The LG G7 Review: A Rushed Attempt?
by Andrei Frumusanu on August 9, 2018 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- LG
- Mobile
- LG G7 ThinQ
- LG G7
System Performance
System performance of the G7 is also something that shouldn’t have too many surprises as we expect the phone to behave very similar to existing Snapdragon 845 devices out there – that’s to say, it should be excellent.
Starting off with PCMark, the G7 fares very well in the web browsing test scoring just a tad more than existing S845 devices. Fluctuations here can vary depending on minute scheduler/DVFS settings down to actual hardware changes such as possible DRAM timing differences.
The video editing score ends up the same as the Mi MIX 2S.
In the writing test which is likely the most important part of the PCMark suite we see that the G7 fares a bit worse than the OnePlus 6 and MIX 2S, however it still has a considerable lead over the Galaxy S9+.
The Photo Editing test we see the G7 as the lowest performing Snapdragon 845 device.
Data Manipulation score is high for the G7, outscoring most other devices. This along with the performance lead in the web test could point out to slight memory latency advantages for the G7.
Overall the LG G7’s performance in PCMark is only outshadowed by the OnePlus 6 and MIX 2S.
Moving onto the browser web tests performed under a WebView shell, the G7 performs slightly worse in WebXPRT 3.
Overall the performance of the G7 was excellent and would satisfy the vast majority of users. I have to add that in terms of feel and experience, I do think that the G7 was among the worst of the Snapdragon 845 devices. There was a notable little delay when switching between Android activities and in general opening applications wasn’t quite as fast as on the OP6 or MIX2S. Looking at the kernel source code it looks like the G7 is running an older branch for the S845 scheduler and it’s more similar to what Samsung was using on the Galaxy S9 as there’s some newer features missing on both devices that are present on the OnePlus and Xiaomi phones.
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johntmosher - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
My LG G4 died from Boot Loop a little over a month after the warranty expired. Verizon and LG did not offer anything to make up for the fact that it was sold to me at a time when they already knew about the Boot Loop failure rates. LG and Verizon are both on my shit list and will stay that way for quite some time.takeshi7 - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
I don't care about waterproofing on my phone. LG needs to bring back removable batteries. That's the whole reason I bought their phones. If I want waterproofing I'll go out and buy a waterproof case.UtilityMax - Friday, August 10, 2018 - link
Just buy a power bank. Removable battery as a run time extender is as inconvenient as it gets. Also, some of those low-end smartphones with A53 CPUs as their main cores can get an amazing run time. I can forget to charge my honor 6X and it can still last through the day with just 40% in the morning.jabber - Saturday, August 11, 2018 - link
Yeah I have a LG G4 which has been a great phone but this September I am coming up for three years with it and was going to replace it (probably a G6). However, I remembered I could change the battery and really the G4 still does everything I need so I just got a new battery. Sorted for another year at least...Dragonstongue - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
so even higher specs with a low Mah battery, for shame..."modern" smartphones IMO especially the ones that have high to very high end (for phone) specs should not hamper them with "normal" size batteries that tend to be in the range of 2200-3200 they should be targeting a minimum of 3200-4200 range, especially when they have the space to cram a larger battery in there (which many of them do)I just don't get t when "knock off" brands manage to often use a better display AND larger battery, shame of the bigger companies expecting as much $ as they can think to get away charging and using a dinky little battery....example even lower spec G4 Play had a 2800Mah battery REMOVABLE, this is much higher spec but barely any increase in battery capacity, I do not give a crud what OS version it is using, the capacity of the battery matters very much >:(
Xex360 - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
The notch again no innovation especially from LG, I had the V20 and the second screen can be very useful and didn't ruin the whole experience, the G6 were nearly perfect beside the decision to use a year old SOC plus no wireless charging.hirschma - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
The LG V35 is what should be the flagship. Better specs, better display, more memory, plus the audio, wide angle camera and 845 from the G7. I've had mine for a week, and it's definitely the best phone I've ever had.Hubb1e - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
I got this phone after some bad experiences with Samsung and this is the most accurate review of it I've seen to date. The biggest downside for the G7 is the unreliable camera. Some shots are okay, some are downright bad. And most reviewers don't shoot pictures of moving subjects, but the G7 consistently misses focus on moving subjects. All the issues with the camera in this review I've seen in my use. Most of it I think is related to it's inability to auto focus on the correct subject. When using manual focus, the camera actually takes good pictures.The rest of the phone is actually really great. I don't notice the color calibration in regular use, and the speaker is great even if other flagships also offer great speakers. The size of the phone is the best out there. It is comfortable and has a large screen without feeling too wide to hold and use in one hand. While I do mostly use BT headphones, I have a range of wired headphones and when I use them they sound amazing on the G7 in comparison to other phone's weak headphone output.
And the last great feature, but one that was not touched on in this review, is the outstanding idle battery life of the G7. Even with the always on display enabled, the G7 barely loses any charge when idle. If I don't use my phone very much, I can end the day with 80% of my battery life left. Most days I have 40-50% of battery left over even taking pictures, making calls, watching videos, and browsing the web. In comparison to Samsung phones I've had that can lose 5% an hour at idle, the idle power use of the G7 makes it outlast every other phone I've ever used.
SkyBill40 - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
I have a V30 after having upgraded from a V10 a while back. Personally speaking, I'd rate the V series above the G series but that's just me. I can say that I've been quite satisfied with my V30 and given how close to each other these phones happen to be, it wouldn't be worth it to "upgrade."LG has come a long way with their phones (that boot loop issue was a killer) and are genuinely competitive with every other high end device out there.
Lavkesh - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - link
Its amazing how average these so called Android flagships are when compared to the iPhone where every details is thought out. The worst thing is that they arent cheap either.