being unimpressed by the local phone brands, i widened my
horizon and hoping that i can finally buy a phone that is worth keeping. two of
my considerations are usability and uniqueness. lg mobile is one of the makers
of uniquely designed phones. the camera and user experience they provide also
impressed me, when i came across people using lg phones. their simple and
squarish L series were good. their G series is great. their “rear button”
design and curved displays got my attention. their version of curved display is
like the curved TVs and monitors, concave (bowl) not convex (rounded). they
first made that on lg g flex, as what i can remember. but since the first
generation seemed to be quite overemphasized, i choose the one that has subtle
curve. i chose a powerful one. i chose lg g4, released in 2015, which i bought
as a second hand unit in 2016.
bootloop? ye. after more than a year, the phone gets
bootlooped. i was aware about the problem so it was easy for me to accept it.
however, when i tried plugging it to the outlet, the phone boots. it took long
hours before it can be charged up to 100%. when i unplugged it, the phone got
bootlooped again. still thankful that the bootloop was not due to damaged
circuit board and might be the battery based on what happened. so i keep it in
a box along with my phones that are not working anymore, until 2020. i bought a
fake, but known to work brand of battery for my lg g4. luckily, it worked! the
good thing is, the battery is user replaceable!
the newly bought fake 3000mah battery was charged for almost
3 hours in 2020. i calibrated the battery for 5 cycles, then maintained a
charge between 20% to 90%. i occasionally used it. most of the time it is on my
working gadgets box.
now the 2021 battery test! the phone was charged
significantly faster at a little over 2 hours. it also managed to last for some
minutes over a day. more than 5 hours of active usage, and 19 hours idle.
music play is one of the forte of lg g4 despite of not
having the quad dac on it. as we know, lg is known to put quad dac on their
phones and had the reputation to have the best audio experience on a
smartphone, at least using the 3.5mm audio port which is becoming nonexistent
on most flagships, by the way. the audio setting lets you change the pitch and
speed. there are some preset sound modes too. but one of their sound modes
produces static noise when the volume is set to zero and using through the
loudspeaker, but again, no such noise on 3.5mm audio port. speaking of the
speaker, nothing outstanding about it. the quality is good. but it is not
immersive, being not that loud and placed on the rear side. the curve back
somehow helps when placed on table as it is not covered. but when i do play
music through the loudspeaker, i usually place it on table, faced down.
wireless audio is also good. but again, the best music on lg g4 can be experienced
through 3.5mm audio port.
web browsing is good. images are crisp. setting it to
desktop mode is also good for its 2k ips display. it is also easy on the eyes
even on dark environment since it is capable of lower nits. its processor and
my data connection helped each other for fast loading of pages. it can easily
do such stuff in 2021, which is impressive for a phone that is now considered
inefficient, as it is 4 times the size of the newest soc. but, being that
large, it really gets warm faster than my other phones, to the point that i am
quite anxious it might actually be bootlooped if used heavier than what is on
my testing. such heating issue, if you consider that as such, is also present
when playing games. as casual as subway surfer gets the phone really warm.
for the camera, both photo shoots and video recording were
worthy, even in 2021. manual camera settings is present. so it can also do
lowlight photography. it only needs to have a tripod for good quality, as the
iso level and noise-cleaning is not as good as the night mode on 2021 phones.
it can also freeze some moments, but not for flash photography since it uses
led flash which cannot be as good as xenon flash. the image stabilization also
works good, as the not-so long exposure can be done handheld. stabilization on
videos is also amazing. the phone can also shoot at 4k resolution. on the
downside, image processing is not as good as the 2021 phones as there are some
artifacts when zoomed in even for lower iso.
another forte of this phone is playing videos, whether those
of what you shoot or movies you copied from anywhere. it has good contrast despite
being an ips display. and their algorithms for auto brightness is ideal. it
does not quickly go from bright to dim. it seems to be in synch with how my
eyes adapt to ambient light. with that, i prefer such over other phones that
are too quick in changing the brightness. another worth mentioning about the
touchscreen display is its responsiveness and some peculiar ways of doing
stuff. for instance, the double tap to wake and sleep are handy features. i can
also tap to sleep even on lock screen which is not the case on some other
phones, where you still need to unlock the phone before you can tap the home
screen to put it to sleep. i also like the time peeping gesture when the phone
is asleep since i usually check the time on my phones. you just need to drag
your finger down and the time will show as long as you hold on to the
touchscreen display.
overall, this is still a great phone in 2021, unless you
game a lot on phones. from taking photos, recording videos and enjoying those
and more on its crisp display and great 3.5mm audio. just be mindful of the
temperature, because you really do not want it to heat up and eventually
bootloop.
sadly we cannot see more of what the potential phones that
lg can make since they already quit the smartphone industry. people who claimed
that it does not matter, does not really have an idea what lg have contributed
to the industry. their aggressive take on designs are unique and surprisingly
useful. i wonder why some people does not give credit on those, especially most
tech youtubers, ehem, i mean paid tech youtubers. those people should be the
ones celebrating the new technology brought about by many brands. look how more
potentially useful the concave curve. it is more pleasing to the eye and it
does not distort the viewing experience knowing that smartphones are usually
used nearer to our eyes compared to large curve monitors and TVs. also, it is
not prone to accidental touches, it is even good on hand. quad dacs. i never
saw any other brand which is fully invested on great audio dac, most brands even
killed the 3.5mm audio port. their take on knock code, tap to wake and sleep.
their take on video production is totally impressive. unique form factors that
is surprisingly helpful on productivity and yet you can use the phone as
regular as other phones. first, they did that on dual screen from v50, v50s,
v60, and even velvet. second, the swiveling design on lg wing. some people who
thought that lg made it just because they can did not watched the announcement
of such masterpiece. they covered almost all possible use cases on the phone. and the
gimbal mode is also impressive. the hyped has not die down on me yet,
apparently.
so, i am genuinely saddened about their exit on the
smartphone industry. their exit might slow down the development of smartphones
in the near future if no other brands take the lead. most people are now
satisfied on what smartphones can do, perhaps. some are just looking at how
phones look - visual appeal. they are tickled by different camera humps. some are chasing
numbers. but real innovation on those is really stagnant. but what can people,
like me, do about it, when we are outnumbered by such people? remember, that no
matter what science is showing to be of great advantage, and no matter how
technology is potentially advancing, when the society supports mediocrity, science and technology will just comply with mediocrity.
