LG G4 Mobile review: A new contender in the top 3

Overview

Featuring a large 5.5-inch, high-resolution 1440 x 2560 pixel screen and running a powerful Snapdragon 808 chipset with quad-core 1.44Ghz and dual-core 1.82 Ghz Cortex processors, along with 3GB RAM, the G4 is certainly equipped for performance.

The primary camera is promising, too, offering a 16Mp (5312 x 2988 pixel) resolution on a 1/2.6in sensor, with the secondary camera still a respectable, albeit lower resolution, 8Mp snapper. Other notable camera features include laser autofocus, optical image stabilization, LED flash, simultaneous video and image recording, geo-tagging, face detection, and HDR processing. Shooting moving images, the G4 records at either 2160p/30fps or 1080p/60fps on the primary camera, and a lower-resolution 1080p/30fps on the secondary camera when Skyping and the like.

With so many DxOMark enthusiasts requesting an in-depth analysis of the G4’s image quality, we’re delighted to bring you a full round-up review of our latest mobile tests.

Photo

DxOMark Mobile Photo

86

Exposure and contrast	86
Color	80
Autofocus	94
Texture	90
Noise	84
Artifacts	76
Flash	81

Pros

- Very accurate and repeatable autofocus.

- Good detail preservation in all lighting conditions.

- Good noise reduction in low light.

- Pictures are generally well-exposed.

- Pleasant colors.

- With flash, good detail preservation and color rendering.

Cons

- Blue sky saturation, moiré, fringing, and other artefacts visible on outdoor shots.

- In very bright light conditions, some high-dynamic scenes tend to be over-exposed.

- Occasionally, severe white balance failures occur in outdoor pictures.

- Some luminance noise visible in outdoor shots.

- Autofocus lacks smoothness in preview.

- When using flash, chroma noise visible in the corners.

Video

DxOMark Mobile Video

79

Exposure and contrast	89
Color	76
Autofocus	76
Texture	84
Noise	92
Artifacts	80
Stabilization	65

Pros

- Generally good exposure and color rendering.

- Good detail preservation and noise reduction, especially in bright light. 

Cons

- Ineffective stabilization, with visible jello effect.

- Visible color shading, especially in low light.

- Under tungsten light, white balance turns slightly pink.

- In very bright light, highlights are occasionally blown out. 

 

LG G5 Mobile review: Outstanding results for stills

omments

7

DxOMark Mobile

86

Overview

Our industry-standard tests evaluate performance and image quality across a range of categories, including exposure, color, autofocus, and others. Scoring consistently well in all photo categories, the G5 is a solid and reliable smartphone for photography enthusiasts. Its best scores were achieved for exposure and contrast, thanks to its well-balanced and pleasant target exposures, which produce excellent results in both outdoor and low-light conditions.

Autofocus was also a strong point for stills, thanks to its fast and accurate performance, together with face detection and stabilization features. The G5’s 16Mp sensor, wide-angle lens, HDR mode, and geo-tagging capabilities also commend it to photographers interested in landscape, architecture, and street photography. What’s more, the high-resolution chip captures excellent levels of texture and detail, which will be appreciated by photographers interested in recording intricate and complex scenes with low levels of noise and good edge preservation. 

For videographers, the G5 boasts a 2160p/30fps Ultra HD resolution module to meet the demand for watching mobile videos on larger high-resolution screens. Category scores for video vary a little more than for stills, and it’s fair to say that the G5 captures its best motion pictures in bright-light conditions, where the video stabilization is at its most effective. Video exposure is a strong point, however, achieving the best score in our video tests, and video autofocus remains fast in all conditions.

Attractive, well-balanced outdoor exposures with strong color

Shooting outdoors and in bright light, the LG G5 delivers many well-balanced exposures which feature good contrast and wide dynamic range, and which have an attractive overall feel. We did observe a few exposure failures, but generally these were limited to very high-contrast scenes, where details in the darker areas started to block out. This often resulted in a slightly under-exposed image overall, but with good detail recorded in the brighter regions, such as the sky. (A bit of post-production lightening up of the shadows is all that’s needed in these cases.)

White balance is generally accurate when shooting outdoors, too, and on good target exposures, the G5 renders strong and bold color. A slightly cool or blue colorcast was observed in some outdoor images shot in shady conditions, but it wasn’t offensive and is easily corrected with a photo filter. In bright-light conditions, noise is well-controlled, with only a fine luminance noise visible in areas of uniform color. It’s very mild in nature, however, and is really noticeable only when viewing images at 100%.

