I have a V20 and the reason I never upgraded was no swappable batteries.
for those whove never tried it, you should. you go from 5% to 100% in 1 minute. I carry no extra charging cable or charger, I slip an extra battery in my wallet and always have my screen brightness at 100%. never worried about battery draining.
at home the phone is never connected to any cable. I simply charge the other battery in the cradle
LG has massive issues with their phones imo. the g4 bootloop I went through. issues with the camera glass breaking on my v20 and aftermarket batteries dont work well as well.
unfortunately im getting a 2nd v20 to have because of the swapping batteries. huge plus for me.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why at least one phone manufacturer doesn't offer a decent phone with a removable battery. All the phone makers have decided that we want to throw away our phones after using them for 2 years, because the batteries no longer hold a decent charge.
For the love of God, give us a phone that is designed to survive a drop or two. Making phones with glass backs, no bezels for protection and curved edges where the screen is higher than the bezel is insane. It really bothers me that this review had no evaluation of how well the LG G8 will survive a drop, but it spends so much time talking about its 0.6 mm increase in the thickness, as if anyone cares. The LG V20 was the last decent phone that LG made because it had a removable battery and was designed to survive normal drops.
HTC, Motorola/Lenovo, LG and Sony are losing millions of dollars every quarter trying to sell phones, but none of them have figured out that maybe they should off something different, like a durable phone that is not based on planned obsolescence. The reviewers like Frumusanu would tell us how horrible it feels to hold a phone with a polycarbonate case, compared to a glass case, and how thick the bezels are, and how we simply can't live without IP68 rating, but those of us who care about the longevity and lasting value of our phones would buy it in droves.
I have gotten so disgusted with the planned obsolescence in the phone industry and the monetization of my data and the collection of my data to train AIs, that I have decided to crowdfund the Purism Librem 5. I am willing to accept a lousy processor (NXP i.MX 8M), low screen resolution (720p), and a low camera quality, just to get a phone that is designed to last 5 years, protects my personal data, respects my digital rights and allows me to unlock the bootloader and install any operating system that I want (PureOS, Linux+KDE Plasma Mobile, UBports, LineageOS or PostmarketOS).
Here is what a phone should have, but is is impossible to buy such a phone: 1. Removable battery 2. Plastic or metal case with thick enough bezels to protect the screen 3. MicroSD slot 4. 3.5 mm audio jack 5. Dual front facing speakers 6. Unlockable bootloader 7. Designed to be opened using a Phillips screwdriver, so it can be repaired, not pried apart using a heat gun, suction cups and plastic spudgers, and I shouldn't have to reglue the f*ing thing.
It should be a real pleasure to take that one up the financial backside. I hope LG includes some sort of lubricant with the higher end V50 since the price is likely in the $1K range given how they price out the supposedly more affordable G8. I did just buy an LG, but it was a refurb Rebel 3 from Tracfone for $10 - 5 inch screen, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, removable battery (oddly absent from anything high end), and if it lives the next couple of years, I'll have sunk a total of $345 into two years of mobile service plus the cost of the handset (300 for airtime, 10 for the phone, 35 for a case, screen protector, and possibly a fresh battery after a year). It's balls out stupid to pay anything more than that for a phone when you could be tossing that money into some sort of interest bearing investment or workplace-funded retirement account so it can compound for you over the coming years. Every little bit makes a considerable difference over a long time horizon.
Here in france, you can have unlimited voice/sms/rcs/mms & 60gigs of data (in 4g+/LTE) for just 9.99 bucks (or unlimited data for 15.99€ it depends). So when I look for google fi or other I just fell in apple so much that is expensive xD
Wow just not even a word on the 3.5mm jack (just a spec list nod) Huawei didn't include it you mentioned how bad it is and LG of all the OEMs only cared about the Audio Recording in HiFi and processing with ESS Quad DAC9218P. Because people mentioned against your findings on the G7 ?
Great.
Even YouTubers like MKBHD gave better credit overall. Especially the price point drop at later point of time.
I can't accurately measure high voltage outputs with my setup, and I don't have high impedance headphones to actually need it. With normal headphones the G8 sounds no different or better than say any recent phone with Qualcomm's Aqstic DACs.
You poor soul. Even on 5$ chi fi last year G7 with an average lossless file sounds miles ahead of any Qcomm dac. Sometimes it's easier to say: "there's no difference" than "I Know Jack shit bout music quality"
From the HeadFi and XDA and other sources, the Audio processing (3.5mm out and Recording) on the G8 / Any LG ESS phone, the audio is routed through the ESS only and the number of the DAC delta sigma filters (DAC pipelines) vary, Also when you plug in the high impedance headphones and the Preset/Filters and DTS X the DAC switch shines more and the AMP as well. For instance, Final Audio E5000. No smartphone in the world can drive it, except for the LG phones.
