The battle for supremacy in the mobile world takes a new turn every other season. With the drastic changing technology, demand for classy yet sophisticated look rises and an all-inclusive device, the mobile device war sure gets hotter. Just after Samsung released S6 there was anticipation as to what LG will bring out to counter the competition. Being archrivals from the same country, LG sure has properly held the heat, brought their A game up as their new g series device, G4, is a king in the war
Here are some of the improved features with the LG G4:
Design: The G-Series has had a faux metallic design finish with a rear camera and rear power button exclusive to the lg g-series. G4 comes with a first vegetable-tanned leather which gives it a premium executive look offering a better grip to the phone compared to the metallic and slippery backs by competitors. No need to buy leather cover accessory. G4 has a slim arc design, slightly curved which ensures the screen is protected from breakage incase the phone falls. The screen is said to be 11% more efficient than the one for G3. As not everyone is a leather fanatic LG have kept their options open with metallic grey, ceramic white and shiny gold. The genuine leather back has variety of colors: black, brown, red, sky blue, beige and yellow. G4 is bigger with dimensions of 148.9×76.1×9.8mm (5.86×3.00×0.39in) and 155g (5.47oz).
Camera: The G4 camera definitely comes with a classic touch, an upgraded 16mp rear camera from 13mp in the LG G3 and surprise 8mp front camera up from 2.1mp in the G3. This beats Samsung lovers with the increase in selfie taking interest, the 8mp front camera takes care of it. G4 sports f/1.8 optic lens and 0.6 shutter speed, with a lower aperture, the camera allows more light for capturing and it results in better photos and videos in low light. The amazing camera comes with a manual mode, improved OIS taking sharper and blur free images that are in motion, laser auto focus and a high resolution image sensor with new color spectrum with more accurate color and white balance. LG says the camera notably has 25% increased brightness therefore easier to capture images, 50% increased contrast for more striking images and 50% increased image quality output. It also offers more manual control and can shoot RAW.
Battery: LG always has a competitive edge when it comes to battery capacity and durability. G4 has a removable 3000mAh capacity battery which is far more durable than S6 2550mah. While G4 can go two days for a heavy user without being charged s6 runs out of charge before the end of the day and supports Qi which is more popular than PMA wireless charging. They always win it on this as removable battery are better than the built-in and easily exchangeable in case of a fault. Notably the battery is the same capacity as G3 but offers a little more standby time in comparison with the same.
User interface: G4 has an all new UX 4.0 user interface which they term as ‘human centric’ which promises exceptionally great experience. It has smart useful notices and a bright appealing overlay. It has a ringtone ID which automatically captures custom ringtone for each contact, cool right? It doesn’t end there though, it has a smart alert function that offers activity suggestions depending on the climatic conditions. Quick shot is available for taking pictures without opening the camera app. All you do is double tap the rear key even if the display is off and boom! Take your snap. There’s an all new gallery app for fast scrolling through the pictures. Lastly a smart notice for personalization of your notifications just how you want them.
Display: It comes large with 5.5 inch display same as the G3 which is great for some users with an only downside of using corning gorilla glass 3 while s6 comes with gorilla glass 4. 2560×1440 pixels (538ppi) but with a quantum IPS Quad HD which offers quality and brilliance of pictures and display. IPS ensures color visibility and vividness remain in excellent levels no matter your position and it also ensures fast response time.
Performance: LG opted to use snapdragon 808 over the latest snapdragon 810 which gives s6 an upper hand on the performance side. Reason being they wanted to handle the overheating issues that come with snapdragon 810 but that is yet to be verified.
Memory: Internal memory of 32gb with 3 GB RAM thou they could have done better with 64gb maybe but an upgrade from G3s 16gb without expansion slot. The brighter side is it supports MicroSD card of up to over 128GB, yeah lots of memory support for all your needs. In addition, a user enjoys 100GB Google Drive storage for two years while native gallery, music and file explorer apps have Drive integrated to them.
Platform: G4 runs on lollipop 5.1 which is one of the latest android platforms. With lollipop 5.1 user gets overall improved stability, battery life and better performance in comparison with other devices on a lower platform. Priority mode alarm is a distinctive feature with this platform. This feature shuts down audible notifications for some period of time for example when the user is asleep. It is tied to the device alarm making it in priority mode until the alarm goes off.
Price: G4 is rumored to cost $649 for 32GB non leather back and $699 for leather back. The difference is due to the genuine leather being very expensive to manufacture in comparison with the metallic faux and the ceramic white materials.
With these upgraded features LG did a good job with the successor of G3 and a competitor to Samsung’s latest s6. They do give justification to the global best innovative device award they won last year. Their design is not predictable and they go a notch higher with every new device they produce with their very successful g-series. As the competition stiffens with Samsung enjoying the market share, LG is winning with innovation, creativity, technology and sophistication. The battle is still on but this is a device to watch for the competitors and a device to purchase for tech forward people. Good value for the dollars.
