It's been 5 years since their last flagship that did not perform poorly in terms of sales. This does not change anything, unless they make an extra effort on price but even that is a bit late as the China guys expand.
This is a consumer smartphone, which is not banned. 5G carrier grade equipment was considered for a ban. And was not banned as universally as you seem to think.
The LG G2 was pretty great at the time (I had one and loved it). 5.2" screen in a small foot print, great camera. good performance, everything to love. Then they started to fumble it. Bad SoCs, bad cameras, too much innovation for little gain. The LG G line has become a sort of budget flagship to look out for. After a few months, you could get a flagship SoC smartphone with decent specs for a more affordable price. With the drawbacks of the design. The V line was slightly more successful I think. The G8 doesn't look too bad. If the price becomes reasonable (I'm not spending more than 300 to 400€), then I'll take a look. :)
Wow. Just... wow. That is also a comparison between a device that still costs 1000€ and one that costs 360€. I would hope a smartphone that costs nearly 3 times as much is significantly better in all areas.
My G5 is fine for me. It has all the features I want in a smartphone that newer ones just don't have Plus there are all kinds of repair parts available to fix it if it breaks. In fact the one I use now is a 'Frankenstein' phone put together from parts gleaned from multiple models of LG G5 phones.
Region differentiation again? LG, pick a swear word, I went from being a staunch supporter to avoid every single one of your products due to selling region different devices where you cut out features while still having the same price, not updating software and ridiculous launch pricing and/or selection vs price.
Just leave the handset business if you continue with nonsense like region differentiation, cellular is not for you.
The only reason Samsung does it is due to bands difference in US.
I still don't see the point of such hi-res screens. My old phone's 5.2" 1080p display was more than enough. Anything higher is just wasting battery power pushing all those extra pixels.
tl;dr: Your phone is actually pushing the same number of subpixel elements per inch as the 6.1" screen above, and more elements (per inch) than the 6.4".
If it's an OLED panel with an RGBG PenTile subpixel matrix, then it actually isn't that high a resolution. In RGBG, they try to pretend an RG cluster and a BG cluster are both pixels, which doesn't really add up. When displaying red, blue, and magenta patterns, you basically have half the amount of pixels per area.
To make an RGBG screen with as good red/blue/magenta quality as an RGB stripe LCD panel, you need roughly a resolution of about 2715x1527.
To go from 5.2" to 6.1", you'd need about 20% more, or 2941x1654.
If you allowed less magenta since you have more detail in the green subpixels anyway, you could get the same amount of actual data as a 1080p RGB screen with 2352x1323 in RGBG. More green, less red and blue, but overall the same amount of data. Again, correcting from 5.2" to this phone's 6.1", it would need 2547x1433 (or the 6.4" would need 2609x1467). The phones are 3120x1440, a little longer than a 16:9 equivalent of 2560x1440, so these screens basically have as much or less resolution than your old 1080p panel.
Thanks for the info, but I guess what really matters is how it appears to software. If the UI and apps are rendering to it at the advertised resolution, then that's exactly the unnecessary work I'm talking about.
And when I said "1080p was more than enough", I meant exactly that. I don't know how many PPI I need, but I'm not sure it's that much. Maybe I'd be completely happy with 1080p on a 6.1" screen.
Also, this is literally the same things people have been saying for over seven years. When the Nexus Prime came out in 2011, some people were discussing it in the comments below the article (as we are now!) and said something like the following:
1: "It would be pretty neat if [the Nexus Prime's screen] is a 1280x720 panel." 2: "It also would be ridiculous overkill. 960x540 is insane enough."
Eh, except it's true. I went from a 5.2" 2560x1440 phone to a 5" 1280x720. I don't want huge phones, and I do want long battery life (that move also involved an increase in battery size!)
Because it is beautiful! Anyway with LGs UI you can set this screen to (3120x1440), (2340x1080) or (1560x720). Also i dont get the battery life complaints, my G7 ThinQ gets significantly better battery life than my Snapdragon 625 device with the same size battery, smaller screen, smaller resolution and that thing is a battery king. For example Dolphin Emu at 720p: 4.5 -5 hours or Driving 1 hour streaming Youtube music through earbuds with quad DAC setting and screen on 10-20% i go down to about 97% battery (morning commute) incredible IMO. The SD625 would be down to 80% and couldnt even touch Dolphin.
I also now have the G7 and I like it. I'd hardly call myself a demanding smartphone user, but it seems like a good phone. Responsive and pretty decent battery life (for me).
For what I paid, it was a good deal for a Snapdragon 845-based phone.
Last year the Samsung S8/S9 and the LG V30 were AFAIK the only phones with LTE Band 71, which is becoming important for T-Mobile. I hope LG hasn't dropped that. Good that they kept the 3.5mm jack, but they've apparently dropped microSD which I also want and will pay more to get.
