LG G2 hands-on: First look

Introduction

It's been a well documented and, some might say, overly-teased affair but it has come to an end. The LG G2 flagship is upon us here in New York city and it brings a ton of innovation in one of the most compact over-5" bodies out there on the market.

The LG G2 comes with an almost bezel-less 5.2" FullHD display in a body not much bigger than the one on the Galaxy S4. It gets even more interesting when we get to the camera. It's a 13 MP unit and it offers optical image stabilization in order to minimize blur and allow higher shooting speeds under unfavorable light.

The LG G2 comes to tackle the competition, especially devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One with a larger screen, more potent chipset, superior camera (on paper), bigger battery, etc.

Take a look at what the LG G2 has to offer.

LG G2 at a glance

• General: Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, quad-band UMTS/HSPA, penta-band LTE support, LTE-Advanced
• Form factor: Touchscreen bar phone
• Dimensions: 138.5 x 70.9 x 8.9 mm, 143 g
• Display: 5.2" 16M-color 1080p (1920 x 1080 pixels) power efficient capacitive touchscreen IPS LCD with Gorilla Glass 3 and ~424 ppi and 450 nit brightness, extremely narrow bezels (2.65 mm)
• CPU: Quad-core 2.3 GHz Krait 400
• GPU: Adreno 330
• Chipset: Snapdragon 800 chipset
• RAM: 2GB
• OS: Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• Memory: 16/32GB storage, microSD card slot (region-specific availability of the slot)
• Cameras: Primary 13 MP auto-focus optically-stabilized camera, 8X digital zoom, face detection, HDR mode, panorama, geo-tagging; Full HD (1080p) video recording at 60fps, Secondary 2.1 MP front-facing camera with FullHD video capture
• Connectivity: Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, standard microUSB port with MHL and USB host, GPS receiver with A-GPS, GLONASS, 3.5mm audio jack, NFC, wireless screen sharing (Miracast protocol)
• Misc: Camera has sapphire glass cover, customizable system key (can assign different functions to back, home, menu buttons); tap twice on the screen to turn it on and off
• Battery capacity: 3,000mAh Li-Po unit (2,610mAh in some markets)

LG purposefully teased the LG G2 relentlessly over the past couple of weeks and it managed to build up the hype, leading to today's event but this move also obliterated any mystery that could have surrounded the just announced flagship.

   
LG G2 live photos

The Korean manufacturer went as far as to officially announce the LG Quick Window flip cover accessory prior to actually announcing the device itself.

It's clear that LG will be going for the crown with the LG G2. It waited enough so it can release it as an unmatched contender in regards to its size to power ratio and seems to have put a lot of effort into differentiating it. There are a lot of software tweaks to explore and we're very eager to check the camera on board the G2.

LG G2 hands-on

LG didn't do a particularly great job of keeping the G2 under wraps, so we already knew what the smartphone looks like. Still, we found a good portion of details that all those leaks have missed. For one, the smartphone is much lighter than we expected it to be. More importantly, the LG G2 turned out to be quite the looker, even though it's made entirely of plastic. Oh, and it's impressively thin.

The LG G2 design language is pretty much the same as what we already saw in the company's phablet flagship, the LG Optimus G Pro. There are a few notable improvements though - the G2 has an incredibly thin screen bezel and lacks any hardware buttons below the screen. This way LG G2 is probably the smartphone with one of the highest screen to body ratios, its IPS display occupying almost the entire front.

    
LG G2 live photos

LG G2 is built around a 5.2" True HD-IPS Plus display of 1080p resolution. According to the company this is the largest a smartphone can get, while still being manageable with one hand. We did try and verify their words and we found there's some truth to them. It's not the most comfortable experience but the G2 can certainly be operated with one hand. The innovative unlocking gesture helps a great deal, too.

As for the image quality - it's pretty much as good as on the LG Optimus G Pro,. Because of its smaller size, the display offers 424 pixel per inch ratio, so you everything is perfectly crisp (not that it was bad before). Colors are vibrant and punchy, while contrast and viewing angles are great. LG says the G2 display is a very energy efficient and offers 450 nits of brightness.

Since there is no Lock/Unlock key, LG came up with something we've already seen on some Nokia Asha phones and N9. A double tap on the screen will wake the phone up and another double tap on an empty space will put it back to sleep. In case you don't like operating this way, you can configure the QuickMemo key to act as a Lock/Unlock hardware key. We've seen the LG reps using it this way and it's really handy.

