6 and it's priced at $300 now what makes a smart phone stand out
from the competition is the design and just a way how it's built plus you know
the resemblance to its bigger brother the LG G6 so let's talk about the q6
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with some very impressive specs out of the box so you're getting a 5.5 inch
full HD plus display in an 18 by 9 aspect ratio and we'll talk about that
shortly we get a snapdragon 435 CPU 3 gigabytes of RAM 32 gigabytes of
internal storage that surprisingly can be expanded via microSD great edition LG
you also get a 3000 milliamp hour battery and it comes out of the box with
Android 7.1.1 now interestingly Amazon is selling the exact same smartphone for
229 as a prime exclusive and I'm assuming it's gonna come with Amazon
based apps pre-installed but either way this looks like a solid smartphone for
the price but how does it hold up really well actually let's start with the
design and right off the bat the q6 reminds me of the LG G6 which is a
slightly more expensive device that comes with a higher resolution display
faster CPU and a slightly better build quality but the q6 isn't too shy from
that everything from the curved edges to the smooth metal frame construction
screams quality and I'm surprised at what LG was able to offer at this price
point however the rear side of the phone is covered in plastic material rather
than glass so it can scratch up easily and pick up grease so a case or skin is
highly recommended oh and did I forget to talk about the headphone jack yeah so
LG has included one with a q6 which is amazing and I know that might sound
silly but take a look at the pixel 2 or the new iPhone those expensive devices
lack an essential feature that a lot of consumers embrace so I'm glad that LG
has included that on the q6 especially for the price now the lack of a
fingerprint sensor is a disappointment especially since competing smart phones
from Nokia honor motorola within the same price range featured that type of
authentication LG could have added one of the back and I really missed it
coming from the pixel too but if you really care about security look towards
the Nokia 6 or the honor 7x the price similarly to the q6 and they offer a
built-in fingerprint reader LG has implemented face recognition to unlock
the device which is an hit or miss sometimes depending on lighting
conditions plus it's not as secure as a fingerprint sensor let's switch gears
and talk about that display LG managed to fit a 5.5 inch IPS LCD panel on the
q6 and it looks really good in person here's a comparison shot to the pixel -
that sports a slightly smaller 5 inch display and interestingly both these
devices are almost identical in terms of dimensions the minimal bezels are
certainly a welcoming change on the q6 because the taller screen yields a lot
more screen real estate plus it helps a lot with multitasking and you can also
get to experience native 20 M by 9 content without those huge black bars at
the top and bottom while the resolution is only 1080p it's more than enough for
content consumption but it should complement longer battery life however I
did notice that the panel was a bit too over sharpened at first it didn't bother
me that much but after comparing it to the pixel two's display which features a
1080p resolution it's noticeably disturbing I'm not exactly sure if this
is a hardware limitation or software but as far as I know there's no way to
adjust sharpness within the settings so do keep that in mind the IPS LCD display
exhibits great colors with good contrast there were no signs of color shift which
shouldn't be surprising since it is an IPS screen after all
rather than Emeline it's not to over saturate it like samsung's offerings yet
it doesn't come with the deepest blacks which I'm okay with but sadly I wasn't
pleased with the image displayed on screen due to the over sharpness that I
talked about earlier and you know what I think I'm being a little too critical
with the screen on the q6 because I've been spoiled by high resolution displays
found on flagship smartphones like the pixel 2 and the Galaxy Note 8 so if you
know switching back to the q6 it really is noticeable to me but if you're coming
from something like a 720p display or a 480p display this is definitely worth an
upgrade because the screen is just awesome it's an 18 by 9 display as I
mentioned earlier you get a lot of vertical screen real estate and of
course the colors do pop but LG if you're listening to this I would love if
you guys could you know include a software update where we can tweak the
sharpness levels so yeah that'd be much appreciated the software experience out
of the box is unfortunately not the best LG's stock skin on top of android 7.1.1
is by far the worst that I've come across on an Android device I said the
same thing for the LG G6 and it's really disappointing that LG isn't
taking any measures to clean up the clutter on their UI there are a whole
bunch of LG apps pre-installed that takes up unnecessary storage space and
most of them cannot be uninstalled now the beauty with every Android smartphone
is that the user has the option to customize the UI to their liking for
instance you can install any third-party launcher install G board and fiddle
around with the settings to give the device some character and when you do
that this phone is pretty amazing to work with
LG is pretty bad when it comes to updating their software as well so the
q6 is rocking Android 7.1.1 and I have absolutely no idea when
