LG G5 Unveiled: 5.3" QHD Display, Snapdragon 820, Modular Magic Slot Expansion (hothardware.com) 115
MojoKid writes: Rather than just bring another smartphone update with the typical yearly iterative tweaks, the folks at LG have really done something transformative with their next generation G5 flagship smartphone. The aluminum unibody construction of the G5 brings with it a 5.3-inch QHD display, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor that is paired with 4GB of RAM. 32GB of internal storage is standard but there is a microSD card slot to allow for up to 2TB of expanded storage. On the rear, you'll find a fingerprint scanner and two cameras, a standard 16MP sensor and a 135-degree wide angle 8MP sensor. In addition, LG has included a USB-C port and removable 2800mAh battery. That's all rather routine stuff; what's truly innovative about the G5 is its Magic Slot, which brings a new modular twist to the Android platform. Pressing a key on the side of the G5 will eject its bottom section, which will also allow you to remove the battery. Then you can proceed to attach new modules, like the LG Cam Plus. The LG Cam Plus adds a camera grip to your G5 along with a dedicated camera button and a jog wheel for zooming. The module also boosts the battery capacity from 2800mAh to 4000mAh. The second module is the LG Hi-Plus, which brings with it an external 32-bit DAC and amplifier. This particular module was developed in conjunction with Bang and Olufsen and comes with a pair of H3 headphones that support native (Direct Stream Digital) DSD playback.
Removable battery (Score:5, Informative)
This is far from routine and deserves special mention.
Re:Removable battery (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it's why I bought the LG G4 when my Galaxy S3 died. I won't buy a phone without a removable battery and microSD slot, it's planned obsolescence. FWIW, the G4 also supports a 2TB expansion slot.
I don't replace my phone every 1.5 years, having a removable battery is a very important feature to me.
Re: Removable battery (Score:2)
I replace my (i)Phone once every 4 years. It hasn't been an issue for me. Maybe ask LG to use higher quality batteries.
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It should still be removable and replaceable. The phone could explode if you can't *eject the core*
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I had an iPhone a way long time ago - a 3G. After a year and a half, the battery wouldn't last longer than 4-5 hours. I ditched it then and only bought phones that had a removeable battery and microSD slot. With my Galaxy S3, I had already replaced the battery and used that phone over three years. I use the phone a lot for work (primarily email and scheduling) and don't have hardly any apps installed.
I've always wondered if humid environments are harder on batteries? I've even had to replace the battery in
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Here's the thing for the wilfully obtuse (with glaring vested interests). I can sell my second Note 3 with a cheaply replaceable battery and voilà the person who buys it has a phone with full battery life because they can cheaply buy a new battery. This versus a battery change to regain full life as a major expenditure coming straight off the second hand value of the phone. So when I choose to swap phones that means at least, at the very least $100 more in my pocket (reality is phones without readily
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If you're shooting a lot of images or video or making heavy use of the screen and your LTE connection, you'll drain a battery, no matter what the device is. In those circumstances, I'd far rather slap in another battery than be semi-permanently tethered to an external battery pack (although nothing stops an LG G-series phone from using those as well - the external charger that came with mine can even act as one).
Most smartphones I have some experience with will shoot two or three hours of full HD video befo
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FWIW, the G4 also supports a 2TB expansion slot.
Technically any phone that supports SDXC should be able to do that, it's the maximum defined in the standard but most just list the capacity available on release. And I don't think cards bigger than 512GB exist yet, so no you can't actually have that at least not today.
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Yes, but it is nice to actually *know*. Versus other phone manufacturers who don't publish that information, leaving you to wonder if a 128,64,32GB card will even *work* in the phone.
Re: Removable battery (Score:1)
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Only a small percentage of G4s suffer from any of those glitches. If you are suffering from them, return your unit, its defective. Mine has worked perfectly for 6 months now, no glitches.
Translation (Score:2)
'Magic Slot' in translates to the English phase 'proprietary, non interoperable interface'
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I thought it translated to "Springboard Expansion Slot" [wikipedia.org], but I guess I'm showing my age.
Re: Translation (Score:1)
Do you know another maker doing add on modules that it needs to interoperate with? Maybe first to market can set standard?
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oh, you mean like Microchannel Array? RDRAM? Betamax? HDDVD (I actually have some of these - a 14-disc set put out by National Geographic)? :)
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PCI
USB3.0
SD
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Sony Vaio's had the Magic Gate SD Card (MSAC-M2) which of course isn't readable by anything else.
