Archives for May 2017

Last weekend the unthinkable happened. As I was entering my car ready to depart the city, my Moto X Pure mobile phone had other plans. As I turned right to open the driver’s side door, my phone went left, flew out of my hand, and came face-to-face with the sidewalk. The Moto X’s screen has a crack problem greater than the pavement it struck. RIP good friend; you were a great phone while you lasted. But there is an upside to this story. The folks at Verizon were kind enough to loan me the new LG G6 for review. Overnight, my mindset had changed. I went from being a product reviewer to a shopper and future buyer of a new mobile phone, possibly the one I had been reviewing. For over a month, I had the pleasure of testing LG’s flagship mobile phone, and what a pleasure it was. So without further delay, let’s take a closer look in this LG G6 review.

LG G6 Review – Design and Features

While I’m saddened by the loss of my Moto X Pure, at least I wasn’t carrying the LG G6 with me that night.

As far as top-tier phones go, this model is very similar to those currently available from Google, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony. All have top (or near top) of the line specifications with regards to the camera, screen, CPU, and GPU. When compared to its predecessor, the LG G5, there are nothing but design improvements. The G6  is shorter in both height and width, but a hair thicker in depth. We’re talking differences from 0.07″ down to 0.01″. Dimensional changes like these are barely noticeable by sight.

If you recall, the G5 has a modular design which consumers and reviewers disliked. The screen size has increased from 5.3″ to 5.7″, which is very noticeable. How does the LG G6 compare against its predecessors?

Among reviewers, there’s been some discussion about the placement of the G6’s power and volume buttons. For you right-handed users, the issue regarding the volume buttons won’t matter one bit. For you left-handed users, this is where a problem arises.

The placement of the volume buttons on the upper left is an excellent choice, especially from those of us who happen to be right-handed. Now, the index finger can rest firmly on the chassis while your thumb can adjust the volume. This placement allows for better grip of the phone.

The power button remains on the backside directly beneath the two cameras. While I haven’t completely gotten used to its location, I have accepted it. It’ll continue to grow on me.Most, if not all reviewers, have failed to view button locations in the following way. I use a Manfrotto TwistGrip smartphone clamp and Compact Action tripod with this phone. These devices allow me to take better pictures and video of nearly anything. Because you want to balance your phone, place the clamp along the center-line of your phone. Earlier mobile phones like the Moto X Pure have their volume buttons in the way, hence the problem. With the LG G6, there’s no button interference; thus one of my biggest headaches disappears as the clamp correctly grabs the phone.

Concerning the design, the chassis is too slippery in my hands. The back panel, like the sides, is without texture. If you want to ensure the LG G6 stays in your hand, a protective case is a must. I recommend the Warrior Case from Trident Case and the Presidio Grip from Speck.

More Design and Features

The display on the LG G6 is a thing of beauty. The Quad HD+ resolution of 2880 x 1440 pixels and 564 ppi is amazing. The display (known as FullVision) has an 18:9 aspect ratio. If you want to watch something recorded in Dolby Vision High Dynamic Range, the G6 can accommodate you.

Like it’s predecessors, the display contains Corning® Gorilla® Glass. The G6 has a front screen and rear camera made of Gorilla® Glass 3 while the backside has Gorilla® Glass 5. The G6 doesn’t have Shattershield™. If you want this feature, you’ll have to look at the Moto Z Force Droid.

There’s also a fingerprint reader for those of you who are interested.

The entire body has an ingress protection of 68 which offers a fair amount of water and dust resistance. Should you happen to drop this phone into the shallow end of a pool, you can relax. “The device is suitable for continuous immersion in water under 1.5 meters up to 30 minutes.” You can learn more about this and MIL-STD-810G testing on LG’s Quality page.

In case you haven’t heard, the micro USB port has been replaced with one USB-C connection. I applaud this decision. Charging of the 3300 mAh battery and data transfer are done via this connection. This phone comes equipped with Qualcomm® Quick Charge™ 3.0. The 3.5 mm headphone jack is located at the top right of the device.

Storage and memory are unchanged from the G5. Like other flagship mobile phones, this one incorporates 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM. The phone has 32 GB of onboard memory (ROM) with support up to 2 TB. Shame there’s no option for 64 GB on board. Also, finding micro SD cards over 256 GB is a laborious task.

LG G6 Specifications

Front and Rear Cameras

There’s so much to discuss on the three cameras of the LG G6 that I’m not sure where to begin. In fact, it would be possible to write an article on these features alone. Let’s start with the settings.

In Photo/Video Settings, the first category you want to check out is photo size. From the eight available choices, you can select the size and aspect ratio of the photo you’re about to take. There are two options for 4:3, 16:9, 18:9, and 1:1. The photo sizes range from 2.1 MP all the way to 13 MP. It’s safe to say you’ll find one size and ratio that you’ll come to love.

Next up is the category for video resolution. Here there are six choices in UHD, FHD, and HD modes. Within FHD, there’s even one for 60 frames per second filming.

The aforementioned is followed by more than a handful of general settings:

I’ve gone through all ten of these and found all but one to be most useful. The ability to add a (copyright) signature to my photos is a big deal. The capacity to reduce motion blur in video is huge. And for all you younger readers, the Cheese shutter will come in very handy. Why hit a button when voice recognition can do it for you? Go ahead and say “Kimchi,” “Whiskey,” or “Smile” and see the results.

