Computer Shopper - July 2017

FLAGSHIP ANDROID SMARTPHONE
LG G6
★★★★★
£650 • From www.carphonewarehouse.co.uk
VERDICT
The LG G6’s sprawling display makes it a pleasure
to use, but the Galaxy S8 is even more impressive
THE LG G6 is the fl agship smartphone that
got everyone talking at the recent MWC
show. Besides ditching the G5’s modular
design, its 18:9 aspect ratio and almost
bezel-free design adds even more screen
space to a handset that keeps the familiar
dimensions of a conventional 16:9 device.
LG’s initial promise of a “very competitive”
price hasn’t quite come to pass, as its £650
RRP isn’t vastly cheaper than the £689
Samsung Galaxy S8, while both the iPhone 7
and Google Pixel cost even less. Still, there’s
no arguing that it oozes premium quality,
with its stylish frame and Gorilla Glass 5 back
panel. It’s tough as well, holding the IP68
rating, meaning you can submerge it in water
at a depth of 1.5m for 30 minutes.
The 5.7in front display is protected by
Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 and, due to its 18:9
aspect ratio, the LG G6 screen-to-body ratio is
an impressive 78.6%. The phone isn’t too
heavy, at 163g, and despite the size of the
screen, it’s still usable one-handed.
TERA OF THE DEEP
The volume rocker sits on the left side, with a
dual-SIM and microSD card tray on the right.
The G6 comes with 32GB of onboard storage
so the latter is particularly welcome, and it
impressively supports cards up to 2TB in size
– such huge cards aren’t even on sale yet. To
charge and transfer fi les, you have a USB
Type-C port on the bottom edge, and to listen
to music, a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top.
Of course, the main attraction is the
display. Its 18:9 aspect ratio is a refreshing
step forward for smartphones; it’s hard to
appreciate just by looking at product shots,
but the extra bit of
screen genuinely
makes reading the
news, watching fi lms,
taking pictures,
multitasking and
gaming more
enjoyable and
practical than before.
There’s also Dolby
Vision and HDR 10
support. Previously
only available on
high-end TVs, HDR
widens the colour
range, producing
blinding whites and
seriously deep blacks.
Obviously, your
content will have to be HDR as
well, but you should be able to
watch both Netflix and Amazon
HDR content as soon as the
mobile apps have been enabled
for the technology.
However, there is some
day-to-day benefi t, too: to meet
these standards, LG has clearly
worked on the screen’s contrast
and brightness. We measured
the screen’s contrast at a frankly
astonishing 1,678:1 and 2,112:1
depending on screen content,
which is the best we’ve seen on
a smartphone, ever.
BLACK AND WHITE
SITUATION
With a maximum 492cd/m 2
brightness, the IPS screen is
readable in all but the very
brightest of conditions – we
had no problem viewing the
phone outside – and it also
delivers stunning black level
response. Surprisingly, our black
measurement test result of
0.23cd/m 2 is a very slight
downgrade on the LG G5’s (Shopper 341)
0.19cd/m 2 , but it’s still up there with the
very best IPS phone screens.
Our only disappointment was that it
covered 93.2% of the sRGB colour gamut.
This is still a high fi gure, but many other
smartphones – especially those with
AMOLED displays – can do better.
The G6 comes with Android 7.1 Nougat,
along with LG’s latest
UX 6 overlay. This
soft ware – particularly
its take on splitscreen
multitasking
– is a pleasure to use,
and doesn’t seem to
hog too much of the
G6’s 4GB of RAM.
That’s just as well,
because LG has
decided to go with the
Snapdragon 821 CPU
rather than the newer
fl agship-standard
Snapdragon 835. As
such, its Geekbench
single-core score of
1,777 and multicore
score of 4,137 fall behind those of betterspecced
rivals such as the Samsung Galaxy S7
and Huawei P10. The Exynos 8895-powered
Galaxy S8 comprehensively beats it as well.
GAMING THE SYSTEM
Generally, the G6 does feel slower during
strenuous multitasking than its octa-core
contemporaries. Even the fi ngerprint sensor
feels relatively sluggish to respond, and it
doesn’t cope well with moisture, either – a
tiny bit of sweat will force a PIN input instead.
It is, at least, much more competitive in
gaming. In the GFXBench Manhattan
offscreen test, the LG G6 averaged a high
49fps, which actually beats the Galaxy S7
by 11fps, the P10 by 2fps and the Google
Pixel XL by 1fps. You’ll have no issue with
demanding 3D games here.
We weren’t too thrilled by the battery life,
however. Lasting 12h 53m in our video
playback benchmark, the LG G6 will get you
through a day of moderate use, but is still
rather short-lasting by fl agship standards.
Next to the Google Pixel’s 16h 23m or the
Galaxy S7’s 17h 48m, it defi nitely loses out.
That said, one advantage of the
Snapdragon 821 is its support for Qualcomm’s
44 JULY 2017 | COMPUTER SHOPPER | ISSUE 353