The LG G4 Thread

Redundo · 13-04-2015 8:34pm #1

So anyone been following the leaks... flood... tidal wave (?) of leaks about the next LG G-series phone? One of the worst kept secrets in the mobile world recently. Everyone knows everything important about it already except the price and the release date.

But some of those specs look good:
http://m.gsmarena.com/lg_g4-6901.php

The phone itself looks good too:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/12/8392877/lg-g4-pictures-leaked

They are claiming a screen that has 534ppi and uses less battery power to do so than current screens. The camera also looks great, f1.8, laser autofocus and some sort of colour detection sensor (not sure what exactly this adds). That and a 3000mah replaceable battery is fairly impressive.

But then the downside. Most seem to think the leather covers are amazing. Not so sure i like them myself. Also the lack of a Snapdragon 810 SoC is very unusual as nobody else is using the 808 chip in the G4. The heating and battery problems the sd810 is reported to cause in the HTC One M9 are likely why it was dropped.

With the fancy looks, screen, big battery and camera this could be aimed as a fashion phone. That's my worry for it given the lack of raw processing power all the competitors are aiming for. Still, think i would happily sacrifice some speed for a two day battery life.

I'm going to upgrade from a Samsung S3 running cyanogenmod soon. I'm thinking the choice could be this or a wait for the Oneplus Two.

Anyone else interested in this one?

N64 · 13-04-2015 8:49pm

Might sell my G3 and upgrade to this. Can't go without knock code now

jenno86 · 13-04-2015 9:15pm

Going to see what the reviews say. If the camera gets good reviews I might go for it.

Redundo · 13-04-2015 9:27pm

Won't know for sure until the first sample pics are out. Might start seeing them as early as next month given that LG are allowing a few thousand units to go into the hands of fans early. The specs on the camera are impressive though. An f1.8 lens can be difficult to achieve with slr sized cameras, so its particularly impressive on the miniature smartphone cameras.

Mantis Toboggan · 13-04-2015 9:43pm

All to be revealed April 28th. LG are making awesome phones these days at competitive prices and if this phone is as highly rated as the G2 and G3 then it will be an automatic purchase from me. Highly unlikely any Irish carriers will have this phone so it will have to be an outright purchase!

Redundo · 14-04-2015 7:44am

Yeah, the selection of phones on offer from Irish carriers really is poor. But then an outright purchase might save more in the long run given that shop-bought high-end smartphones tend to come on expensive 2-year contracts.

I'm really hoping LG will stick with their slightly below average pricing!

OldMrBrennan83 · 14-04-2015 7:50am

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jenno86 · 14-04-2015 10:38pm

Did any Irish carriers have the G2/G3?

Redundo · 14-04-2015 10:44pm

Just did a quick search on Meteor, Three, Vodafone and Carphone Warehouse... Not a single LG on any of them. Do they not know that making something difficult to get creates a bubble of consumer demand, while making something impossible to get pisses people off?

Anyone know any trustworthy internet shops/sellers?

Mantis Toboggan · 14-04-2015 10:45pm

jenno86 wrote: »

Did any Irish carriers have the G2/G3?

Nope.

OldMrBrennan83 · 15-04-2015 7:22am

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Newtown90 · 15-04-2015 9:08am

Redundo wrote: »

Just did a quick search on Meteor, Three, Vodafone and Carphone Warehouse... Not a single LG on any of them. Do they not know that making something difficult to get creates a bubble of consumer demand, while making something impossible to get pisses people off?

Anyone know any trustworthy internet shops/sellers?

Bought mine from Amazon aswell.

I have the LG G2, great phone but I wan the G4 now

recyclebin · 15-04-2015 11:03am

I decided to get a G3 for €418. The G4 will probably be too expensive to buy outright for me.

I used amazon.de instead of amazon.co.uk as sterling exchange rate is not good at the moment.

OldMrBrennan83 · 15-04-2015 11:08am

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Squeeonline · 15-04-2015 11:28am

Redundo wrote: »

So anyone been following the leaks... flood... tidal wave (?) of leaks about the next LG G-series phone? One of the worst kept secrets in the mobile world recently. Everyone knows everything important about it already except the price and the release date.