Android 8.0 is gonna roll out to the smartphone so do keep that in mind if
you do need a smartphone that can receive constant updates you might want
to look somewhere else because LG solid no performance was respectable on the q6
remember this one is rocking a snapdragon 435 octa-core CPU that's
clocked at 1.4 gigahertz so opening up abbis might take a few seconds and you
might experience occasional stutters when navigating through that horrible UI
but multitasking on the other hand works fast and that's thanks to the inclusion
of three gigabytes of RAM if you're planning to use this device to check
email browse the web watch youtube videos you'll be just fine except if
you're into hardcore gaming the Cusick sports a 3000 milliamp hour battery and
it charges via microUSB and not type C so keep that in mind it also sports
Qualcomm quick charge 2.0 which is really nice I was easily able to power
through a day and a half of use with just a single charge and there are a few
contributing factors to this number one you've got a power efficient CPU and a
1080p display instead of a qHD panel plus the battery life always depends on
usage so if you're a light user you can easily cruise through a couple of days
no problem but if that usage intensifies expect shorter screen on times last step
let's talk about the camera so the rear sensor is a 13 megapixel shooter with an
F 2.2 aperture and the sensor can shoot 1080p video up to 30 frames per second
now I basically left all the settings in auto mode with HDR turned on for the
best possible results and as you can see the pictures are not the best but I
guess I could give them a pass there's not a lot of detail in the shots and I
think part of that had to do with the software processing the image from the
sensor but there's also the dynamic range is not the best you can definitely
expect the highlights to be blown out in some situations especially in harsh
conditions you're not gonna get the best results the sensor also doesn't do a
good job in low-light so I would highly recommend staying away from the
smartphone especially if you're into a mobile photography but let's take a look
at some more samples
okay so I'm recording on the LG g6 this is the video test currently it's
shooting at 1080p at 30 frames per second the sensor doesn't have optical
image stabilization but I think there's some sort of software stabilization
that's going behind the scenes and it does a pretty good job
stabilizing the footage so there you go that's a close-up and you can check out
how well it focuses I mean the sensor does try hard to stabilize the footage
but it certainly looks pretty usable I'm not gonna say that it's the best come
across on an Android smartphone but seriously for $300 this thing is I
probably give it a pass not definitely bad but totally usable here's a here's
my c100 well it doesn't focus it doesn't it doesn't want to focus obviously but
maybe if I go to a closer subject like this it might you might have to tap to
focus to get it in there there we go so the auto focusing is a little wonky with
the q6 but yeah I'd like to hear your thoughts on the quality remember this is
a $300 smartphone not $1000 my phone so yep well I guess it's about time to
conclude my thoughts on the LG q6 I've had mixed feelings about this device I
mean for one I really like the design and I'm really really appreciate LG for
you know taking the time to implement an 18 by 9 display in a compact chassis and
of course giving you that minimal bezels and a solid metal construction
it really isn't awesome smartphone to hold in the hand but it's the rest of
the stuff that makes me not want to recommend this to consumers out there
for one it doesn't come with a fingerprint reader and that's kind of
disappointing because the competition has that number two the speaker and I
think I might have forgotten to mention this is that it's placed behind on the
rear side of the smartphone so when you place this on your desk it's completely
gonna mute the sound and distort it I would have preferred bottom facing the
speaker's instead of you know this implementation so
yeah I'm not really sure what went wrong there now the display is an appealing
feature for the q6 but the over sharpening that's going behind the
scenes just make content not that pleasing to watch but I think you know
for regular consumers out there for just you know browsing the web or doing just
normal things like making a phone call or texting messages shouldn't find the
display to be that daunting it's just my personal opinion you know having spoiled
by high-resolution displays I found this to be a little too much and I mean it's
it's not to my liking but again this could be subjective maybe you could end
up with liking display on the q6 but yeah that's just my take on the display
the camera is respectable it's definitely not the best but you have to
remember that this is a $300 smartphone and it's functional you know it gets the
job done so what I would do is just not keep your expectations is high and you
know expect results that could compare with the pixel - or some other flagship
smartphones well that concludes this review of the LG q6 I'd love to hear
your thoughts on this device especially for $300 are you willing to compromise
on the camera the display lack of a type-c connector the lack of IP 6 sound
water and dust resistant grating and of course a few other flagship features
that you would expect on $1000 and smartphone yeah let me know in the
comments down below I'm Eber with Hardware Canucks thank you
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