The post also mentions the VRms output being less (Which you mentioned in the G7 review), the reason being the LG tuning of the DAC at 2 Volts is quoted for the HiFi High Impedance gear past 80Ohms (Last of the 3 modes of LG phones) maybe LG Engg team decided not to drain battery on low impedance headsets since it does show that low output with the low impedance gear.
I guess all those people are delusional. I can clearly hear the difference of the bad US Note 8 Audio a.k.a the Aqstic vs my decade old iPod in the Car Audio system, with the IEMs the V30 decimates the iPod to oblivion of it's sheer clarity and solid Sub Bass. We never saw any mention of the 48KHz up-sampling/conversion on Anandtech, Android "by default" up samples it. So perhaps instead of the outright denial and bashing the phone's audio to oblivion perhaps a fair share of content would have been reasonable.
I never said it wouldn't drive high impedance. Quality might be great, but I don't even have such a unit.
> For instance, Final Audio E5000.
Why do you go from high-impedance headphones to 14Ω IEMs? That's exactly the opposite of what you claim the G8 is most optimised to drive. The output impedance based on some reports are just 0.5Ω different between the S10 and G8.
> From the HeadFi and XDA and other sources
The same XDA masterminds who post BS based on XML files they don't understand?
E5000 sensitivity is lower at 93dB at its impedance despite being low, that's the reason why any smartphone can't get them louder without a powerful AMP, making it hard to drive vs LG ESS which can drive it. May need to mod the ESS with Root to get it to AUX if the user isn't fine (Subjective, more below)
I didn't do the ESS Mode hacks on V30, the High Impedance Mode is useful for the High power required sets (HD6XX, which I have, works fair but those cans need more power like iFi BL, as they have 300Ohms) automatically unlike some people hear improvement with Low Impedance gear too. I left it at Factory levels, auto switch modes as per the IEM/Headset because I tried and it distorts with little volume increase (need to be careful) my 10Ohm Dunu Triple Driver Hybrids. But EVGA NU Audio card has the Master Volume adjustment which they mention if using the low impedance gear take care of that Volume knob as the HW output might destroy the headphone/IEM gear similar to how the ESS hacks do enable High Impedance Mode always.
I just mentioned 3.5mm out goes through ESS only because I thought your w and w/o DAC measurements might be interpreted by many as no effect.
Up sampling mentioned because many see the values/readings of 44.1 vs 48 differ some prefer having it same as the original sample rate, a few apps do that UAPP does it, Neutron also for Bitperfect mode.
Also just an FYI, the Nex has an AKM 437xA DAC SoC like ESS9218P in LG and many mention it has a good sound reproduction.
I think unless you have a good gear a.k.a transducers and a great audio files with high quality they won't notice the soundstage and clarity. Since transducers are primary in importance then a powerful AMP then a DAC processor.
You audio people are oddities to say the least. Most of us don't really care about what umoos and ah-ahs are driving our transmorgofiers in high-low-moosepedience headphones and we don't think that one thing "destroys" another thing in terms of sound quality in our car (which is filled with road noise) because we don't live in our vehicles. While it's perfectly fine that you care and you hear things that the rest of us just shrug about, most of us use a cheap pair of earbuds or headphones we spent less than $20 on, never do anything to our car's sound besides turning the radio on or off, and sometimes spend hours playing 128kbps mp3s on a phone's integrated speaker because who cares anyway. I suggest not worrying about it. Do your research, live deep in that fidelity world, and don't hassle the reviewers for skimming over stuff that is entirely unimportant for the vast majority of us that only care to the extent that we can hear the phone ring when we get a call.
Don't, I mean even assume you are speaking for majority of people. There is a gear that is both affordable and sounds rather good. From product that are in music lovers category to entry level audiophile one's. So you can buy a more than decent can's for 25~30$ (for example Superlux HD-668B over the ear or MEE M6 Pro first gen EMI's), hopefully the good DAC for 25~30$ soon or a DAP (DAC, BT) for 100$ right now, while pair of good car speakers (main bass/mids unit's + twitters) is around 140$. Problem with LG is that their implementation simply isn't really good to shine with budget lo impedance headphones.
Andrei, you might want to read this article (http://somegadgetguy.com/2017/11/30/how-android-po... I think Juan Bagnell, as well as many other reviewers are right, LG delivers the best wired headphone experience and that should be highlighted
You don't use headphones for the measurement that's actually very wrong approach. I assume nothing changed much nor did LG make it right as usual so it probably stayed the same. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php... While DAC is very capable for actually enjoying it with low impedance headphones as most people use it anyhow you need to look elsewhere, recommended goes for times being to Shanling M0 DAP for some 100$. We will see how things go with Meizu's new USB DAC dingle...