If only they'd go with Android One, I'd be very much interested in G8.
That from G7 user at the moment (my work phone). I am actually quite happy with it, and even battery holds well to my usage scenario. But I'm finding it that, while Pie update has been released for Korea, still no accurate release date for rest of the world - outside of Q1 release planned (but not guaranteed).
In my personal experience with an LG V series phone (LG V20 unlocked), the problem with LG's phones wasn't so much the hardware, but the software. In addition to useless or annoying LG bloatware, LG was really slow with important updates, often an entire Android generation behind the competition. The biggest disappointment for me however was the camera software, which failed to take advantage of some key features supported by the set's hardware; an example is the still missing support of h265 video recording, something the Snapdragon SoC of the V20 supports. Long in short: @ Andrei, please give the software that comes with these phones a good hard look; LG's ability to execute on the software side is, in my experience, often worse than their ability to build good hardware.
LG can do revisions of hardware much faster than software, confirmed. My V35 is much less than a year old (it first shipped on 6/8/2018). It has security updates for November, and Android 9 is nowhere is sight.
Meanwhile, they shipped the V40, and now announced the V50. I love my phone, but man, the software situation is pretty horrible.
Yes, although I don't think is that they can't do software revisions faster, it's that they choose not to. That lack or absence of after-sale customer care has really turned me off from buying LG, and not just their phones. For example, they make quite nice OLED TVs, but I hesitated to go with an LG, as any 4K TV also lives and dies by its software and software updates. So, this attitude has cost LG sales beyond phones already.
Because everyone else is doing it. Phone manufactures ran out of innovative ideas about 5 or 6 years ago and just copy anything the iPhone or Galaxy lines do. If a Galaxy and iPhone had a baby their offspring would look exactly like this phone.
This will sell just OK The question is the price. It wont sell well above 600$ mark, but around 600$ is very competitive. Unless it will cost 600$, people will just buy older pixels and OP6. Camera setup is weird. Selfie cam is occasional shot or two, tolerable for normal human. Back cam is subpar. I have NO issues with 1.5 aperture, but there are issues with 1.4 pixels. It is NOT good enough in 2019, where we have 150$ Redmi note 7 with 1.6 pixels. I could lick LG balls if they used GOOD sensor for ONCE like imx350 with 1.55 pixels, but hell no, its LG. Which is why, these phones are merely level 2017 tech with 2019 processor. It DEFINITELY wont fly at higher them 700$. Same with Sony.
One of the biggest gripes with LG is that they bootloader lock their phones. Many folks find that a plus, but I personally work with alternate roms and such with my andropid phones. Bootloader locking makes that and rooting impossible. As any truly good backup requires root access to get application data for archiving and restore, being unable to root (and unroot) my phone is a showstopper for me. As I said not everybody does horrible things to their phones like I do and this security measure may be a plus to them. To me it isn't.
Yet again, AnandTech, no proof reader :( "The V50 offers the same camera setup as the new V50 so the phone certainly isn’t lacking in that regard. " Umm.... yeah!
"The new LG G8 ThinQ is the follow-up to last year’s G7 – straight out the door what is the most significant feature of the new phone is that LG has for the first time employed an OLED display instead of a more traditional LCD. "
The LGG6 had a OLED display, so this is not the first time. However I would rather not have OLED due to burnin issues.
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jjj - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
It's been 5 years since their last flagship that did not perform poorly in terms of sales. This does not change anything, unless they make an extra effort on price but even that is a bit late as the China guys expand.sonny73n - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
Well unless LG, Samsung and the likes can get China on their price fixing scheme, their sales will keep declining.Shlong - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
Since Huawei is banned in the U.S. and almost all of Europe, Samsung should be ok.igavus - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
This is a consumer smartphone, which is not banned. 5G carrier grade equipment was considered for a ban. And was not banned as universally as you seem to think.Death666Angel - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
The LG G2 was pretty great at the time (I had one and loved it). 5.2" screen in a small foot print, great camera. good performance, everything to love. Then they started to fumble it. Bad SoCs, bad cameras, too much innovation for little gain. The LG G line has become a sort of budget flagship to look out for. After a few months, you could get a flagship SoC smartphone with decent specs for a more affordable price. With the drawbacks of the design. The V line was slightly more successful I think. The G8 doesn't look too bad. If the price becomes reasonable (I'm not spending more than 300 to 400€), then I'll take a look. :)Netmsm - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
When I hear LG, in smartphone area, just the incredible bad failures of G3, G4 and V10 come to my mind.III-V - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
I loved my G4... up until it bricked itself one day.reuthermonkey1 - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
You forgot the Nexus 4, 5, and 5X...That said, I'm very happy with my V30...