But some of those specs look good:
http://m.gsmarena.com/lg_g4-6901.php

The phone itself looks good too:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/4/12/8392877/lg-g4-pictures-leaked

They are claiming a screen that has 534ppi and uses less battery power to do so than current screens. The camera also looks great, f1.8, laser autofocus and some sort of colour detection sensor (not sure what exactly this adds). That and a 3000mah replaceable battery is fairly impressive.

But then the downside. Most seem to think the leather covers are amazing. Not so sure i like them myself. Also the lack of a Snapdragon 810 SoC is very unusual as nobody else is using the 808 chip in the G4. The heating and battery problems the sd810 is reported to cause in the HTC One M9 are likely why it was dropped.

With the fancy looks, screen, big battery and camera this could be aimed as a fashion phone. That's my worry for it given the lack of raw processing power all the competitors are aiming for. Still, think i would happily sacrifice some speed for a two day battery life.

I'm going to upgrade from a Samsung S3 running cyanogenmod soon. I'm thinking the choice could be this or a wait for the Oneplus Two.

Anyone else interested in this one?

I'm interested in upgrading from my xperia z1.

But, OP, you're missing some of the most important points about this phone and the leaks. The back is replaceable, so if you don't like the leather back, change it. It'll probably be a premium option anyway.

This phone also comes with a removable battery and microSD card slot, both things that the Samsung flagships have eschewed this year. The leaks are necessary to keep people who were on the fence about buying the s6/e because of this interested in LGs offering.

The screen is supposed to be a large improvement over LGs previous panels but it will probably still struggle to compete with the s6 in this respect.

The 808 chip also makes a lot of sense given all the problems with the 810. The "fixes" that have been released are basically greater thermal throttling. 808 chip will hopefully not have this problem despite its similarities to the 810 (I think two high end cores are removed).

I was hoping the screen would be slightly curved like the G flex 2, but this looks to not be the case. I guess that requires the OLED display and some other things, like maybe the self healing screen/skin. At that point, you might as well get a flex 2 anyway.

I've never owned an LG phone but I've played around with their Nexus devices that got loads of praise at the time. There are rumours of google giving the nexus phone back to LG. I just hope it wont be another 6" monster!

OldMrBrennan83 · 15-04-2015 11:31am

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recyclebin · 15-04-2015 1:08pm

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

It's the 32GB with 3GB of RAM.

As far as I can tell there is a European version of the G3 for the LTE frequencies. I presume the language can be changed. I think the seller is actually French but the order is fulfilled by Amazon.

It should arrive next week so I will let you know more then.

OldMrBrennan83 · 15-04-2015 1:10pm

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Mantis Toboggan · 15-04-2015 1:24pm

Patww79 wrote: »

Also, the battery is another massive plus over the Samsung at 3000mAh. I'll never stray from LG again I think, the only question for me is if it's worth it over a G3.

The battery in the G2 was 3000 mAH. I'd be disappointed if the G4 had the same battery. I'm hoping for at least 3500mAh.

OldMrBrennan83 · 15-04-2015 1:29pm

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Mantis Toboggan · 15-04-2015 1:47pm

Patww79 wrote: »

One of the removable back pictures leaked shows the battery so it's 90% that it'll be 3,000mAh. There should be enough hardware and software improvements to mean it'll perform better than the one in the G2 though.
I'm running on 20+ hours a day on my G2 currently according to GSam (though I am on a custom ROM) so I could easily lose 5 hours of that and still be happy with the G4 if it happened to be worst case.

Aye the battery is great in the G2, but I'd want a better battery in the G4 to justify shelling out 500 euro odd. Remember the 2k screen in the G4 also.

How much screen on time do you get with your G2?

OldMrBrennan83 · 15-04-2015 1:53pm

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Mantis Toboggan · 15-04-2015 1:56pm

Patww79 wrote: »

I'd say we are going to be looking at €800 minimum for the G4, not €500.

Just checked GSam again, showing my averages as:

Battery Life: 19h 59m (9h 41m Active)
Screen On: 4h 23m (4h 49m Max)

Since Feb 26 2015 (last time I did a fresh ROM install).

The G2 and G3 weren't over 600 euro on release so not sure where your getting 800 euro from.

OldMrBrennan83 · 15-04-2015 1:59pm

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Mantis Toboggan · 15-04-2015 2:03pm

Patww79 wrote: »

Exchange rates and the fact that these prices are climbing every year.