The G8's site describes a "night shot mode" at the bottom of the page, and I've read of it in other reviews. I couldn't find any mention of this mode in the llow light evaluation - was it not helpful?
LG makes some if the best phones on the market. The best phones for me on the market arr LGs. They meet my daily phone needs on the high-end basis. No other phone does that for me. All the comparing on stuff those other brands just don't work out for me.
Sure. Because you don’t have much to choose from at local stores if you live in the US. It’s hard to buy something when you can’t physically feel it. But if you dare to take a risk with one of those Chinese phones like Huawei, Meizu, Oppo or ZTE, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed because they’re much better in terms of performance and quality per dollar. They won’t rob you like LG, Samsung, Sony or Apple do.
I used to buy at least 2 “high end” phones per years just for myself. Glad I woke up. Now a $300 Chinese phone is just as good.
My first pocket computer was an HTC Evo 3D. The purple one, at that. I still miss the little guy.
It was distinct even at the time, and the asymmetrical design made it easy to tell which end was up when grabbing it. And the purple looked REALLY GOOD in person. ... I got zero usage out of the 3D screen. Neat idea, but being limited to a single model of dataslab meant that there was no software for it beyond the inbuilt camera. Even HTC didn't want to waste time on it.
Considering how well G7 actually works for me in real life - with all the observed shortcomings - I am pretty sure I'd find G8 equally good. Only if LG would make an effort of updating phones.
I can accept their reluctance to quickly release new OS... as someone said here before, better stable old OS than unstable, buggy new OS... but I cannot accept that my G7 still has only October 2018 security patch, and nothing after it. At least model for NZ/AU/HK/China market.
I went from a Note 5 to an S7 edge, to a G7. Overall I think the S7 edge was a nicer screen and the Note 5 had the best camera. I don't like the G7 camera at all, though otherwise I think the phone is completely fine. Next phone will probably be Samsung again, maybe a Pixel if Samsung hasn't gotten their low light figured out by then.
Haha. The display miles aheaf of my samsung s8 display. I went to the store to upgrade to an s10 but came out with a G8 instead. The s10 screen looks washed out compared to the g8.
Haha. The display is miles ahead of my samsung S8 display. I went to the store to upgrade to an S10 but walked out with a G8. The S10 screen looks washed out compared to the G8. I thought it was my eyes deceiving me but two reviewers on youtube confirmed same.
You could always change the display mode in settings, Natural mode helps best or simply use Vivid and change the white balance. I personally love screens with OLED, when calibrated right too, but I never disliked the display on my previous G device (I think the 6?) with its crisp, sharp display. Enjoy it Saxy!
Lol! You are out your damn mind if you think that display is pitiful. Even negative reviews on the G8 praise the display. Better yet go look at the different reviews comparing the Samsung S10E and S10.
How would I be out of my damn mind? The results are there, the display just isn't calibrated and isn't much of a step up from the G7. I suppose changing the display mode can remedy this, but of course for someone that isn't tech savvy, you would want the best out of your display, no?
I guess what I meant to say its pitiful for not being accurate towards the color gamut. But dating back to my first G device, the G2, the IPS display was great.
LG lost its imagination, we had very interesting phones from LG v10/20 G3/4/5/6, they had some problems but they had a "personality" and some good innovations, second screen, first with android 7.1, curved phone... Etc today they are just cheap ugly copies of Chinese phones, why copy the stupid useless notch while you had a more elegant and useful second screen?
Their implementation of "second screen" basically means they invented the notch. That's reason enough to damn them, even if they did far it better than Apple and the current crop of imitations.
Thanks for the review! Do you think the schedutil governor could be responsible for the performance in Work 2.0? (Assuming the G8 still uses schedutil)
One good thing about the recent LG V-series phones fro the US is that they support all T-Mobile bands. AFAIK only the Samsung S8 & S9 models do the same.
So - the text says this takes micro-SD, but it's not in the specs list under 'storage'.
Nokia's implementation is designed to reduce the overall thickness which, while being pointless, it achieves. The trade off is that multiple small sensors don't collect any more light than one big one.
I think where they have failed is in the software as camera to camera variations need to be overcome to properly combine the images and gain the benefit of the monochrome cameras.
If LG wants to differentiate itself, it can do two easy things: knock it off with the skins, and allow rooting. There aren't a whole lot of reasons to root anymore, but making Android Auto behave is one of them.
Dumping useless stock protrams that are out of date on day one and need an update anyway is another good reason to root. That Google search thing, Youtube, Chrome, two Photo viewers (Gallery and some Google Pictures thing), the books program, the doubled up music players, the movie software, all of that is useless crap that requires a lot of permissions. Nevermind the mandatory Facebook vendor value-add, like anyone older than 40 or younger than 20 even touches social media with a ten foot pole these days plus whatever other worthless stuff the phone company thinks I want. Rooting is nice to free up a chunk of memory so you can shuffle more useful apps into the system reserved area of NAND or roll old versions out and stuff current ones in so its a pity rooting is a rare thing. Though, I'd take a removable battery and an un-rootable phone 100% of the time over a sealed battery and rootability.