We observed slightly more problematic chromatic noise in the darker areas of some high-contrast scenes, which is likely to be caused by the G5’s HDR processing algorithm lighting the shadows. Edge preservation is excellent in bright light, with well-defined contrast edges that show only very minor signs of chromatic aberration or halo effects.

Outdoors, the LG G5 delivers many accurate target exposures that boast pleasant overall brightness, a good range of tones, and strong color

TIP: On exposures with a good sky but slightly underexposed foreground (top), use selective tone adjustments to brighten the darker regions without losing detail in the sky for a brighter overall exposure (bottom)

Excellent brightness and good detail in low light

The LG G5 produces excellent exposures in low-light conditions, with good brightness and bold color. Using a light source between 10 and 500 lux, image brightness is very good, and although results at 5 lux are a little on the dark side, the exposures are still exploitable and color saturation remains strong. Shooting handheld in very low light requires excellent handling technique, or ideally some camera support, however, due to the slow 1/9 second exposure time that the G5 employs under 5, 10 and 20 lux lighting conditions. At 100 and 500 lux, the faster 1/30 second exposure time, together with the G5’s wide-angle lens and therefore minimal magnification, allows for more easily achieved handheld shots in these brighter conditions.

On the whole, noise and texture results are excellent in low light, too, with good detail preservation and only a fine luminance noise visible in many shots. Noise and texture can be a little inconsistent in low light, however, with variable results observed on consecutive 20 lux exposures. Interestingly, more noise and loss of detail was observed on 100 lux exposures compared to 20 lux, which is probably due to slightly more aggressive lighting by the G5’s image processing engine (required by the faster shutter speed for 100 lux exposures).

Exposure tests using a light source between 5 and 500 lux produced good brightness, although shutter speeds at 5 and 10 lux were a little slow at 1/9 second, which caused some visible camera shake in some handheld shots.

We observed excellent texture and detail in many low-light images, although results could be a little inconsistent between consecutive frames, and more noise was visible in images shot under a 100 lux light source compared to those at 20 lux

TIP: Handheld exposures in extreme low light can suffer from camera shake due to slow shutter speeds (above). For sharper shots, try using a smartphone mount

Details: Explaining the scores

Exposure and Contrast (90)

One of the best category scores — up there with some of the best we’ve tested, the LG G5 delivers great exposures, scoring 90 in both bright and low light. It’s not perfect, with some HDR failures in very high-contrast situations, but good target exposures produce well-balanced results, with pleasing tones and contrast in many situations.

Shooting medium-contrast scenes, the LG G5 produces subtle and well-balanced exposures that capture a good range of tones and are pleasing to the eye

LG V10 review

If you were to ask me how many cameras and displays a phone needs, I’d say one good one of each. If you ask the same of LG, however, the answer would be five. The new LG V10 Android smartphone has two selfie shooters and a second screen, both sitting immediately above its 5.7-inch display. It’s a gimmick fest, even by LG’s high standards in this category — and an expensive one, at that, with the 64GB V10 costing over $700.

But LG is known for more than just gimmicks these days. The Korean company also has one of our favorite mobile cameras of the year — appearing on this summer’s G4 and returning in an enhanced form on the V10 — and some of the best displays to grace any smartphone. So there’s no inherent conflict between what I seek and what LG offers: the V10 can still be an excellent smartphone, superfluous extras notwithstanding.

The first thing to know about the V10 is that it’s big and burly. At 192 grams, it weighs exactly the same as the iPhone 6S Plus and has roughly the same dimensions. Opinions will vary on this, but I find both phones intolerably large. Call me old-fashioned for expecting to be able to fit a mobile device into a trouser or jacket pocket without having it affect my posture or gait. LG’s V10 is going up against the 5.7-inch Nexus 6P and Galaxy Note 5 for the title of best all-around Android smartphone, so its dimensions are forgivable, although it is noticeably heavier than both of its most direct competitors.

IF YOU ARE OKAY WITH SUPER-SIZED PHONES, YOU’LL BE OKAY WITH THE V10

Provided you can live with its size, there’s precious little to complain about in terms of the LG V10’s construction. The familiar plasticky feeling of LG phones has been replaced with a new rubber coating1 that has a pleasantly grippy texture — a major upgrade over the G4’s slick and slippery shell — and there’s a stainless steel frame on the inside. In fact, that frame shows up externally as well, providing the rounded, buttonless sides of the phone. The V10 feels rugged and rigid in a way that its lighter aluminum rivals just can’t match — there’ll be no bending worries with this handset. And as to the buttons, they’ve been gathered at the back in that signature LG style2: two volume keys framing one circular power button, all nestled centrally underneath the camera module.