Exchange rate only if you're buying from England, easy just to buy from Europe. It may increase in price but I wouldn't be saying over 800 euros when we don't know the price.

OldMrBrennan83 · 15-04-2015 2:05pm

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Redundo · 16-04-2015 7:54am

I checked with a German seller TechnikDirekt that i bought phones from in the past. Had good experiences with them back then and they are carrying LG phones now. A new feature is that they offer Finance deals. I haven't looked into whether its offered to Irish customers, or the terms and conditions, so take that with a pinch of salt! [EDIT: nevermind, just saw that the installment purchase scheme is for German residents only]

But as for their up-front price, the LG Flex 2 is on offer there for €682.00 (Platinum 16GB version). I got to imagine that the Flex 2's SD810 chip, OLED screen and flex manufacturing process make this more expensive than the G4. I would hope the G4 will come in somewhere under €600, hopefully as low as €550.

Squeeonline · 16-04-2015 8:41am

Redundo wrote: »

I checked with a German seller TechnikDirekt that i bought phones from in the past. Had good experiences with them back then and they are carrying LG phones now. A new feature is that they offer Finance deals. I haven't looked into whether its offered to Irish customers, or the terms and conditions, so take that with a pinch of salt! [EDIT: nevermind, just saw that the installment purchase scheme is for German residents only]

But as for their up-front price, the LG Flex 2 is on offer there for €682.00 (Platinum 16GB version). I got to imagine that the Flex 2's SD810 chip, OLED screen and flex manufacturing process make this more expensive than the G4. I would hope the G4 will come in somewhere under €600, hopefully as low as €550.

Pretty sure companies like LG dont keep a fixed % markup. They'll sell it at a perceived value. Considering they are trying to steal former samsung customers (removable battery, SD card slot) they might use a reduced price to woo them. I certainly hope so!

Rabbit out of the hat, would be an IP56 certification. Fingers crossed!

OldMrBrennan83 · 16-04-2015 8:51am

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Mantis Toboggan · 16-04-2015 9:13am

I got my G2 from Amazon France 16 months ago. No problems whatsoever, apart from the European charger!

Redundo · 17-04-2015 9:40am

Hmmm, just saw an update that LG have admitted the recent leak was real, but that not everything has been revealed yet. One of the only things left out of the website leak was confirmation of the processor. Would be interesting if there was a change there.

OldMrBrennan83 · 17-04-2015 10:06am

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corwill · 17-04-2015 10:16am

Patww79 wrote: »

Another rumour on the processor.

http://www.androidheadlines.com/2015/04/new-leak-seemingly-confirms-lg-g4-will-powered-snapdragon-808-soc.html

No two ways about it, there's a whiff of mid-range off the 808. I'd be interested to see how it benches compared to a Snap 615 or a MT6752.

OldMrBrennan83 · 17-04-2015 10:22am

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Squeeonline · 17-04-2015 12:00pm

Patww79 wrote: »

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LG has also had problems with the 810 in the flex 2. A software update more aggressively heat throttles.

808 is more likely IMO because of the damage reputation of the 810. Also I highly doubt they'd entrust a mediatek proc in their flagship. Maybe they'll surprise us yet.

corwill · 17-04-2015 12:26pm

Patww79 wrote: »

The article mentions that it may be a mid range phone, though there have been plenty of rumours before this of the 808. I think it could be more than sufficient though and the 810 hasn't exactly been setting the world alight after the HTC overheating problems and Samsung favouring their own for the S6.

As long as there's a midrange price to go with it, that's fine by me!

Qualcomm really need to get their next flagship SOC right, or the likes of Intel or Mediatek will eat their lunch. The latter are almost there, need to sort out their GPUs.

OldMrBrennan83 · 17-04-2015 1:30pm

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ct5amr2ig1nfhp · 17-04-2015 1:37pm

The front of the G4 looks identical to the OnePlus One.

Not a chance LG would use a midrange chip in their flagship phone.

Redundo · 17-04-2015 2:38pm

I guess a Snap808 it is then! It must be the only flagship phone to use one of those chips.

I think the choice of the Snap808 is a matter of preserving battery life. LG have made a big deal about their new display being brighter and less power hungry than competing displays. Add in the replaceable 3000mAh battery and LG have made a very strong case for winning out over the likes of the iPhone and Galaxy S6 on a very basic feature of phone useability.