The second camera setting is Mode. The G6 comes with eight of these to choose from:

Rather than discussing all eight of these in detail, which could get boring, let’s cover a few. I highly suggest you demo these modes at a Verizon store or Best Buy.

Whether it’s a photo or video, Popout is a trip. Simply put, it’s an image within a frame. You’ve got four image choices: Fisheye, B&W, Vignette, and Lens Blur. And you can combine any-or-all of these and get very creative. There are also five frame styles which allow you to add your images in horizontal, vertical, or centered frames. One can easily get lost in all the choices.

Capturing a Panorama/360 Panorama in photo or video is plenty of fun. The LG G6 captures it well. This feature has become widely adopted commercially and popular. I dare you to take a panorama at an airport, a shopping mall, or even at a house for sale. Below is a Panorama image of my home.

The third setting is for filtering. Much like those on Snapchat, Instagram, Pixlr, and Snapseed, the G6 comes with nine active view filters. By this I mean you can see all nine at once and then choose the one you like best.

The funny thing is, I still transfer these images into Pixlr or Snapseed for even further refinement.

The fourth setting is camera swap. Switch over to the front side camera and you’ll notice sliding scale effects like skin tone, lighting, and filtering. Once you’ve captured the shot, you can then share it via social media, messaging, email, etc. I’m not much of a selfie taker, so I’ll leave this setting to all you younger folk.

We wrap up the settings with how you want to take your photos and videos. There are selections for manual, auto, and square modes. Auto mode is self-explanatory so I’ll leave this one alone. The Manual mode is a beast! If you truly want to know how to utilize the camera, always take photos and videos in Manual.

Manual Mode

Manual mode photography and video is by far the greatest feature of the LG G6 smartphone.

Taking photos in manual took me back to when I first learned how to use a Canon DSLR camera. With the exception of popout framing, all the general settings exist in manual mode.

There’s a histogram for both of the two 13 MP rear cameras. The display shows the aperture value to lessen any confusion. Next up are white balance, focus, exposure value of -2 to +2, ISO up to 3200, and an incredibly wide-ranging shutter speed. Tracking focus allows for the subject matter to come out crystal clear. There’s even an auto selection which allows for the camera to select what it believes to be the best manual shot.

I can’t begin to tell you how fun-filled this was to experiment with. Furthermore, you won’t need to purchase a starter camera, thus saving you some money as you’ll learn manual photography with this mobile phone.

 4K Ultra HD Video Recording

Since more and more of us are capturing video, let me touch on the camcorder capabilities of the G6.

If you’re using the front camera, there’s an FHD camcorder. On the rear, there’s one better, the 4K UHD camcorder. Furthermore, Hi-Fi recording is a possibility.

Under the settings, there are categories for video resolution, frame rate, and eight others. Here there are seven resolution choices: one for UHD, and three each for FHD and HD modes. Depending on the selection of resolution, you can select a frame rate anywhere from 1 fps up to 120 fps. Experiment with it and you’ll see what I mean.

Additional settings include Bit rate, Hi-Fi, Timer, Steady recording, Tracking focus, Tag locations, Grid, and Help. Feel free to add one of the nine filters and flash/no flash and you’re off to the races.

Under manual video, the display fields are just like those within manual photo. Adjust the white balance, focus, exposure value, ISO, shutter speed to whatever you deem best.

The G6 has video playback up to 4K UHD, and codec support of H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC.)

Final Thoughts

Roughly a year ago, LG introduced the G5, their 2016 flagship phone. After spending millions of dollars launching the product with commercials starring actor Jason Statham, sales have been a disaster. Reviews weren’t much better. The biggest problem with this phone was its modular design. Who wants to take apart a phone? If you want a modular design, go with the Moto Z.

This year, LG went back to basics and got things right with their G6.

As I stated in the opening paragraph, I’ve gone from a reviewer to a shopper overnight. Over the past six months, after having reviewed more than a few top-tier phones for over a month each, if I could choose one to keep, it would be the LG G6. I’m thoroughly impressed with this mobile phone, and frankly, would prefer not to give it back.

This phone is an easy contender against other top-tier mobile phones from the likes of Google, Lenovo, and Samsung. In fact, we prefer the LG G6 to the Google Pixel which we believe is a toy phone and the Moto Z Droid which we happened to like very much.

The LG G6 smartphone is a welcome successor to the G5. We’ve read some comments on LG’s website from (presumed) G6 owners and haven’t encountered any of their issues on our sample.

While the G6 comes with some unnecessary bloatware, it isn’t much to concern yourselves with. Package contents include the phone, charging outlet, USB-A to USB-C cable, and micro SD slot opener.

So after everything mentioned above, I’ve got but one question for you. Is this your next smartphone?

What do you think of this ultimate LG G6 review? Do you agree or disagree with our verdict? Let us know in the comment section below or via social media. We’re eager to hear your thoughts.

Don’t hesitate to head over to the Verizon Wireless homepage to see their newest products.

The LG G6 smartphone comes with a one-year limited end-user warranty.

FTC Disclosure: Verizon Wireless provided Beantown LLC with one (1) LG G6 smartphone sample for review purposes. This writer’s opinion is 100% his own and not a paid product ambassador.

All photographs are the copyrighted property of Beantown LLC or LG © 2017.