The LG G4 was introduced to the media yesterday, and while the phone will not be available here in the States until later this summer, we had an opportunity to go hands on with LG’s latest flagship, so that’s exactly what we did. Welcome to the LG G4 unboxing and hands on.
This is not your typical retail packaging but hey, it’s a box, it says LG G4 and that’s good enough for an unboxing. Lifting up the box, we see the LG G4 sitting right on top. My first impression of the LG G4 is that it’s a bit taller than the G3, and it feels much more slippery in the hands. Now keep in mind, we are talking about the plastic back and not the leather one. We will go hands on with the leather LG G4 in an upcoming video.
Underneath the G4, you’ll find just the USB cable for charging and the standard power brick. In your retail packaging later this summer, expect to see the typical quick start guides, manuals and warranty paperwork.
Now let’s go back to the LG G4. Up front we have a display that measures in at the same 5.5 inches as the LG G3, and it also has the same 2560 x 1440 resolution as the G3. The new feature with the display this year is the implementation of quantum pixels, which adds an extra color filter above the backlight to gives you richer colors.
Inside we find a very interesting architecture. The G4 runs a Snapdragon 808 processor, which is a hexa-core chip. It features a quad-core 1.44GHz A53 chip next to a dual-core 1.8GHz A57 chip. It’s pretty interesting that all three 2015 Android flagships have chosen completely different parts on processors this year. The LG G4's processor is hooked up to 3GB of RAM, an Adreno 418 GPU and 32GB of internal memory.
Around back, we have a reworked camera. First of all, the sensor is now larger and its megapixel count has been increased to 16. The G4's optical image stabilization has also been reworked, giving it the ability to not only move up, down, left and right in motions, but also added diagonal motions. Laser Auto Focus has also been made more accurate and faster from the LG G3.
The G4's battery is 3000mAh, the same as the G3's. One feature that the G4 has that the Galaxy S6 and One M9 don't is that its battery still is user accessible. Because the LG G4 has a new processor but the same capacity as last year's G3, we're interested in seeing what kind of battery life the G4 can get.
Diving into software, the G4 is running Android 5.1 Lollipop with LG’s 4.0 UX software. This is a slight revision to the software we saw running on the LG G Flex 2 back at CES. It has sprinkles of Material Design throughout it's been relatively quick so far. We’ll have to use the G4 for a longer amount of time to get a better idea of its performance.
Overall, the LG G4 appears to be a successful follow-up to the LG G3. The only odd thing so far is its size, which for some reason has been increased in length from the G3. The G4 itself looks pretty stunning, though, and while it may look like a OnePlus One from the front, that's not a bad thing. I also dig the shiny bits around the G4's sides and the curve of its back.
So that’s our unboxing and hands on with the LG G4. We have some really cool videos coming very soon on the PhoneDog YouTube channel, so make sure to subscribe so that you can be notified of when we upload those videos. But I’d love to hear what your thoughts on the LG G4 so make sure to leave your comments below.