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LG G6 review

 Review: June 2017  
 

Rating: 4 stars

In a nutshell: The LG G6 is a premium metal-and-glass phone with a huge 5.7 inch HDR screen. Dual rear cameras, water resistance, Android 7 and a fingerprint sensor complete the package, but we're not sure why it's quite so expensive.



 

LG G6 H870: Design & looks

LG has dropped the modular design of last year's G5 in favour of a more conventional phone in 2017. At S21, we say that's no bad thing. The modular concept of the G5 failed to grab us, and it looks like we weren't alone.

Available in Black, Platinum or White, the G6 has a premium build with a metal and glass unibody, twin cameras on the back, and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor / standby button. An ultra-narrow bezel allows the screen to fill almost all of the front surface, although curiously the display has rounded corners that take tiny bites out of it. The phone is tall and slim, measuring 7.9mm in thickness, and its unibody design allows it to meet the IP67 standard for water-and dust- resistance, but means that the battery is embedded. Overall, it's a much more pleasing design than the G5, although it lacks the wow factor of the Galaxy S8.

One of the G6's key selling points is its Dolby Vision screen. This, like the HDR10 standard, is the next big thing in display tech, and enables video to be displayed with a higher dynamic range, for brighter highlights and better colour saturation. There are a couple of problems with this however. First, compatible video is currently only available from Netflix. And secondly, this being an IPS display, it doesn't have the native contrast range of an OLED screen that would fully do justice to the HDR-enabled video.

The screen isn't half bad though. It's a 5.7 inch Quad HD+ display, with an extra-long resolution of 1440 x 2880 pixels. The unusual aspect ratio means that you'll sometimes get black bars top and bottom, for example when watching YouTube or playing games, but it's nevertheless a very pleasing screen, that's bright, sharp and vivid.

Android 7.0 Nougat

Under the bonnet, the G6 is a fast machine. It runs Android 7.0 with a Snapdragon 821 processor, clocked at 2.35GHz. 4GB of RAM is available, and storage is 32GB with a microSD card slot too. Impressive, although every other flagship Android phone can match this spec (apart from the Google Pixel, which lacks a memory card). In fact, phones like the Galaxy S8 and HTC U Ultra come with 64GB of memory, and newer generation processors too.

Dual cameras

LG has been playing with dual rear cameras for a while now, and the G6 comes with twin 13 megapixel cameras. This gives you the option of zooming out for extra wide shots, as well as a digital zoom for cropping closer. New for the G6, making use of the phone's unusual screen aspect ratio, is a square photo option - available in both still and video modes.

Twin microphones let you record in stereo audio.

The front camera has a 5 megapixel resolution.

Connectivity

The G6 comes with all the connectivity you need - 4G, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB Type C, a 3.5mm headphone jack and NFC support.

Battery life

The battery in the G6 has been given a welcome boost up to 3,300 mAh, making the phone a solid performer when it comes to battery life. It can fast charge as well, and our only gripe is that it's non-removable.

Conclusion - nice, but too expensive

The LG G6 is a nice phone, with plenty to recommend it, especially if you watch Netflix on your phone. It's well built, has a big screen, fast processor, decent cameras, and no real faults. But whereas last year's G5 was available free on contract at £40/month, you'll have to spend close to £60/month to get a G6 without any upfront cost. That makes it more costly than a Galaxy S8, and we can't honestly say it's worth that kind of money.

We've mentioned the Samsung Galaxy S8 several times during this review, and that's because the LG G6 generally doesn't quite match up to what the Samsung can give you, and for less money too.


LG G6 features include:

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