To me, this article points out something that I've always believed which is that benchmarks are useful but are nowhere near the whole story. So read them, but don't put an excessive amount of faith in them. They don't really tell you what the user experience is like.
Fail to see how the G7 battery is such a disappointment to anybody, well over a days use possible, even two days is easy if you use it moderately. Also as far as colour saturation goes with the G8 screen, isn't this adjustable in the settings, like the G7? Full adjustment of saturation and colour tone is easily changed to your own preference.
Looks like a highly defective copy of my Essential ph-1. Which, after, 2 years, is still state of the art. I wonder why those large corps cannot make a single decent unflawed phone for a change.
Looks like LG is using the same heat dissipation pipe on the G7 and G8. Average 18% more GPU peak performance, average 18% more GPU sustained performance in essentially the same body. Impressive IMO
Had a g4 with the classic bootloop. Company never admited the bad manufacturing (officially in Spain). OFC never buying nor recomending brands like that, they can crash asap imo
"Here the G8 is not only noticeable slower as the new Galaxy S10 in both SoC variants, but it’s also noticeably slower than many of last year’s Snapdragon 855 devices."
Why on earth do LG not simply permit disabling of the camera's over sharpening? My LG G6's images were so dreadful that I didn't bother taking any photos with it for 6 months, until Open Camera introduced the capability to switch off the LG G6's sharpening and noise reduction (Camera2 API). At which point I found I had a pretty good camera.
> What is most shocking however is the fact that the G8 feels slower than the G7. In side-by-side comparisons between the two phones, the G8 is slower in opening a lot of applications or in-app views. This is extremely disappointing and clearly points out that LG has messed up somewhere in terms of the SoC’s BSP integration.
Is it not explained by the G8 using eMMC storage when the G7 had UFS 2.1?
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liteon163 - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
More evidence to be used against LG when upgrading from my V30 when it breaks...MananDedhia - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
I currently use a V20 and feel exactly the same.rocketman122 - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
I have a V20 and the reason I never upgraded was no swappable batteries.for those whove never tried it, you should. you go from 5% to 100% in 1 minute. I carry no extra charging cable or charger, I slip an extra battery in my wallet and always have my screen brightness at 100%. never worried about battery draining.
at home the phone is never connected to any cable. I simply charge the other battery in the cradle
LG has massive issues with their phones imo. the g4 bootloop I went through. issues with the camera glass breaking on my v20 and aftermarket batteries dont work well as well.
unfortunately im getting a 2nd v20 to have because of the swapping batteries. huge plus for me.
amosbatto - Saturday, May 11, 2019 - link
For the life of me, I can't figure out why at least one phone manufacturer doesn't offer a decent phone with a removable battery. All the phone makers have decided that we want to throw away our phones after using them for 2 years, because the batteries no longer hold a decent charge.For the love of God, give us a phone that is designed to survive a drop or two. Making phones with glass backs, no bezels for protection and curved edges where the screen is higher than the bezel is insane. It really bothers me that this review had no evaluation of how well the LG G8 will survive a drop, but it spends so much time talking about its 0.6 mm increase in the thickness, as if anyone cares. The LG V20 was the last decent phone that LG made because it had a removable battery and was designed to survive normal drops.
HTC, Motorola/Lenovo, LG and Sony are losing millions of dollars every quarter trying to sell phones, but none of them have figured out that maybe they should off something different, like a durable phone that is not based on planned obsolescence. The reviewers like Frumusanu would tell us how horrible it feels to hold a phone with a polycarbonate case, compared to a glass case, and how thick the bezels are, and how we simply can't live without IP68 rating, but those of us who care about the longevity and lasting value of our phones would buy it in droves.
I have gotten so disgusted with the planned obsolescence in the phone industry and the monetization of my data and the collection of my data to train AIs, that I have decided to crowdfund the Purism Librem 5. I am willing to accept a lousy processor (NXP i.MX 8M), low screen resolution (720p), and a low camera quality, just to get a phone that is designed to last 5 years, protects my personal data, respects my digital rights and allows me to unlock the bootloader and install any operating system that I want (PureOS, Linux+KDE Plasma Mobile, UBports, LineageOS or PostmarketOS).