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Actually, according to Ars Technica [arstechnica.com], LG is planning on creating some sort of open ecosystem for third-party hardware. What exactly that means is yet to be seen, but they've at least said that is in their plans.
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LG is planning on creating some sort of open ecosystem for third-party hardware. What exactly that means is yet to be seen...
It means it will be like Apple... anyone is free to develop products for the proprietary, non interoperable interface, you just have to pay LG a nice fee to do so.
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And you know this because you've consulted with LG about developing something?
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The third-party hardware has to interface with the phone -- and the software on it. That means all sorts of legal considerations. Probably licensing for each product -- can't have a rogue add-ons stealing mobile payment platform credentials or using phone features for nefarious purposes.
No, I haven't talked to LG about a new "gamechanger" product I want to develop. But I also live in the land of reality where LG is a corporation looking to make money.
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LG's market share is tiny, so it's going to be hard to justify developing something that can only ever be used on LG's
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We're talking cell phones here; every single thing about them is proprietary and non-interoperable. Heck, even the same manufacturer will make things incompatible with their own previous generation product, just for the fun of it.
External expansion also makes the phone incompatible with just about any case you can think of, and kills any hope of having a splash-proof or dust-proof phone; so you're in the position of needing a case (to protect it), but not being able to use a case (because then the expansion
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every single thing about them is proprietary and non-interoperable
I know, they all have different headphone sockets, different USB connectors, different charging sockets, different UIs and you have to use wireless peripherals from the same manufacturer.
I particularly loathe the way they only work on manufacturer specific networks; if only they'd come up with some form of standard.
Re: Translation (Score:1)
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There's little question this is a sponsored post.
Sponsored? Hell, I found this summary in the Firehose and was about to mod it binspam, even though it had already been accepted. I think I'll head on back to the Firehose and do just that.
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This is relevant to my interests. This phone is almost perfect... Removable battery, SD card slot, excellent specs... The only remaining questions are over Qi wireless charging, cost and what the OS is like.
Stock Android would be ideal... Anyone know what LG are like for updates?
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A bit mixed to be honest. The G4 was promised Marshmellow in October, and phones in Poland did get it then. But there might have been some issues as it seems to be taking forever for it to roll out to the rest of the world. At the moment more of the world doesn't have the update than does.
That said the G4 is a brilliant phone. The only drawback is that it doesn't come with Qi charging as standard, but it is only a $5 sticker inside the back cover to add it.
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Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to reply.
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Review I wrote over on XDA after I had had the phone for a couple of weeks. Since then I have stuck a Qi sticker in it so I have wireless charging and after a 8 months the leather cover is now polished to a dark brown all the way round the edge.
Morning All,
Thought I would share my thoughts on the LG G4 after owning it for a month. I use the in a business environment where I will spend 2-4 hours per day talking on it, so my review will come from that perspective more that from a gaming perspective. It was t
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Thanks for that. I would have bought a Nexus 6P already if it had Qi capability. That was a huge loss from the previous generation.
Apart from the LG custom OS and updates issue, which in fairness doesn't seem that bad (compared to TouchWiz and HTC's crap), it seems like pretty much the perfect phone. If it hits the expected price it will be competitive with the Nexus 6P. Maybe they could even do a Play Edition.
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I think they are great. Good enough that after I owned one for a couple of months my wife bought the same one based on my experience.
You can get them for AU$500 which makes them one of the cheapest flagships.
Re: Why No Brown Title Bar? (Score:1)
Re: Why No Brown Title Bar? (Score:2)
question: do you feel they're worth the money? (Score:2)
I've got a smartphone...sure, it's great. But I can't honestly say that I feel I've gotten the upfront price plus the monthly fee's worth of utility/entertainment out of it.
What's everyone else's experiences with smartphones?
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I feel that I get my money's worth.... but then I actually understand that $100 is nothing today, A lot of people don't or tell them it's worth something in an attempt to delude themselves to think they make a good wage... where in reality they are making almost nothing.... yes unless you are a burger flipper or store shelf stocker, you should be making $25 an hour at least.
Re:question: do you feel they're worth the money? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I do buy a reasonable smartphone. $500 is very reasonable.
Problem is most people that do not think that is reasonable try to justify why they are being underpaid. $15 an hour is the minimum anyone should make with current cost of living with a 15% yearly increase to keep in pace with inflation
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Very good point! Wages have definitely been low, stayed low, and probably decreased relative to actual cost of living.
