phone 21 – lg g4

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.