Here is what a phone should have, but is is impossible to buy such a phone:
1. Removable battery
2. Plastic or metal case with thick enough bezels to protect the screen
3. MicroSD slot
4. 3.5 mm audio jack
5. Dual front facing speakers
6. Unlockable bootloader
7. Designed to be opened using a Phillips screwdriver, so it can be repaired, not pried apart using a heat gun, suction cups and plastic spudgers, and I shouldn't have to reglue the f*ing thing.
jifarina - Tuesday, May 14, 2019 - link
Maybe add an IR blaster ;). I love my v20.Vitor - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
LG and its crazy colors...I would feel disappointed the day their displays are not a disappointement. It always deliveries the lulz.PeachNCream - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Non-flagship phone...Starting at $620...
It should be a real pleasure to take that one up the financial backside. I hope LG includes some sort of lubricant with the higher end V50 since the price is likely in the $1K range given how they price out the supposedly more affordable G8. I did just buy an LG, but it was a refurb Rebel 3 from Tracfone for $10 - 5 inch screen, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, removable battery (oddly absent from anything high end), and if it lives the next couple of years, I'll have sunk a total of $345 into two years of mobile service plus the cost of the handset (300 for airtime, 10 for the phone, 35 for a case, screen protector, and possibly a fresh battery after a year). It's balls out stupid to pay anything more than that for a phone when you could be tossing that money into some sort of interest bearing investment or workplace-funded retirement account so it can compound for you over the coming years. Every little bit makes a considerable difference over a long time horizon.
Bulat Ziganshin - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
poor americans. here in russia i have 100 Mbit landline, 400 min voice + unlim 4G on smartphone - all that for $5/monthNicko_ - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
Here in france, you can have unlimited voice/sms/rcs/mms & 60gigs of data (in 4g+/LTE) for just 9.99 bucks (or unlimited data for 15.99€ it depends). So when I look for google fi or other I just fell in apple so much that is expensive xDPeachNCream - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
Eh, there's nothing I can do to change the costs associated with living in the US.bobsta22 - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
and in Russia as in USA you will have unfettered access to monitored internet, censored heavily and laughable governments.The Russian 'NSA' is as bad as the USA one.
coburn_c - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
I thought I saw no earpiece in the reveal. Quite a bold move.Gunbuster - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Fun fact. Other names considered for the G8 ThinQ:G8 You'reWelcomeQ
G8 RIP LGQ
Quantumz0d - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Wow just not even a word on the 3.5mm jack (just a spec list nod) Huawei didn't include it you mentioned how bad it is and LG of all the OEMs only cared about the Audio Recording in HiFi and processing with ESS Quad DAC9218P. Because people mentioned against your findings on the G7 ?Great.
Even YouTubers like MKBHD gave better credit overall. Especially the price point drop at later point of time.
http://www.esstech.com/index.php/en/news/newsroom/...
Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
I can't accurately measure high voltage outputs with my setup, and I don't have high impedance headphones to actually need it. With normal headphones the G8 sounds no different or better than say any recent phone with Qualcomm's Aqstic DACs.Don Hrle - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
You poor soul. Even on 5$ chi fi last year G7 with an average lossless file sounds miles ahead of any Qcomm dac. Sometimes it's easier to say: "there's no difference" than "I Know Jack shit bout music quality"Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Sometimes it's easier to say "I know jack shit about audio measurements".G8 w/o QDAC: http://images.anandtech.com/doci/14166/G8-1KHz.png
G8 w/ QDAC: http://images.anandtech.com/doci/14166/G8-QDAC-1KH...
SD S10+ : http://images.anandtech.com/doci/14166/SnapdragonS...
You're right. I should have said the G8 sounds worse, albeit I didn't spend enough time on it.
Quantumz0d - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
From the HeadFi and XDA and other sources, the Audio processing (3.5mm out and Recording) on the G8 / Any LG ESS phone, the audio is routed through the ESS only and the number of the DAC delta sigma filters (DAC pipelines) vary, Also when you plug in the high impedance headphones and the Preset/Filters and DTS X the DAC switch shines more and the AMP as well. For instance, Final Audio E5000. No smartphone in the world can drive it, except for the LG phones.Okay, for your graphs here's another answer https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php...
Followed by this thread https://www.head-fi.org/threads/music-apps-tips-an...
The post also mentions the VRms output being less (Which you mentioned in the G7 review), the reason being the LG tuning of the DAC at 2 Volts is quoted for the HiFi High Impedance gear past 80Ohms (Last of the 3 modes of LG phones) maybe LG Engg team decided not to drain battery on low impedance headsets since it does show that low output with the low impedance gear.
I guess all those people are delusional. I can clearly hear the difference of the bad US Note 8 Audio a.k.a the Aqstic vs my decade old iPod in the Car Audio system, with the IEMs the V30 decimates the iPod to oblivion of it's sheer clarity and solid Sub Bass. We never saw any mention of the 48KHz up-sampling/conversion on Anandtech, Android "by default" up samples it. So perhaps instead of the outright denial and bashing the phone's audio to oblivion perhaps a fair share of content would have been reasonable.
Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
I never said it wouldn't drive high impedance. Quality might be great, but I don't even have such a unit.> For instance, Final Audio E5000.
Why do you go from high-impedance headphones to 14Ω IEMs? That's exactly the opposite of what you claim the G8 is most optimised to drive. The output impedance based on some reports are just 0.5Ω different between the S10 and G8.
> From the HeadFi and XDA and other sources
The same XDA masterminds who post BS based on XML files they don't understand?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/bbrpci/t...
> the audio is routed through the ESS only and the number of the DAC delta sigma filters (DAC pipelines)
As opposed to being routed to what else? Every flagship I'm aware of works with the ASoC converters.
> We never saw any mention of the 48KHz up-sampling/conversion on Anandtech, Android "by default" up samples it.
Both the S10 and G8 upsample to 192KHz and many devices before that as well, but, you're welcome to believe XDA forum people more.
Quantumz0d - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
E5000 sensitivity is lower at 93dB at its impedance despite being low, that's the reason why any smartphone can't get them louder without a powerful AMP, making it hard to drive vs LG ESS which can drive it. May need to mod the ESS with Root to get it to AUX if the user isn't fine (Subjective, more below)I didn't do the ESS Mode hacks on V30, the High Impedance Mode is useful for the High power required sets (HD6XX, which I have, works fair but those cans need more power like iFi BL, as they have 300Ohms) automatically unlike some people hear improvement with Low Impedance gear too. I left it at Factory levels, auto switch modes as per the IEM/Headset because I tried and it distorts with little volume increase (need to be careful) my 10Ohm Dunu Triple Driver Hybrids. But EVGA NU Audio card has the Master Volume adjustment which they mention if using the low impedance gear take care of that Volume knob as the HW output might destroy the headphone/IEM gear similar to how the ESS hacks do enable High Impedance Mode always.
I just mentioned 3.5mm out goes through ESS only because I thought your w and w/o DAC measurements might be interpreted by many as no effect.
Up sampling mentioned because many see the values/readings of 44.1 vs 48 differ some prefer having it same as the original sample rate, a few apps do that UAPP does it, Neutron also for Bitperfect mode.
Also just an FYI, the Nex has an AKM 437xA DAC SoC like ESS9218P in LG and many mention it has a good sound reproduction.
I think unless you have a good gear a.k.a transducers and a great audio files with high quality they won't notice the soundstage and clarity. Since transducers are primary in importance then a powerful AMP then a DAC processor.
PeachNCream - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
You audio people are oddities to say the least. Most of us don't really care about what umoos and ah-ahs are driving our transmorgofiers in high-low-moosepedience headphones and we don't think that one thing "destroys" another thing in terms of sound quality in our car (which is filled with road noise) because we don't live in our vehicles. While it's perfectly fine that you care and you hear things that the rest of us just shrug about, most of us use a cheap pair of earbuds or headphones we spent less than $20 on, never do anything to our car's sound besides turning the radio on or off, and sometimes spend hours playing 128kbps mp3s on a phone's integrated speaker because who cares anyway. I suggest not worrying about it. Do your research, live deep in that fidelity world, and don't hassle the reviewers for skimming over stuff that is entirely unimportant for the vast majority of us that only care to the extent that we can hear the phone ring when we get a call.ZolaIII - Sunday, May 5, 2019 - link
Don't, I mean even assume you are speaking for majority of people. There is a gear that is both affordable and sounds rather good. From product that are in music lovers category to entry level audiophile one's. So you can buy a more than decent can's for 25~30$ (for example Superlux HD-668B over the ear or MEE M6 Pro first gen EMI's), hopefully the good DAC for 25~30$ soon or a DAP (DAC, BT) for 100$ right now, while pair of good car speakers (main bass/mids unit's + twitters) is around 140$. Problem with LG is that their implementation simply isn't really good to shine with budget lo impedance headphones.joser0913 - Thursday, October 10, 2019 - link
Andrei, you might want to read this article (http://somegadgetguy.com/2017/11/30/how-android-po...I think Juan Bagnell, as well as many other reviewers are right, LG delivers the best wired headphone experience and that should be highlighted
ZolaIII - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
You don't use headphones for the measurement that's actually very wrong approach. I assume nothing changed much nor did LG make it right as usual so it probably stayed the same.https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php...
While DAC is very capable for actually enjoying it with low impedance headphones as most people use it anyhow you need to look elsewhere, recommended goes for times being to Shanling M0 DAP for some 100$. We will see how things go with Meizu's new USB DAC dingle...
dxcanas - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
The G8's site describes a "night shot mode" at the bottom of the page, and I've read of it in other reviews. I couldn't find any mention of this mode in the llow light evaluation - was it not helpful?https://www.lg.com/us/mobile-phones/g8-thinq/camer...
Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
There's no dedicated mode, it just automatically goes into a lower light mode. It's active in the sample shots.Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
As a correction, the mode is actually there as a dedicated mode buried in the "More" mode settings. It gives the same results as auto in low-light.dxcanas - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Cool, thanks for the update and correction!Peddy2299 - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
LG makes some if the best phones on the market. The best phones for me on the market arr LGs. They meet my daily phone needs on the high-end basis. No other phone does that for me. All the comparing on stuff those other brands just don't work out for me.sonny73n - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Sure. Because you don’t have much to choose from at local stores if you live in the US. It’s hard to buy something when you can’t physically feel it. But if you dare to take a risk with one of those Chinese phones like Huawei, Meizu, Oppo or ZTE, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed because they’re much better in terms of performance and quality per dollar. They won’t rob you like LG, Samsung, Sony or Apple do.I used to buy at least 2 “high end” phones per years just for myself. Glad I woke up. Now a $300 Chinese phone is just as good.
WildW - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
It looks the same as my G6. Maybe the screen and CPU are different but blah, it's a glass rectangle. I'm so bored of phones.Lord of the Bored - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
My first pocket computer was an HTC Evo 3D. The purple one, at that. I still miss the little guy.It was distinct even at the time, and the asymmetrical design made it easy to tell which end was up when grabbing it. And the purple looked REALLY GOOD in person.
...
I got zero usage out of the 3D screen. Neat idea, but being limited to a single model of dataslab meant that there was no software for it beyond the inbuilt camera. Even HTC didn't want to waste time on it.
nikon133 - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Considering how well G7 actually works for me in real life - with all the observed shortcomings - I am pretty sure I'd find G8 equally good. Only if LG would make an effort of updating phones.I can accept their reluctance to quickly release new OS... as someone said here before, better stable old OS than unstable, buggy new OS... but I cannot accept that my G7 still has only October 2018 security patch, and nothing after it. At least model for NZ/AU/HK/China market.
Wardrive86 - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Yeah I love my G7, amazing device. The lack of updates is surprising but not a big deal to me.andrewaggb - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
I went from a Note 5 to an S7 edge, to a G7. Overall I think the S7 edge was a nicer screen and the Note 5 had the best camera. I don't like the G7 camera at all, though otherwise I think the phone is completely fine. Next phone will probably be Samsung again, maybe a Pixel if Samsung hasn't gotten their low light figured out by then.zeeBomb - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
My goodness...that display is just pitiful.Saxyboy - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Haha. The display miles aheaf of my samsung s8 display. I went to the store to upgrade to an s10 but came out with a G8 instead. The s10 screen looks washed out compared to the g8.Saxyboy - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Haha. The display is miles ahead of my samsung S8 display. I went to the store to upgrade to an S10 but walked out with a G8. The S10 screen looks washed out compared to the G8. I thought it was my eyes deceiving me but two reviewers on youtube confirmed same.zeeBomb - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
You could always change the display mode in settings, Natural mode helps best or simply use Vivid and change the white balance. I personally love screens with OLED, when calibrated right too, but I never disliked the display on my previous G device (I think the 6?) with its crisp, sharp display. Enjoy it Saxy!cthunder67 - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Lol! You are out your damn mind if you think that display is pitiful. Even negative reviews on the G8 praise the display. Better yet go look at the different reviews comparing the Samsung S10E and S10.zeeBomb - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
How would I be out of my damn mind? The results are there, the display just isn't calibrated and isn't much of a step up from the G7. I suppose changing the display mode can remedy this, but of course for someone that isn't tech savvy, you would want the best out of your display, no?I guess what I meant to say its pitiful for not being accurate towards the color gamut. But dating back to my first G device, the G2, the IPS display was great.
Xex360 - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
LG lost its imagination, we had very interesting phones from LG v10/20 G3/4/5/6, they had some problems but they had a "personality" and some good innovations, second screen, first with android 7.1, curved phone... Etc today they are just cheap ugly copies of Chinese phones, why copy the stupid useless notch while you had a more elegant and useful second screen?Lord of the Bored - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Their implementation of "second screen" basically means they invented the notch. That's reason enough to damn them, even if they did far it better than Apple and the current crop of imitations.cthunder67 - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
So what has Samsung done to improve their design? It's the same curved display we have seen for the last few years.Wardrive86 - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Thanks for the review! Do you think the schedutil governor could be responsible for the performance in Work 2.0? (Assuming the G8 still uses schedutil)Arbie - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
One good thing about the recent LG V-series phones fro the US is that they support all T-Mobile bands. AFAIK only the Samsung S8 & S9 models do the same.So - the text says this takes micro-SD, but it's not in the specs list under 'storage'.