Re: question: do you feel they're worth the money? (Score:1)
Smartphones have kept me from boredom for innumerable hours and kept me employed by being connected at the right moments. Add to that saving me so much frustration and they are worth a lot. They don't cost any more than the price of buying a separate device to do all the same things.
Now, I don't find all high end smartphones to be enough better than their competitors to be worth the price difference. Even some low end smartphones are fantastic. We live in remarkable times.
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I've got a smartphone...sure, it's great. But I can't honestly say that I feel I've gotten the upfront price plus the monthly fee's worth of utility/entertainment out of it. What's everyone else's experiences with smartphones?
I feel there's great utility in having a smartphone, but that I don't really care which one. I used to have an iPhone 4, but the screen broke and all the other phones were growing so I decided to get a really cheap-ass Motorola Moto E (4.3" screen) as a holdover and it doesn't impress but it also hasn't disappointed me. I'm also not a heavier user than that I'm on the lowest data use tier anyway, so it doesn't get any cheaper with a dumbphone. That said, Android 6.0 seems to bring some nice improvements and
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In the online reviews of the Moto E when it came out over a year ago, it was a $150 phone. It's a hell of a deal now on the pay-as-you-go providers because the price has settled to $40.
Re:question: do you feel they're worth the money? (Score:4, Informative)
With root access, along with Linux Deploy and SSH/VNC client apps installed, I get my money's worth.
I buy retro phones with HW keyboards. They feel more like a very portable linux pc that way. In the linux chroot environment, I can run any linux usermode app I want, run any system daemon I want, and muck about with custom mounted filesystems. (even mounting image files on the sdcard into useful places that are visible from android.)
I bought my HTC Doubleshot second hand off ebay, and put a custom built cyanogenmod on it with some additional kernel modules (like binfmtmisc, zram, nfs, and pals) to make the chrooted linux more useful.
I have gotten my money's worth.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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What's everyone else's experiences with smartphones?
I can communicate by text anywhere and everywhere... I am expected to do so, too.
I can use the web anywhere and everywhere.
I no longer get lost outdoors. I still get lost in large shopping malls and other large indoor places.
I always have a decent compact camera with me.
Podcasts, music and ebooks are invaluable whenever I have to sit and wait somewhere.
(Of course, you can get all of these benefits by carrying a tablet, like an iPad Mini or a small Android tablet with you.)
Re:question: do you feel they're worth the money? (Score:5, Insightful)
I buy a top of the line iPhone every year and it gets used hard, for four years, by every member of my family. By the time four years are up and everyone has used it, it's largely obsolete in terms of performance due to operating system changes. At that point, I keep it around for another year mostly as a test platform for email connectivity on whatever the newest OS release it will run.
So far, the hardware has held up. Only the 3GS had a problem with the up/down volume rocker button cover falling off, every other one has been fine other than the decline in battery capacity.
As for value, that's highly dependent on your income and perception. I feel like I've gotten 4+ years of value out of it personally, but it's a minor expense relative to our income and about half of the cost is compensated by our employers, too. I work as a consultant, so it's my primary voice phone, supplies a good chunk of my internet access on the road, provides mapping and entertainment in the car, so I feel like I get a lot of overall value out of it.
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You've definitely gotten 4 years of value out of it if you've been able to use it to define peerage and hierarchy in your family. Little Jon, your youngest son, knows his place, and he'll probably turn out to be the nerd, since he always has to figure out ways around the aging problems in the fourth hand gadget.
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He's also 11, so he doesn't even use the phone part, just the iPod part, and only when we go on vacation or long car trips so by then the small loss of battery capacity and performance issues really aren't a problem.
The good part is that we've gotten four years out of a single handset.
But I suspected this would troll somebody into jealousy of some kind, given the usual round of Slashdot postings that come out when smartphones are discussed and people trot out how they use the cheapest handset they can find
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There are a lot cheaper and shittier phones than a Moto E that you can use on a pay-as-you-go plan. But the Moto E was only $40 and it's vastly better than the 3G and 4G iPod Touches that I own but no longer use. You should get your kid something that isn't crap that Apple has forced into obsolescence. Maybe even with a replaceable battery.
Jealous of Apple crap?
I have NetBSD installed on one of my SE/30's. It's a good use of Apple hardware.
A cheap pay-as-you-go plan would work fine. But you'll never kn
$125 phone got me a college degree (Score:2)
I typically spend about $125 to get a phone similar to what cost $600 a year prior, and I spend $25/month with Boost mobile.
Right now, I'm in the car, waiting 10 minutes while my wife runs into the store. Normally when I have to wait a few minutes, I spend the time studying on my phone. While I'm driving I listen to lectures I downloaded to my phone. Between listening while driving amd reading or writing while waiting, I get about an hour of school done per day, using time that would otherwise be wasted.
