Android
LG G6 Review
Don’t skip past the LG G6 when you go to buy a new phone just because you’ve been left wanting more from LG in the past or because of Samsung’s flashy new Galaxy S8.
The LG G6 is an impressive Android phone that can hold its own against the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the iPhone 7. It helps that the LG G6 is cheaper than the Galaxy S8 and
Unlike the Galaxy S8, there is no infinity display that falls off the edges, something that should help keep the LG G6 safer if you drop it. LG even curves the corners of the screens to help with survivability when dropped.
Here is our LG G6 review after spending a month with the new Android phone, including what you’ll love about this phone and what you’ll hate.
LG G6 Review Summary
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The LG G6 is available at all major U.S. carriers for $672 or around $24 a month on a payment plan. You can check out the best LG G6 deals to find free offers including a free LG smart TV and more if you buy an LG G6 near the release.
You can buy the LG G6 in silver and black with 32GB of onboard storage and support for up to a 2GB micro SD card.
LG G6 Hardware & Design
Although not as immediately eye-catching as the competition, the LG G6 design is great. The edges of the phone taper out wider to the back, making it easier to hold the phone as it seats comfortably into a grip.
The LG G6 design is practical and a minimalistic beauty.
The LG G6 color choices are limited compared to the iPhone, but if you are planning to put the phone into one of the many excellent LG G6 cases that matters very little.
Ultimately you don’t need a case thanks to Gorilla Glass 5 on the back and Gorilla Glass 6 on the front of the phone. A beveled aluminum band completes the design. The LG G6 is a solid phone with a premium look and feel.
It’s easy to use the LG G6 with one hand, even with a large display.
The power button is in the center of the back and doubles as a fingerprint reader. The placement and the reader both work very well. LG moves volume buttons to the side of the phone, like almost every other phone on the market. A USB C connection on the bottom of the phone is miles better than Micro USB that you may be upgrading from as it lets you plug the cord in with no up or down side.
The headphone jack is on the top of the phone, which isn’t our favorite place, but we’ve already switched to wireless headphones so it’s not a major issue.
Add storage with the LG G6 microSD card slot.
A SIM card slot on the right side of the phone pops open to allows users to add a Micro SD card. The G6 supports up tot 2TB, and users will want to at the very least buy a 64GB Micro SD card to add to the paltry 32GB of storage in the LG G6.
The only thing left is the large, beautiful display that dominates the front of the phone.
LG G6 Display & Sound
The LG G6 display is amazing and is likely better than your TV.
The LG G6 display is the reason you buy this phone. LG switched to an 18:9 aspect ratio that makes the screen taller and narrower. This means you get a 5.7-inch display in an incredibly usable package. There’s no special one hand mode needed to use this phone.
The display isn’t just big and beautiful, it supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 video, which means it will likely look better than your HDTV. The 2,880 x 1,440 resolution is standard with no scaled down version like the Samsung Galaxy S8 default. At this point, there isn’t a ton of streaming media that will play in 2K with HDR on the LG G6, but Netflix plans to add support in the near future.
Stunning curved edges complete the display and match up to the curved corners on the phone. LG says that this will help protect the screen if you drop your phone.
Curved corners look great and help protect the display if you drop the phone.
Movies, games, reading and web browsing look great on the display. The taller display means that you will see more content in some apps and the 2:1 aspect ratio allows LG to make deliver a square camera app that shows you a camera view and the square photo you just took so that you don’t miss a perfect Instagram moment.
The audio in the G6 isn’t on the same level as the display. It’s fairly flat and lacking depth. You’ll definitely want to use headphones to get into music and movies or opt for a Bluetooth speaker. This is thanks to a single speaker and the lack of the Quad DAC that is a major feature of the LG V20.
LG G6 Camera
The dual cameras on the LG G6 perform excellently.
The LG G6 features dual cameras on the back of the phone and a wide-angle selfie camera on the front. Both rear cameras use a 13MP sensor so you get great photos no matter which you use in bright light. The main camera is the only one of the two with an f1.8 aperture, optical image stabilization and it includes a better autofocus. Switching between the two cameras while zooming is nearly instantaneous. If you switch using the icons on the screen there is a slight delay.
The main camera is the only one of the two with an f1.8 aperture, optical image stabilization and it includes a better autofocus. At night or in low light, the wide-angle lens isn’t the best option as it will not produce as nice of a photo.
The wide-angle front-facing camera allows you to group in friends or to capture where you are when you take a selfie, and it performs well in bright and in low light conditions.
The LG G6 camera app offers a lot of control and a variety of helpful modes. If you want more control, and you really know what you are doing the Pro mode offers a lot of controls that can take your mobile photography up a level.
LG includes the square photo that uses the tall 2:1 display to let you take a square photo using the top of the screen as the viewfinder. When you take a photo the picture shows up on the bottom half so you can see if the picture you just took was Instagram-worthy, or if you need another snap.
You can also shoot good video with the LG G6 using both the normal and wide-angle cameras and the audio sounds good thanks to hi-res audio support.
LG G6 Software
The LG G6 runs Android 7.0 Nougat with an LG skin that adds a variety of features and options. Google Assistant is built-in to the phone allowing for the latest in Android voice control and on-device searching.
The LG customizations will leave Android users who love the Pixel wanting more, but overall the customizations are useful and add value to the phone.
You can change the LG G6 theme to match your style.
There is support for using to apps tat the same time, you can re-arrange the navigation keys to your liking and turn the display on with a double tap. Although it’s a small thing we definitely like the option to change the themed on the phone without the need for any new Android launcher or third-party app.
LG includes an option to scale apps to the 18:9 display so you can change how they look. It’s possible that we will see more and more apps come with native support for this style screen, especially now that Samsung is using a similar 18.5:9 aspect ratio and Google is pushing for developers to support 18:9.
The square photo app is just one of the apps that takes advantage of the LG G6 screen shape.
When you switch to landscape mode some of the built-in LG G6 apps will show you more information in a split-screen style view. The calendar app, for example, shows your month and a day breakdown. This approach is similar to what Apple does with the iPhone 7 Plus.
Get ready for a lot of added apps and bloatware. We spent the month with an AT&T G6 that included 10 AT&T and DirectTV apps as well as Facebook, Uber and Yellow Pages. The AT&T LG G6 also comes with Firefox installed as the main browser instead of Google Chrome, which is an odd choice. It’s easy to switch browsers, but you cannot delete many of these AT&T apps. It also means you cannot uninstall Facebook, Uber or Yellow Pages from the LG G6 to get back storage on your phone.
If you don’t use DirecTV, make sure you disable the remote app so that you don’t have to deal with notifications to set it up.
LG G6 Performance & Battery Life
The LG G6 performance is very good, handling all of our daily tasks without stutter or lag, even though it uses a slightly older processor.
Diving into Slack, a little break for Instagram and Candy Crush then back into Hangouts and a variety of streaming on Netflix and Spotify didn’t slow down the device.
The LG G6 battery life is good and there are wireless and fast charge options.
The LG G6 battery is good for one full day of use. You won’t be stretching this to the second day, but if you need a smartphone that lasts multiple days you’ll be left with slim pickings. I never ran out of battery life during the day, even without the need to use the smart charging technology.
LG includes wireless charging which is super convenient for topping off the phone while at your desk or in a car. There’s also Quick Charging that can add significant power to the phone in 15 to 30 minutes.
You cannot remove the LG G6 battery to swap in a fresh one, but with the LG G6 battery life we saw and the fast charging options, it is not a dealbreaker.
