Introduction
LG G7 ThinQ is the successor to the last year's G6. LG equipped this phone with many features, and what is it that makes the G7 a worthy successor to the G6, stay with us to find out.
Gorilla Glass back panel adds up to the protection and the looks of the device, but LG didn't place too much attention to its look. The G7 looks like a completely normal device slightly stuck in time, but with nice color options, especially the pink and blue. The phone also has the best water and dust resistance certificate meaning that it can withstand submerging up to 30 minutes under 1.5m of water.
Inside the factory box, next to the phone itself, LG included a fast charging adapter, Type-C cable, user manuals, branded headphones with replacement buds as well as a SIM tray tool.
Video review
Unboxing
Display
On its front panel, the G7 has a 6.1“ display built in IPS technology, and it has the resolution of 1440 x 3120 pixels. This odd resolution is the result of strange aspect ratio, which is 19.5:9, while on top of the display there is a notch that can be removed through software.
This display uses a power saving display, and it can reproduce very bright content. Technology that LG calls Super Bright display in practice performed amazingly. Brightness of the display is excellent, and using the booster it can go up to whopping 1000 nits for 3 minutes, which is amazing for a smartphone.
Hardware and OS
Previous LG devices usually didn't have the latest chipsets found on the market, but this year things change, so the G7 has the Snapdragon 845 that has a built-in AI chip. There are two versions of this device depending on the memory configuration – 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.
When it comes to performances of the device, we don't have much to talk about. This chipset is the very best the market has to offer, and all tasks are finished instantaneously, while gaming is smooth with a high and constant number of FPS.
Something that's unique on this device is the dedicated Google Assistant button located below volume rockers. If you like to talk to your phone and ask it questions, than you'll find this to be an amazing feature.
Another excellent feature is the speaker. If you like to play music through the phone, the Boombox audio system sends vibrations from the chassis and through the surface the phone is on enhancing the volume and the quality of sound. It is, however, slightly uncomfortable to hold the phone in hand exactly due to the vibrations.
LG already promised Android 9.0 Pie to come to this phone that currently runs on 8.0 Oreo build, upon which there is the LG user interface that lets you customize the themes, icons etc.
Camera
Have you wondered why ThinQ? This marks the AI capabilities of the cameras. To be more accurate, the phone recognizes scenes that you take pictures of and automatically adjusts image parameters. On the back of the device there are two cameras, both have 16 megapixel resolutions, the first one has optical image stabilization while the second has a wide-angle lens that works perfectly for group photos.
Day-light photos look very good, but not as good as on some other flagships. Details are well captured, and quite soft HDR does a good job, but colors can look a bit too artificial and smeared. Night-time photos aren’t particularly good, but inside the camera settings there is an option to turn on the Super Bright mode that essentially merges four pixels into one letting a lot more light in making the photo much brighter but at the cost of a huge loss of details.
In the video mode, the phone is capable of recording 4K videos at 60 FPS. Videos look excellent in all resolutions with plenty of details and good colors, and there is the HDR video mode that will even further enhance the colors. 4K videos taken at 60 FPS can also be optically stabilized, while you can use both optical and electronic image stabilization only in FullHD videos.
When it comes to the front facing camera, it is an 8 megapixel sensor that captures quite decent photos. There is also the portrait mode for this camera, that only does an average job separating the object from the background, but it’s good enough for social media purposes.
Connectivity
Some versions of this phone have a Hybrid slot that can store a NanoSIM and a microSD card, while other versions store only a NanoSIM card with a dedicated microSD card slot. Headphones included in the box have very nice build quality and they sound great. Inside the phone interface there are also options to improve sound quality. At the bottom of the device there is a Type-C port that serves for charging and data transfer.
Supported wireless comms:
- Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band with Wi-Fi Direct, DLNA and hotspot support
- Bluetooth v5.0 with A2DP, LE and aptX HD support
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS and BDS
- NFC
- USB On-The-Go
Supported network bands:
- 2G GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz
- 3G WCDMA: 850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz
- 4G LTE: 700, 800, 850, 900, 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2600 MHz
Battery
The G7 has a somewhat smaller battery compared to the last year’s G6. This phone is powered by a 3000 mAh battery that supports Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 technology. In only a half an hour, this phone is capable of charging up to 38%, while a full charge takes around 1 hour and 45 minutes. There is also a copper coil on the battery that enables wireless charging, but this will take a few hours.
Speaking of the battery, we can say that it’s quite good. It is well capable of lasting the whole day with about 5 and half hours of Screen-On time. There is always an option to reduce the resolution of the display and the brightness in order to even further increase the battery life.
It is worth to mention that the battery is built in Qnovo technology that guarantees that it will not lose its quality even after a year of use.
Final words
The G7 ThinQ is a device that can compare to other flagships in multiple regards, but not in the field of camera because the photos are just not on par with the competitors. However, LG gave a lot of attention to sound reproduction both through the speakers and headphones, great display and very good performances. LG also didn’t go too high when it comes to the price, which is why we can say that this phone is really worth its price.
LG G7 ThinQ Full Specifications
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