Why the LG G4 deserves a second look

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Since my initial review, I’ve had a second chance to use the Canadian variant of the LG G4 and I made this device my daily driver and relied on it for work and personal use. It was then that I quickly started to reconsider my initial impressions of the LG G4. There was more to this device than I had originally discerned. 

First impressions, they don’t always stick, that’s true with some people as well as with some smartphones.

When I first looked at the LG G4, I have to admit that I found it iterative and unremarkable. There’s a precedent to this, aside from the impression that not much changed in terms of design and materials from its predecessors, I was still starry eyed from seeing what the competition had to offer. With a major move to stainless steel, aluminum, glass and in some cases bamboo and leather, the premise behind the LG G4 seemed lacking by comparison.

While, yes, competition in the Android smartphone space has become undeniably more premium and there’s a marked difference in build quality and materials at the high end, there’s also a lot to be said about practicality and features that matter most to users.

The LG G4 straddles the line between offering a premium tactile feel (with its leather backplates) and providing some key features that users want. These features included a removable battery as well as the microSD expansion which adds to the 32GB you get onboard. LG claims the micro SD Card slot can take up to 2 Terabytes of storage. Pretty crazy, huh? 

More than a gimmick, the addition of a leather backplate (as well as a plastic ‘metallic’ backplate on Canadian variants), removes the need to consider a slim protective case. The black leather backplate of my TELUS LG G4 offers substantial grip and is durable and rugged.

Sure, it won’t protect the LG G4’s curved display from cracking but it provides as much protection as a basic slim case would.

The beauty of LG’s solution is that the backplates are replaceable and available in different colours. 

I also found the size of the LG G4 to be just right. It features a 5.5-inch display which makes it nearly a phablet but still very much usable with one hand.

I still have mixed feelings about the rear power and volume buttons. I’ve learned that they’re quite useful when held in the hand or when accessing the device inside my pockets but they’re confounding and useless when the device is on a car mount.

Thankfully, there are workaround like tapping the display which can turn the device on but it’s still far from ideal when being used in-car. Speaking of the display, the 5.5-inch IPS Quantum display quad is quite a feat. It does offer great brightness, accuracy and colour gamut. I do find that it is a bit dim, specially when using the auto brightness setting. The curvature of this display, while slight, does give the entire phone a great feel in the hand. 

While using the LG G4, it became apparent to me that while LG didn’t jump into the trend of using glass or predominantly metal materials to improve the feel and look of the LG G4, it really is a tactile treat but in the subtlest of ways. 

LG has learned from earlier criticisms shooting down their user interface. The good news is that the LG G4 has a new UI that’s devoid of much of the bloatware that made earlier models such a pain to navigate and use. The UX 4.0 isn’t at the level of a Pure Android device but it is pretty close.

What this means for most users, Is that they will get a speedy, powerful and lag-free experience with a user interface that can really make the most of the hardware.

The feature that makes the LG G4 really worth considering is its camera. It features a wide f/1.8 aperture. The latter allows the camera to receive 80% more light than the already stellar 13MP snapper found in LG G3.

Add the laser focusing feature, and a pretty stellar user interface for various camera controls and even manual mode and you have most impressive range of DSLR features on a smartphone since the Lumia 1020. I haven’t used an Android smartphone that can match the depth of detail, speed and range of control offered by the LG G4.

These are just a few reasons why the LG G4 deserves a serious second look in today’s flagship Android space.