Last week we made a post that was summarizing all the leaks and rumors surrounding the LG G6. As predicted, LG went ahead and released the phone last weekend. Most of the rumors turned out to be true but there were some new surprises as well.
The LG G6 comes with a breath-taking screen which has the smallest bezels of any LG phone so far. The screen covers over 80% of the display and has a Quad HD+ resolution (2880 *1440) under a new 18:9 aspect ratio. This ratio means that the phone’s display height is twice the size of its width. Additionally, the display can be divided into two perfect squares. LG has customized the software to take advantage of these squares such as camera modes where the top square acts as a view finder and the bottom one becomes a preview of the most recently taken photo. Still on the screen, the phone comes with Dolby Vision HDR. This technology promises to widen the color representation of the phone to produce deeper colors and richer contrast. Since this is a HDR display tuned by Dolby, it will have a lower battery consumption of up to 15 % compared to other HDR implementations.
Speaking of specially tuned features, LG packs not one but four audio DACs. They are tuned by Bang and Olfusen, a premium audio company that LG has worked with before on the LG V20 which turned out to have one of the best audio production of any phone ever made. The Quad DAC gauge your earphones capability and they decide how many DACs should be activated, well you still have the option of activating them all manually if you want. The audio setup can power everything from simple, affordable earphones to premium, high end headphones which demand more power. Unfortunately, this Quad DAC feature will not be available in all markets, the US is not getting it but we hope Africa does. Nonetheless, LG promises top notch audio in all its variations.
The body of the LG G6 is graced with an aluminum rear casing and a glass front. The corners are rounded to help disperse shock from drop impacts effectively protecting your device from glass shutters. The back hosts two cameras and a fingerprint sensor that doubles as the power button. The body is water and dust resistant, a first for LG flagships.
The cameras are both 13MP but one has a normal angle of 71 degrees of view while the other has 125 degrees wide angle. The cameras work together to enable a lossless zoom similar to the Apple iPhone 7 plus, however in LG’s implementation, there is no transition stutter as seen on the iPhone. Wide angle photos can be taken by the second camera so you no longer have to keep moving backwards to picture the full width of your subject. The camera square mode comes in handy for shooting Instagram sized photos and the food mode lets you adjust white balance with a slider to ensure you get the colors perfectly. The front has a 5MP with 100 degrees wide angle camera to ensure all your buddies fit in the selfie. Most other phones max out at 88 degrees.
All these features are built into the latest android 7.0, Nougat but under a deeply customized LG skin. The G6 is the first phone outside the Google Pixels to come with the intelligent Google Assistant out of the box. Powering the device is a Snapdragon 821 with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage expandable up to a mind boggling 2TB. The chipset may not be the latest Snapdragon 835, but the phone still flies through all its tasks with buttery smooth performance.
The battery department is catered for by a 3,300 mAH battery that has Quick Charge 3.0 support. The battery is not removable unlike other LG flagships but at least the phone supports wireless charging. Wired charging is done through a USB- Type C port.
LG G6 to me is the best phone of 2017 so far, sure the Sony Xperia XZ premium has 4K HDR display, water resistance and slo- motion videos, but LG offers features that I think are more essential to users and will ultimately impact on their lives better than Sony would. LG is also known to be a value-oriented company in that its phones are a bit cheaper than its competitors. The price has been predicted to range between KES 50,000 to 70,000, however, Cho Juno president of LG mobile division has confirmed that Korea will be the first market to get the phone on March, 10 and it will carry a price tag of 899,800 Won (Around KES 79,600). Sure that price is a bit steep, but it is lower than what its main competitors the Apple iPhone 8 and the Samsung Galaxy S8 will carry.