eek2121 - Sunday, March 24, 2019 - link
My v30 is great, but it pales in comparison the iPhone XS Max. I have both. The iPhone has a better camera along with better audio quality (stereo).Death666Angel - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link
Wow. Just... wow. That is also a comparison between a device that still costs 1000€ and one that costs 360€. I would hope a smartphone that costs nearly 3 times as much is significantly better in all areas.cyberguyz - Friday, March 1, 2019 - link
My G5 is fine for me. It has all the features I want in a smartphone that newer ones just don't have Plus there are all kinds of repair parts available to fix it if it breaks. In fact the one I use now is a 'Frankenstein' phone put together from parts gleaned from multiple models of LG G5 phones.coburn_c - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
Watching the event and looking at the new IR depth sensing camera arrangement (two cameras and an IR emitter on the front) -- where is the earpiece?coburn_c - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
Never mind I see it now, waaaay over to the right.coburn_c - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
I also enjoy that their one use case for the second screen is a game controller. Why not just make a controller attachment?RSAUser - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
Region differentiation again? LG, pick a swear word, I went from being a staunch supporter to avoid every single one of your products due to selling region different devices where you cut out features while still having the same price, not updating software and ridiculous launch pricing and/or selection vs price.Just leave the handset business if you continue with nonsense like region differentiation, cellular is not for you.
The only reason Samsung does it is due to bands difference in US.
GlossGhost - Sunday, March 17, 2019 - link
Their relationship with Qualcomm could also be a slight factor.
mode_13h - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
I still don't see the point of such hi-res screens. My old phone's 5.2" 1080p display was more than enough. Anything higher is just wasting battery power pushing all those extra pixels.mkozakewich - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
tl;dr: Your phone is actually pushing the same number of subpixel elements per inch as the 6.1" screen above, and more elements (per inch) than the 6.4".If it's an OLED panel with an RGBG PenTile subpixel matrix, then it actually isn't that high a resolution. In RGBG, they try to pretend an RG cluster and a BG cluster are both pixels, which doesn't really add up. When displaying red, blue, and magenta patterns, you basically have half the amount of pixels per area.
To make an RGBG screen with as good red/blue/magenta quality as an RGB stripe LCD panel, you need roughly a resolution of about 2715x1527.
To go from 5.2" to 6.1", you'd need about 20% more, or 2941x1654.
If you allowed less magenta since you have more detail in the green subpixels anyway, you could get the same amount of actual data as a 1080p RGB screen with 2352x1323 in RGBG. More green, less red and blue, but overall the same amount of data. Again, correcting from 5.2" to this phone's 6.1", it would need 2547x1433 (or the 6.4" would need 2609x1467). The phones are 3120x1440, a little longer than a 16:9 equivalent of 2560x1440, so these screens basically have as much or less resolution than your old 1080p panel.
mode_13h - Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - link
Thanks for the info, but I guess what really matters is how it appears to software. If the UI and apps are rendering to it at the advertised resolution, then that's exactly the unnecessary work I'm talking about.And when I said "1080p was more than enough", I meant exactly that. I don't know how many PPI I need, but I'm not sure it's that much. Maybe I'd be completely happy with 1080p on a 6.1" screen.
mkozakewich - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
Also, this is literally the same things people have been saying for over seven years. When the Nexus Prime came out in 2011, some people were discussing it in the comments below the article (as we are now!) and said something like the following:1: "It would be pretty neat if [the Nexus Prime's screen] is a 1280x720 panel."
2: "It also would be ridiculous overkill. 960x540 is insane enough."
Death666Angel - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
Nexus Prime? You are old-school, man. I guess you mean the Galaxy Nexus? :Dpiroroadkill - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
Eh, except it's true. I went from a 5.2" 2560x1440 phone to a 5" 1280x720. I don't want huge phones, and I do want long battery life (that move also involved an increase in battery size!)Wardrive86 - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
Because it is beautiful! Anyway with LGs UI you can set this screen to (3120x1440), (2340x1080) or (1560x720). Also i dont get the battery life complaints, my G7 ThinQ gets significantly better battery life than my Snapdragon 625 device with the same size battery, smaller screen, smaller resolution and that thing is a battery king. For example Dolphin Emu at 720p: 4.5 -5 hours or Driving 1 hour streaming Youtube music through earbuds with quad DAC setting and screen on 10-20% i go down to about 97% battery (morning commute) incredible IMO. The SD625 would be down to 80% and couldnt even touch Dolphin.Wardrive86 - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
And thats Dolphin at about 55% screen brightnessRSAUser - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
You're comparing a budget device with an old SoC to a flagship. The LG device is rightly compared to other flagships where it performs dismally.Wardrive86 - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
Im comparing 2 $400 devices newmode_13h - Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - link
I also now have the G7 and I like it. I'd hardly call myself a demanding smartphone user, but it seems like a good phone. Responsive and pretty decent battery life (for me).For what I paid, it was a good deal for a Snapdragon 845-based phone.