A power hungry Snap810 might dump all over those gains while only providing a very limited processing speed benefit that most people might never make use of.

My only worry for the LG G4 with a Snap808 inside is that the high res display will chew up a large amount of the processors performance.

Squeeonline · 17-04-2015 2:49pm

Redundo wrote: »

My only worry for the LG G4 with a Snap808 inside is that the high res display will chew up a large amount of the processors performance.

Seemed to be smooth enough with that display from the reviews with an 801.

Redundo · 17-04-2015 11:23pm

Squeeonline wrote: »

Seemed to be smooth enough with that display from the reviews with an 801.

OK, point well taken, an 808 chip would still be faster than an 801 chip. But in comparison to the same generation rivals (S6 and OneM9) you would expect the G4 to fall behind in benchmark testing.

I'm not trying to pick at holes in the specs of the G4. I think that LG have prioritised battery life over headline performance numbers. And its a good direction to take.

OldMrBrennan83 · 17-04-2015 11:46pm

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Mantis Toboggan · 18-04-2015 9:25am

Redundo wrote: »

I'm not trying to pick at holes in the specs of the G4. I think that LG have prioritised battery life over headline performance numbers. And its a good direction to take.

Not sure about battery life, it's the same battery that they had in the G2 that came out in 2013. I was expecting Atleast a 3500 mAh battery.

Redundo · 18-04-2015 9:07pm

I'm not so sure that the energy capacity can get bigger without the battery physically increasing in size and weight. The G4 hasn't grown much in size itself, so a larger 3500mAh battery would leave less space for everything else.

So even though the battery is still the same 3000mAh capacity as before, improved battery life can come from the rest of the phones innards; efficient display technology and system on a chip design, maybe better wifi and radio modems too?

I'd be delighted if the phone could last 36 hours with light usage or 18 hours comfortably with heavier use. At the moment i can only squeeze 1 hour screen on time from my S3!

jenno86 · 20-04-2015 7:36pm

Writing on its Korean blog, it confirmed the LG G4 release date will be May 31, a month after the official launch of the handset on April 28.

The same post also appears to confirm the LG G4 will pack a 16MP camera on its rear - up from the 13MP sensor on the back of the G3 - which is in line with a host of rumours surrounding the handset.

Link

OldMrBrennan83 · 20-04-2015 8:13pm

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Squeeonline · 21-04-2015 7:23am

I'm less worried about benchmark testing if the day to day performance is smooth and sufficient. I dont use my smart phone for gaming and would really prefer battery life over a supercomputer in my pocket.

For the record I dont think the 808 chip is strictly midrange, it's just not the fastest and chip that Qualcom makes. It's not a 600 chip or a last gen 800/801.

Mantis Toboggan · 22-04-2015 10:38am

Being released in South Korea on April 29th. Probably be a few weeks after that before we can get our hands on them. Rumours of a G4 note coming in the second half of the year also.

Could be amazing!!

Squeeonline · 22-04-2015 5:28pm

Buddy Holly wrote: »

Being released in South Korea on April 29th. Probably be a few weeks after that before we can get our hands on them. Rumours of a G4 note coming in the second half of the year also.

Could be amazing!!

Source?

Also I dont get all this hate for the back of the G4. From what we've seen so far it's replaceable. Don't like the plastic/leather? get a metal back from a 3rd party.

Mantis Toboggan · 22-04-2015 10:05pm

Squeeonline wrote: »

Source?

Also I dont get all this hate for the back of the G4. From what we've seen so far it's replaceable. Don't like the plastic/leather? get a metal back from a 3rd party.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/39700/20150314/lg-g4-note-with-3k-display-and-high-end-specs-might-be-iphone-6-plus-galaxy-note-4-killer.htm

Where did you see the hate for the back? Didn't see anyone mention it.

Squeeonline · 23-04-2015 12:25pm

Buddy Holly wrote: »

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/39700/20150314/lg-g4-note-with-3k-display-and-high-end-specs-might-be-iphone-6-plus-galaxy-note-4-killer.htm

Where did you see the hate for the back? Didn't see anyone mention it.

Mostly reddit and comments on android blogs. Nothing too important. Idiots saying how they won't buy the phone because of the back etc...

Good luck finding another flagship with a microSD card slot and removable battery.

Fingers crossed for IPxy cert. Can't believe that only lasted one round of devices.

The LG G4 Thread

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