After delaying its reveal from MWC 2018, LG made their 7th-generation flagship smartphone official w/ the G7 ThinQ. So they wanted to take their time & not rush the launch to fine tune their 2018 flagship.
The LG G7 ThinQ is a great amalgamation of the past few devices from features, design, & more. They added a lot of key features from the V-series along w/ some AI-related abilities. Time to break it all down and see how it all works together. Our G7 review awaits you.
On a design perspective, the G7 ThinQ is an amalgamation of the G6 and the V30 devices. You got the IP68 dust & water-resistant body covered w/ Gorilla Glass 5 on both sides. It is slightly thicker & less slippery take on last year's V30. The headphone jack went form the top to the bottom. It didn't take a long time to get used to LG having an actual Power button on the side of the phone. Having a dedicated button for Google Assistant is pretty good. Much better than a Bixby button though it would be great to remap it as there are already several other ways to access the Assistant already.
We already know LG knows how to make displays. Despite its faux pas w/ the Pixel 2 XL and the V30, they make amazing OLED panels for monitors & 4K/8K TVs. This year they went w/ an LCD panel and made the better choice for it. They added a new Super Bright LCD Mode which gives you a boost of up to 1000 nits at the touch of a button for a maximum time of 3 minutes. This gets brighter than any other smartphone on the market and it shows - especially when in direct sunlight. Along w/ that, you got great colors that pop w/ stellar color reproduction, dark blacks, great viewing angles, and an Always-On Display option. Job well done, LG.
So this has a notch as LG calls the Second Screen in remembrance of the older V10 & V20 devices. It doesn't really offer any functionality other than showing off the signal strength, time, & battery life. You can 'hide' the notch but you're really just adding a black bar or a color gradient in the background. You can still see the notch within the apps though. Definitely not my favorite addition here.
- 6.1inch QHD FullVision Super Bright LCD display w/ 564ppi + HDR10 support
- Snapdragon 845 CPU
- 4GB of RAM + 64GB of storage expandable via microSD up to 2TB
- Dual rear-facing cameras: f/1.9 16MP super wide angle (107-degree lens) + f/1.6 16MP standard lens
- Front-facing f/1.9 8MP Wide Angle camera
- Hi-Fi Quad DAC
- DTS: X 3D Surround Sound + Boombox Speaker
- IP68 dust/water resistant body
- 3000 mAh battery w/ Quick Charge 3.0 + wireless charging
- Android 8.0 Oreo
Maintaining the 2018 speed & performance is a Snapdragon 845 CPU coupled w/ 4GB of RAM + 64GB of storage expandable up to 2TB via microSD. This handles the usual suspect areas of intense gaming, streaming, having multiple apps open, zero crashes or slowdowns, and everything else you would expect from a flagship processor. Despite only having 4GB of RAM over the 6GB a lot of flagships are moving to, it still offers amazing speeds & processing power.
For the G7's battery is where LG implemented some changes. It has a 3000 mAh battery which sounds like a meager drop off form the 3300 mAh size from the G6 but surprisingly enough, it holds you down. So w/ light-to-medium usage got me close to 12 hours while heavy usage got me to just over 8 hours. This is involving emailing, messaging, some phone calls, hours on YouTube, and streaming music/podcasts. You do have Quick Charge 3.0 to give you a fast recharge & wireless charging.
LG is touting upgrade shooters w/ more intelligence for the G7 cameras. The G7 retains & refines their dual camera setup w/ a standard lens & wide-angle lens. This time w/ a f/1.9 super wide & a f/1.6 standard - both are 16MP sensors. LG bumped the selfie camera back up to 8MP w/ a f/1.9 wide-angle lens to finally give you good front-facing camera. With the improvement of LG's image processing this time around, leaving you w/ more desirable photos/videos. Giving you great color reproduction & dynamic range - the kind of the ones you always wanted from LG.
They created a feature for darker situations w/ Super Bright Camera, this makes the pixels bigger to create an end result w/ lower resolution but clearer & more details. If you wish, you can turn it off. With this feature, the G7 performs decently in low-light but definitely better than any other LG device previously in low-light. LG steps into the realm that is Portrait Mode and it does better than most. It does a pretty good job blurring the background but there are some cases where it blurs out the edges of the subject but more hit than miss.
The AI Cam arrives from the V30S ThinQ and works the same but is now up 19 different shooting modes instead of 8. When activated, it utilizes artificial intelligence to analyze the shot and select one of the 19 filters to get the best shot. It works but you may not agree w/ the filter used. So I wouldn't call it a hit or miss as it works like a Super Auto mode when you might prefer to use Portrait or Manual modes.
AI CAM
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The audio department has been LG's strong suit for quite some time now. Previously, its only been in the V-series but the G7 brings it here along w/ more tricks. First up is the Boombox Speaker that takes advantage of the way it was built - in the form of a resonance chamber. This helps pump out big sound through its one bottom-firing speaker. I dug it as the sound was pretty good as everyone is moving away from dual front-facing speakers. This is a different & effective use of a speaker - even at maximum volume. Not sure if it lives up to the Boombox Speaker name but it is a pretty damn good.
You always got a 3.5mm headphone jack to make use of its 32-bit Hi-Fi quad DAC w/ DTS:X for virtual 3D surround sound. I plugged in some good headphones and got a much clearer & richer sound output. You can really hear the difference between this and other devices w/o the DAC. The virtual surround sound gives the music a more airy sound as if you're listening to music surrounded by speakers. Definitely the best audio features I've enjoyed on a phone in a while.
Now there isn't a lot to talk about when it comes to the software on the G7. You got a recent Android 8.0 Oreo underneath LG's standard skin. They retained the Smart Bulletin page by swiping to right from the home screen. But added a system-wide search that reminds me of iPhone's mess they call a notification shade. You just swipe down from the home screen (but not form the top) to access it. Then you can search apps, emails, recent browser searches, and YouTube videos. Unfortunately, LG is still my least favorite Android skin/UX as I am still waiting for them to do something different w/ it. After the past few years, it looks like no one else wants it to change.
The G7 ThinQ: probably one of the most versatile phones of 2018.
TG 2 Cents
For those of you, like me, who despise the notch, get ready as it seems like plenty of Android phones coming this year will offer it. From this, the OnePlus 6, and possible the Pixel 3. But it's about what else can the phone offer to make it worthwhile. LG offers a variety of good features in the G7.
I really dig the G7 ThinQ. There's just something about it. It's has a great body, bright display, stellar audio for headphones & speaker, good cameras, and a decent battery life. The AI Cam is OK and 'Second Screen' is still just a notch you can somewhat customize. Despite its shortcomings, I still find myself coming back to it - even over the Galaxy S9.