Arbie - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
Last year the Samsung S8/S9 and the LG V30 were AFAIK the only phones with LTE Band 71, which is becoming important for T-Mobile. I hope LG hasn't dropped that. Good that they kept the 3.5mm jack, but they've apparently dropped microSD which I also want and will pay more to get.verl - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
GSMArena reports that both phones have a microSD slot includedwarpsharp - Thursday, February 28, 2019 - link
Pixel 3 also supports band 71.nikon133 - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
If only they'd go with Android One, I'd be very much interested in G8.That from G7 user at the moment (my work phone). I am actually quite happy with it, and even battery holds well to my usage scenario. But I'm finding it that, while Pie update has been released for Korea, still no accurate release date for rest of the world - outside of Q1 release planned (but not guaranteed).
eastcoast_pete - Sunday, February 24, 2019 - link
In my personal experience with an LG V series phone (LG V20 unlocked), the problem with LG's phones wasn't so much the hardware, but the software. In addition to useless or annoying LG bloatware, LG was really slow with important updates, often an entire Android generation behind the competition. The biggest disappointment for me however was the camera software, which failed to take advantage of some key features supported by the set's hardware; an example is the still missing support of h265 video recording, something the Snapdragon SoC of the V20 supports. Long in short: @ Andrei, please give the software that comes with these phones a good hard look; LG's ability to execute on the software side is, in my experience, often worse than their ability to build good hardware.hirschma - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
LG can do revisions of hardware much faster than software, confirmed. My V35 is much less than a year old (it first shipped on 6/8/2018). It has security updates for November, and Android 9 is nowhere is sight.Meanwhile, they shipped the V40, and now announced the V50. I love my phone, but man, the software situation is pretty horrible.
eastcoast_pete - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
Yes, although I don't think is that they can't do software revisions faster, it's that they choose not to. That lack or absence of after-sale customer care has really turned me off from buying LG, and not just their phones. For example, they make quite nice OLED TVs, but I hesitated to go with an LG, as any 4K TV also lives and dies by its software and software updates. So, this attitude has cost LG sales beyond phones already.dishayu - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
Any word on what DAC these devices are using? LG has been the leader on audio-implementation in the past few generations.Xex360 - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
Why they ruined their phones again with the ugly stupid useless notch, the V30 was very beautiful, why they chose this non design.mooninite - Monday, February 25, 2019 - link
Because everyone else is doing it. Phone manufactures ran out of innovative ideas about 5 or 6 years ago and just copy anything the iPhone or Galaxy lines do. If a Galaxy and iPhone had a baby their offspring would look exactly like this phone.At least the Samsung foldable is something new...
Sliderpro93 - Tuesday, February 26, 2019 - link
This will sell just OKThe question is the price. It wont sell well above 600$ mark, but around 600$ is very competitive. Unless it will cost 600$, people will just buy older pixels and OP6.
Camera setup is weird. Selfie cam is occasional shot or two, tolerable for normal human. Back cam is subpar. I have NO issues with 1.5 aperture, but there are issues with 1.4 pixels. It is NOT good enough in 2019, where we have 150$ Redmi note 7 with 1.6 pixels. I could lick LG balls if they used GOOD sensor for ONCE like imx350 with 1.55 pixels, but hell no, its LG.
Which is why, these phones are merely level 2017 tech with 2019 processor. It DEFINITELY wont fly at higher them 700$. Same with Sony.
cyberguyz - Friday, March 1, 2019 - link
One of the biggest gripes with LG is that they bootloader lock their phones. Many folks find that a plus, but I personally work with alternate roms and such with my andropid phones. Bootloader locking makes that and rooting impossible. As any truly good backup requires root access to get application data for archiving and restore, being unable to root (and unroot) my phone is a showstopper for me. As I said not everybody does horrible things to their phones like I do and this security measure may be a plus to them. To me it isn't.Aries1470 - Tuesday, March 5, 2019 - link
Yet again, AnandTech, no proof reader :("The V50 offers the same camera setup as the new V50 so the phone certainly isn’t lacking in that regard. "
Umm.... yeah!
klingon55 - Thursday, March 7, 2019 - link
"The new LG G8 ThinQ is the follow-up to last year’s G7 – straight out the door what is the most significant feature of the new phone is that LG has for the first time employed an OLED display instead of a more traditional LCD. "The LGG6 had a OLED display, so this is not the first time. However I would rather not have OLED due to burnin issues.
repatch - Thursday, March 14, 2019 - link
No. The G6 has an LCD screen:https://www.gsmarena.com/lg_g6-8466.php