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I definitely do. Taking out of it the actual phoning component the always access to data where ever I go, the maps & navigation, the note taking, and access to useful apps as well as nice time eating games I would use it far more than say a PS4 which have the similar price upfront.
As for the monthly cost, it will depend on your usage patterns for voice and data as to whether that is important. Because of my job I average 5 hours of talk time a day so I see the monthly cost as funding that.
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What's everyone else's experiences with smartphones?
I have tried out a number of the low-medium end phones.
Right now I am using a Moto E, which is locked to Virgin Mobile.
It's a $40 at WalMart right now and 300h Voice and unmetered Data is $30 per month.
It's a nice little phone, IMHO. Previously I was using a Nokia 535 on Virgin Mobile. It's another $40 phone but it runs Windows 8 Phone.
Back when I wanted a mobile pocket computer but couldn't justify a monthly cell phone, I had an iPod Touch. It lasted a
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After a bad experience with a 2 year contract with a phone that was only really good enough for 1 year (Android 2 days)
I vowed never to pay for a contract that wasn't a monthly sim only plan.
Saved up for and purchased a Nexus 4, still using it.
Now that official support has ended I'm using CyanogenMod 13 (Android 6)
It works.
I use the thing endlessly, handy camera, social media, media player, tv, web browser.
It's literally my only computing device now.
Batteries a bit naff but at least with Android 6 it doesn'
Can I replace the radio? (Score:2)
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That shouldn't be the case any longer, if you look carefully. Certainly, my Nexus 6P is (allegedly) compatible with the standard carriers -- there's no carrier-specific version of the phone.
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The OnePlus Two is also compatible with all carriers. It's also half the price of most high-end smartphones.
Re:Can I replace the radio? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I'm really sick and tired of being forced to buy new phones every time I want to switch carriers.
Seems to be only a situation that exists in the USA. Here in Europe at most we just have to unlock the phone to work with all carriers assuming its locket at all, shove a new SIM card from the new provider in the phone and turn it on.
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Can we learn from it? (Score:2)
This is the main reason why US customers keep paying so much for their contracts and is so difficult to change carriers. The only carrier supporting the European (and actually most worldwide carrier models) is T-mobile. If you live in an area with a decent T-Mobile coverage, I'd suggest people to switch to them and vote with their SIM cards. Maybe other carriers would follow up.
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With the LTE phones that isn't the case anywhere I am aware of. Thre are many countries with incompatible 3G frequencies and standards, but that is a different issue.
great (Score:2)
yet another phone that requires a fucking degree in computer science to be able to make a call on!
</Luddite>
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You use your phone to make calls with? How quaint.
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You jest, but we should stop making calls. They are unencrypted and leak lots of metadata. At least upgrade to Signal or something.
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Why use any bleeping letter acronym at all? How hard is it to just say "2560x1440"? Clear, unambiguous, and doesn't require a google search to understand.
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Thats the answer, right there. Marketdroids are terrified that you might understand what you are buying. It is their worst nightmare, In fact, it makes you a terrorist!
Is the magic slot specs open? (Score:3)
Needs REAL system bus expansion (Score:2)
The phone ecosystem is in dire need of a REAL system bus expansion architecture.
Android especially is based on linux (while iOS is based on MacOSX, which is based partly on BSD), which has baked in support for mixed CPU types, exotic memory technologies, and other goodies. A proper system bus implementation could get all that footwork brought to work for the device in question.
Say for instance, another CPU, or added RAM, a different cellular modem (or satellite modem), an ethernet jack, perhaps even eSATA
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USB (including 3.0) is still a polled-state system, requring the CPU to constantly talk with the ports.
It's reasonably fast, and has a wide install base for devices, but not all devices lend themselves well to USB in a serious fashion. Specifically, you cannot really add RAM or a CPU over the USB bus, and things like USB serial ports are quirky beasts. Not to mention the penalties that the polled-state design of USB imposes if you want high speed disk drives attached.
Most SoCs already resemble a mini inter
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USB 3 is event driven and 2 and older were polled. USB 3 uses almost no CPU, you can pin a SSD drive at 90 MB/s on USB 3 and barely notice the CPU change. USB 2 would burn a third of the CPU at 30 MB/sec.
For whatever its faults, 3 isn't really that bad for the performance it delivers. I've used gig NICs and SSDs off USB 3 without performance not noticeably different than PCIe NICs or SATA SSD. The latter are really only better at the outer limits of performance, not ordinary desktop workloads.