Lord of the Bored - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
"This is actually quite the competitive disadvantage for the G8, especially in the face of Samsung and Huawei’s newest triple-camera flagships."Why stop there? Compare everyone to Nokia's 5-camera spider-phone.
porcupineLTD - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
To be fair the Nokia implementation of multiple cameras is just plain retarded.BedfordTim - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Nokia's implementation is designed to reduce the overall thickness which, while being pointless, it achieves. The trade off is that multiple small sensors don't collect any more light than one big one.I think where they have failed is in the software as camera to camera variations need to be overcome to properly combine the images and gain the benefit of the monochrome cameras.
Lord of the Bored - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Well, I think the multi-camera trend is silly in general. Nokia's is just the silliest.hanselltc - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
my question is, what the actual heck happened to the s10 with exynos in that second last picture on page 6?hanselltc - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Wait what? G8 has a night view mode now? was it not available or did u just didn't find it out lolhanselltc - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
you just mentioned boombox and didn't test it or what?pjcamp - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
If LG wants to differentiate itself, it can do two easy things: knock it off with the skins, and allow rooting. There aren't a whole lot of reasons to root anymore, but making Android Auto behave is one of them.PeachNCream - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
Dumping useless stock protrams that are out of date on day one and need an update anyway is another good reason to root. That Google search thing, Youtube, Chrome, two Photo viewers (Gallery and some Google Pictures thing), the books program, the doubled up music players, the movie software, all of that is useless crap that requires a lot of permissions. Nevermind the mandatory Facebook vendor value-add, like anyone older than 40 or younger than 20 even touches social media with a ten foot pole these days plus whatever other worthless stuff the phone company thinks I want. Rooting is nice to free up a chunk of memory so you can shuffle more useful apps into the system reserved area of NAND or roll old versions out and stuff current ones in so its a pity rooting is a rare thing. Though, I'd take a removable battery and an un-rootable phone 100% of the time over a sealed battery and rootability.Ratman6161 - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
To me, this article points out something that I've always believed which is that benchmarks are useful but are nowhere near the whole story. So read them, but don't put an excessive amount of faith in them. They don't really tell you what the user experience is like.AdhesiveTeflon - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Great, are they going to have boot loop issues again where you get another refurb phone with the same boot loop issue?pcslide - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Can anyone tell me where were all those photos taken? I very much appreciate the scenery. Thx in advance.ukTechfiend - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
Fail to see how the G7 battery is such a disappointment to anybody, well over a days use possible, even two days is easy if you use it moderately. Also as far as colour saturation goes with the G8 screen, isn't this adjustable in the settings, like the G7? Full adjustment of saturation and colour tone is easily changed to your own preference.Andrei Frumusanu - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
It's not possible to get anywhere near better saturations with the manual controls.abufrejoval - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
That is a very nice looking Ford Granada GLX!I sure did not expect one of those still in the wild, especially since the spare parts deposit burned down in 1977.
Great review!
LG earns a lot of respect that they keep on sending units to AT.
klingon55 - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
The LG G6 had an OLED display. So this is not the first.Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
The G6 was an LCD...808Hilo - Thursday, May 2, 2019 - link
Looks like a highly defective copy of my Essential ph-1. Which, after, 2 years, is still state of the art. I wonder why those large corps cannot make a single decent unflawed phone for a change.Wardrive86 - Saturday, May 4, 2019 - link
Looks like LG is using the same heat dissipation pipe on the G7 and G8. Average 18% more GPU peak performance, average 18% more GPU sustained performance in essentially the same body. Impressive IMOdr_pingu - Sunday, May 5, 2019 - link
Had a g4 with the classic bootloop. Company never admited the bad manufacturing (officially in Spain). OFC never buying nor recomending brands like that, they can crash asap imovortmax2 - Tuesday, May 7, 2019 - link
"Here the G8 is not only noticeable slower as the new Galaxy S10 in both SoC variants, but it’s also noticeably slower than many of last year’s Snapdragon 855 devices."Think you meant '845 devices'.
KristenBrown - Wednesday, May 8, 2019 - link
Awesome review!Mark Dirac - Monday, May 13, 2019 - link
Why on earth do LG not simply permit disabling of the camera's over sharpening? My LG G6's images were so dreadful that I didn't bother taking any photos with it for 6 months, until Open Camera introduced the capability to switch off the LG G6's sharpening and noise reduction (Camera2 API). At which point I found I had a pretty good camera.yindesu - Sunday, September 11, 2022 - link
> What is most shocking however is the fact that the G8 feels slower than the G7. In side-by-side comparisons between the two phones, the G8 is slower in opening a lot of applications or in-app views. This is extremely disappointing and clearly points out that LG has messed up somewhere in terms of the SoC’s BSP integration.Is it not explained by the G8 using eMMC storage when the G7 had UFS 2.1?