LG G5 Review

The LG G5 stands out from the crowd. It's far from perfect, but there's a lot to love here.

The LG G5 includes the approach of the kitchen sink. Three cameras, modular accessories, a hot-swappable battery: LG has packed enough new and different enough in this smartphone to attract attention. However, there is a strong contrast between uniqueness and hundreds of dollars.

LG has had difficulty defining the value proposition for their phones in recent years. Is the start button on the back? Is the skin of the company Android with extras like Knock Code to unlock your phone? Is the camera historically great? It might well be the three and above, but LG has always found the immaterial sense of refinement and polish in Apple and Samsung phones.

The G5 continues this problematic tradition. It's an excellent phone with incredible components, fun features and a few design touches that it has never seen before and that make it a league of its own. But he still lacks the finesse of his rivals and he wins the bronze medal rather than gold.
How big are the pixels of a screen? Higher density screens have smaller pixels and sharper images.

design


Most of the changes LG made to the smartphone formula relate to the physical design of the G5. Like its predecessors, the power switch on the G5 is not on the side of the phone or on the front of the screen as a start button. Instead, it is on the back, directly under the camera sensors. LG used to hold the volume keys there, but this year it decided to push it to the limit, like most of the best smartphones.



The placement of the power button and built-in fingerprint reader may sound strange if you've never used an LG phone before. Not being able to turn on the phone while lying face up on a table or desk is a bit boring, but the two-handed design has its fans. It also makes sense to have the fingerprint scanner on the back instead of under the screen because of the LG phone's defining feature: his chin.


cameras


As funny as the removable chin rest of the G5, you probably will not disconnect the batteries every day. But he will use the camera every day, and LG will also differentiate: The G5 has three cameras.

One of these cameras is the front-shooter that can be found on every top smartphone. Its 8MP sensor is as big as the competitions, the selfies are so sharp and look good in moderate light. The LG version of Android is an advantage as you can take selfies by raising your hand and pressing your fist in front of the lens to start a countdown.


Internal specifications


The G5 can circulate in circles around most of the most economical smartphones we've reviewed, but compared to those with a lot of weight, it's a bit slow. Contains a Snapdragon 820 processor under the hood, the same chip as in the Samsung Galaxy S7, the HTC even 10 sexies 3. OnePlus But at the same time, the performance of the G5 does not fit together.

I've run the G5 through more than 70 benchmarks, both in the synthetic world and in the real world, with more than 400 individual data points. The LG G5 is 7% slower than the Galaxy S7 and HTC 10, which use the same chip.



Battery life


The smartphone industry has nearly 3000 mAh as the standard battery size for most new flagship phones, so it's a bit of a surprise to see a slightly smaller 2800 mAh cell on the G5. The battery life of the device is proportionally shorter; Instead of eight and a half hours of competition, the G5 reached eight hours in our web browsing test and eight hours and eleven minutes in the PCMark battery test.

The design goal of the G5 is, of course, that the battery can be easily replaced, and that is the case. Changing an old cell to a new one takes about 10 seconds. After another minute of boot, the operating system will run again. It's a wonderfully easy procedure, even if you have to buy a battery separately.



Summary
Should you buy the LG G5? Despite everything brings the phone, the table, and that's a lot: two rear view cameras, an easily replaceable battery, funny accessories, we are close. If you're already a fan of LG, you have one of their phones and I love it, it's obvious; The G5 is one of the best gadgets LG has made, and it has many exciting new features. If LG had tempered his Android aspect and optimized it a little better, he would have our recommendation without reservation. However, since you pay a lot of money for the opportunity to use fun accessories, these accessories are not included.