3.1 will
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Sigh. Children around here.. you just need a SCSI slot, none of this new-fangled PCI stuff.
Anyway for tape backup ISA should suffice if you really need it onboard, or a DB-25 port to use a peripheral.
A metal phone... (Score:2)
I don't care much about metal, plastic is fine by me but since all flagships seem to going to metal it's nice that someone still gives you the posibility of changing the battery on your own.
Also the expansion slot is a nice tech.
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Out of curiousity, how many times have you replaced your battery in those four years?
I'm still on a Nexus 5, no removable battery, no battery life issues. I find myself confused by this constant demand for a replaceable battery.
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Makes a lot of sense to replace the battery on e.g. a 10-year-old phone. I'm talking non-smart phones here, they seem to last for a long time if not subject to theft or loss.
Smartphones are immature yet. No adequate software support, or perhaps you could use it long term as long as you don't log in to anything on the internet. 10 years support with weekly security updates would be acceptable.
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If you're investing in a phone for a decade, I can understand the need to simply replace the limited life parts.
I'm clearly a 1%er, I expect a new toy every couple of years (although I'm also picky, hence still being on the original Nexus 5).
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I'm not really buying phones for a decade (though the dumb phone might last quite long) but in the near future I think the useful lifetime of hardware will only increase. E.g. a 10-year-old desktop is now a Core 2 Duo beast with 2GB RAM and its performance is still current, if not for slight inconvenience such as software video decoding and booting time of more than 20 seconds. :) (ok, rather 2GB)
What when the low end smartphones have 64bit and 4GB RAM?
Asking for a 10-year OS on a smartphone is a bit of min
Still rocking my G3 (Score:2)
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A fellow LG G3er here. It's a nice phone, and the d855 has a stable Cyanogenmod release for it now. Removable battery, expandable SD card slot (I have a 128GB expansion!). Can't see myself switching away from it for a long time.
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I went from a G2 to a G4 and my wife from a G3 to a G4. From the G3 to G4 the primary reason to make the move is the quality of the camera. The G3s camera was never that crash hot and was beaten hands down by the Samsung S4. The G4s camera though is very good, especially in low light situations. Given I have two little ones and a wife that likes to chronicle every step of their lives in photo format the g4 camera was enough for her. But this happened after I had had mine for 6 weeks and she had played
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The G4 was too big for me. Even the G3 barely fits in my pocket but the G4 is even bigger. It's basically a phablet.
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There really is almost nothing between them when it comes to size. The G4 is 2mm wider and 2mm longer and 1mm thicker....
G3 146.3 x 74.6 x 8.9 mm
G4 148.9 x 76.1 x 9.8 mm
ExpressCard for Android? (Score:1)
We heard a lot of talk about phones that can be built up like LEGOs, and now this phone has one card slot of some kind. Maybe what we need is a standard (that 10% of the phones would adopt) for an expansion slot. The trick would be standard device drivers, as that would mean a major rewrite of Android, and only Google can do that.
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1. Of course the expansion slot would not be ExpressCard; It would be a different serial interface, possibly with a way to rapidly read and write to the SD Card or to the internal flash memory.
2. We already have a universal expansion slot: USB! The problem is that almost no phone manufacturer will build in a USB-A-Female connector and a decent power supply. (If only ZeroLemon would build such a thing into one of their cases, and provide a firmware update to make it useful.)
Updates (Score:2)
Top of the line hardware with bottom of the barrel firmware updates. Im betting you will be lucky to get 1 update for the two years they expect you to own this phone and zero updates after 2 years. Meanwhile your Google nexus phone has monthly updates for a good 4 years.
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Well the Lg G2 started on Jellybean and got both the Kitkat and Lollipop releases. Rumour is saying Marshmellow will roll once it has hit the g4.
Re: Updates (Score:1)
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Where abouts are you? I know it has hit Poland, South Korea and a few places in Europe. I also think they were rolling it out in Canada in Jan so perhaps that is yours. I don't currently have it in Australia.
Always One (Score:1)
"The aluminum unibody G5 brings with it a 5.3-inch QHD display with an Always One mode"
So I was confused as to what "Always One" was about, but apparently that's just a typo of Always-On. A better description is here [pocket-lint.com], where apparently the display can stay on using 0.8% battery/h due to not being tied to the primary processor.
Sounds neat, although I'd still like to see a phone that tries something like a hybrid e-paper display or something of the like
Letdown (Score:2)