G4 a stunner in leather-clad curves

JUST CALLING in from LG is the G4, a beautifully designed smartphone packing a powerful processor, good-quality camera and high-resolution display. 

The body’s Slim Arc design even has a slightly curved screen, bellying out to match a concave back that has a handcrafted full-grain-leather cover available in black, brown, red or blue. The leather’s rich, warm tones actually change over time, a sure sign of authenticity.

For anyone who’s ever grumbled about being unable to open their phone, the G4’s back cover does indeed pop out. No embedded battery here – the 3,000mAh battery is easily replaced.

The G4 display is truly gorgeous thanks to a new 5.5-inch IPS Quantum Display allowing 20 per cent better colour reproduction, 25 per cent more brightness and 50 per cent more contrast. 

This is also the first Quad HD display to employ Advanced In-Cell Touch (AIT) technology, which combines the LCD and touch sensor in a single layer to further boost colour reproduction as well as touch sensitivity. It’s calibrated to DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives) standards for the same kind of “colour expression” sought after in Hollywood movie studios. 

With 2,560x1,440 pixels at 538ppi, this is a great screen is for viewing HD video clips and photos. 

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 Processor has six cores – a quad-core 1.44GHz Cortex-A53 and a dual-core 1.82GHz Cortex-A57.

Guaranteeing stability, the phone offers three gigabytes of DDR3 working memory (RAM) and 32GB of internal storage that can be expanded with a micro-SD card. The latest Google Android operating system is installed – the Android 5.1 Lollipop with a new “human-centric” UX 4.0 interface that eliminates unnecessary steps while providing advanced users with more configuration options.

These include Quick Shot so you can take pictures without first opening the camera app. You simply double tap the Rear Key. When you do fire up the phone, though, the camera start-up time is a mere six-tenths of a second.

UX 4.0 also touts a Gallery with extremely fast scrolling via a timeline option, no matter how many thousand pictures you have stored on the phone, while the Memories function automatically organises photos and videos in albums based on the time and place they were taken.

Then there’s the Event Pocket with which you can create a single calendar by dragging and dropping appointments and activities from every other calendar you use and from social-media sites. No more logging in to multiple calendars. 

The Snapdragon 808 has a built-in X10 LTE modem, so the G4 is ready to make LTE 4G connections. I tested the phone on the TrueMove H LTE network and was impressed by how fast the connection was made, applications were downloaded and snapshots were backed up to Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Posting snapshots on Facebook was just a speedy.

The Ookla speed-test app measured the download speed at 39.97Mpbs and uploads at 22.43, though these can vary depending on the server in use.

The G4 touch screen and menus are very responsive, the screen scrolling is fast and all my apps ran smoothly. How fast are we talking about? As an example, the phone plays high-resolution FLAC 24-bit/192kHz audio files without a hiccup, with the Music app showing a “HIFI” icon when playing hi-res tracks.

I tested the hi-res audio playback with Sony’s MDR-1ABT hi-res headphones using a cable connection and was impressed by the quality and clarity and the powerful bass.

Meanwhile, as well as the fast LTE connection, the G4 can link through 802.11 AC Wi-Fi – currently the fastest wireless protocol – to any router-connected computer to access all of your multimedia files remotely. And an infrared port and an app turn the G4 into a remote control for the TV and the remote app will function as universal remote control.

The 8MP front-facing camera captures sharp, detailed portraits and group shots. Gesture Interval Shot mode grabs four shots, each two seconds apart, to virtually guarantee the best possible poses and facial expressions. To trigger the shutter you just open and close your hand twice in front of the camera.

The 16-megapixel main camera has a wide F1.8-aperture lens that delivers 80 per cent more light to the sensor, and low-light performance is further improved with OIS 2.0 to boost image stabilisation from one to two degrees on the X- and Y-axis, and a third axis newly added. In my tests the G4 got sharp and detailed photos in most lighting environments, including beautiful lights at night.

The LG G4 with the leather case retails for Bt21,900 and with a metallic case Bt20,900.

 

Key Specs

- Network: 4G / LTE / HSPA+ |21 Mbps (3G)

- Operating system: |Android 5.1 Lollipop

- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 Processor with X10 LTE

- Display: 5.5-inch Quad HD IPS Quantum Display (2560x1440 pixels, 538ppi)

- Memory: 3GB LPDDR3 RAM

- Storage: 32GB eMMC with microSD slot 

- Camera: Rear 16MP with F1.8 aperture / OIS 2.0 / Front 8MP with F2.0 aperture

- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a, b, g, n, ac / Bluetooth 4.1LE / NFC / USB 2.0

- Battery: 3,000mAh |(removable)

- Size: 148.9 x 76.1 x 6.3 - 9.8 mm

- Weight: 155g