The V10’s power button plays host to the first integrated fingerprint reader among LG’s flagship devices. It uses the same sensor3 as can be found on the Nexus 5X, which LG built for Google, and you might expect it to function identically, but that’s not quite the case. Whereas the 5X would unlock at just the presence of my finger, the V10 requires a press of the power button to wake and then something close to a half-press to recognize my fingerprint. It’s accurate, sure, but it isn’t as sensitive as on devices like the Huawei Mate S, which would authenticate me even with the slightest glancing touch. This is exacerbated somewhat by the lack of travel or definition to the LG V10’s power key — it’s not easy to find by touch and doesn’t have a satisfying click, such as you’d get from the iPhone or Galaxy Note’s home button.

Click here for a full gallery of hands-on photos with the LG V10

The real attraction of the LG V10 is the camera that resides above the button cluster, so let’s get right to it. It’s amazing. I’m taking more photos and being more creative than I have with any other phone. Where other smartphones will render an indistinct blob of bright red, the V10 captures a beautiful, finely detailed flower in bloom. I see each petal distinguished from the next, with proper color gradation from the subtle pink hues to the deeper reds. At night, I’m unafraid to pull out the V10 and capture a particularly atmospheric scene — such as this tree illuminated by street lights behind it — knowing that this phone’s camera can handle it.

MOBILE PHOTOGRAPHY DOESN’T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS

Unlike the Xperia Z5, which also has a superb camera sensor, the LG V10 isn’t hamstrung by poor software or performance. LG’s camera app is close to perfect. The automatic modes are a great entryway for neophytes and casual users, paring down the settings to only the most essential options. The manual mode flips that around with granular control over all aspects of the photo, including a manual focus option. I love both ways of taking pictures with the V10. In auto, this camera focuses quickly, exposes correctly, and processes in a flash. But sometimes I prefer to underexpose a scene to give it a certain mood, or to overexpose and warm up the colors in order to simulate a bright and sunny day. Those are just a couple of examples of what LG’s manual settings allow me to do, and the thoughtful and comprehensive nature of this app shows that LG can indeed do good software4.

LG V10 CAMERA SAMPLE PHOTOS

Previous

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Next

Good photography was already a strength of the LG G4, and with the V10 the Korean company hopes to extend the same quality and versatility to the task of shooting video. The manual controls like ISO and white balance are now video options too, and you can set your own shutter speed and frame rate5. Along with LG’s new video stabilization, this library of options makes the V10 a compelling choice for anyone that wants to get more serious (or more creatively frivolous) about mobile video. Panning around with the V10 is delightfully smooth, obliterating the ill effects of unintended hand motion. It’s not quite so awesome as to let you walk and record without producing a jerky image, but in most circumstances, the V10’s video stabilization ensures a clean and very steady shot. As far as video goes, LG’s new system is nothing revolutionary until you capture your first unique video that only the manual controls could make happen — and then it’s awesome.

ANDROID CAMERA STANDARDS HAVE RISEN IN A BIG WAY THIS YEAR, IN PART THANKS TO LG

Apple’s iPhone sets a high bar for the convenience and ease of use of a cameraphone, and LG’s V10 comes as close as any other device I’ve used. LG’s phone isn’t quite as reliable as the iPhone 6 or 6S in nailing the focus every time, and it can sometimes make photos look obviously artificial by processing away the noise (and detail) that an iPhone would keep. But it is still such a joy to use and so damn good in the quality it produces. The V10’s manual flexibility is also an advantage over the iPhone6, lifting the creative ceiling that most other phone makers impose. I feel empowered by this camera.

The less time spent on the gimmicky pair of front-facing cameras the better. They exist, one for individual selfies, another for group selfies7. They work. But is there any reason why LG couldn’t split the difference with just one camera? Nope.

THE SECOND SCREEN IS DIM AND TINY, MORE ANNOYING THAN ASSISTIVE

Also superfluous is the 2.1-inch secondary display, which sits above the main 5.7-inch screen. Think of all the low-priority notifications that Android doesn’t bother to show you live on screen — such as app installations or the currently playing song — and you’ll find them on the second screen. It doesn’t replace anything, because the Android status bar and notifications system still work exactly as on any other device. It duplicates, which is the very definition of a redundant part.

The biggest problem with LG’s second screen is that it’s not big enough. It’s supposed to be an always-on display with useful information when the main display is powered down, but I find it easier to just turn on the phone to check things instead of squinting at the dim, small sliver at the top. You can customize a set of commonly used shortcuts to fill the second screen, but they have the same problem, requiring more precision to reach and tap than just unlocking the phone and opening an app from the home screen. On such a large device as the V10, it’s silly to have a tiny info ticker that doesn’t fit all that much information in the first place. Switch this thing off and you’ll immediately upgrade your V10 user experience