It's also worth mentioning that the middle key at the back also doubles as Power on/off key when you hold it down for a few seconds.

Finally, LG incorporated the so-called Guest Mode. When you unlock the screen with a specific pattern (G letter by default), you'll unlock the G2 into another account which you can configure to be used by guests, friends or kids. It's a very clever idea, indeed.

Besides the lively and huge IPS display, the G2 front panel accommodates the earpiece, the 2.1 MP secondary camera, capable of 1080p video capture and the proximity sensor.

 
LG G2 front

The right side of the LG G2 is completely bare, while the left one has the lonely micro-SIM bed.

   
LG G2 left and right sides

The top of the G2 houses the secondary mic and the infrared sensor, while the bottom has the primary microphone, the loudspeaker, the 3.5mm audio jack and the microUSB port. The G2's connectivity port supports USB on-the-go and USB host.

   
LG G2 top and bottom

The front and rear panels are separated by a very thin silver frame.

LG G2 hands-on (continued)

LG G2's back is where things get interesting. As you could expect the OIS-packing 13MP camera and the LED flash are here, but there's also a hardware key (or several).

The key consists a power key dead center, sided by two volume keys. The volume keys can be used to launch the QuickMemo feature or the camera shutter.

If that's not enough, the key in the center has a LED-lit rim that doubles as a notification LED.

LG made a big deal out of the key's location. According to them, it provides for a more secure grip of the phone, the location is really intuitive as it's exactly where the index finger usually rests and, finally, it's supposed to reduce the accidental drops, which are common when handling side buttons on big-screen smartphones.

And we are glad to report that it's not just PR talk - the location is really very convenient and it's really one of those cases when we though - how come no one thought of that earlier.

    
LG G2 back

LG will be offering the G2 in two colors and we had the pleasure of meeting both. The surface of the black flavor is really easy to smudge with fingerprints, which makes its looks quickly deteriorate. Even that aside, though, we still like the white version better.

Whatever the colors, both panels are nicely textured with a small dot pattern. What's quite unfortunate though, is this is the same pattern as on the Samsung Galaxy S4 back.

And while we are on the Galaxy S4 comparison topic, here is a quick size up with the Samsung's current flagship.

    
LG G2 sized up against the Samsung Galaxy S4

As you can see, the LG G2 is almost the same size as the Galaxy S4, despite its smaller screen. That's all thanks to the amazing job LG has done of minimizing the screen bezels.

LG will be also offering the cool QuickWindow flip covers, but unlike the Galaxy S4 S Cover, those will be wrapping around the back instead of replacing it. This is because the LG G2 uses unibody construction and you can't really remove the back cover.

    
LG G2 flip cover

As the name suggests, QuickWindow covers feature a small windows that the G2 nicely utilizes turning it in a "mini phone" within the bigger phone. You can make calls, use music player, read messages, check notifications, all without having to open the cover. LG has also pre-bundled lots of fancy clock skins.

   
LG G2 flip cover

Camera overview

LG G2 features a 13MP camera with optical image stabilization. The volume rocker is oddly placed below the camera and you'd expect the camera glass to be always smudged with fingerprints. LG's put some thoughts on that as well and has protected the lens glass with fingerprint coating. We'll have to see though how good this will turn out.

The G2 camera is capable of taking 1080p videos at 60 fps, which is a first for a smartphone. Sadly, there is no 60fps option for the 720p capturing. Dual video recording is available too, but we didn't find an option for HDR videos.

The still camera allows dual shots and HDR stills, you can choose between wide and 4:3 pictures, "cheese shutter" option is also present.

    
LG G2 camera UI

The camera/camcorder UI has been updated compared to previous generation LG smartphones, but it also relies on two columns of shortcuts on the left and right side of the screen. It's easy to use, with lots of options stuffed in the Advanced Settings menu.

LG G2 hands-on video

You can see the LG G2 in action, as well as its key features in the video below.

First impressions

The LG G2 is certainly going to be one of the hottest smartphones that we will see this year. It has the most potent chipset in business and an ample battery to keep it going for a long time. It has one of the best screens we have ever seen and at 5.2" it has more of it than its main rivals.

 
LG G2

We are sure the 13 MP OIS camera with the unprecedented 1080p@60fps video recording will give the Galaxy S4 and the HTC One a few sleepless nights. The G2 seemingly brings the best of both worlds, combining the high resolution with great low-light performance, and it leverages on its super powerful chipset to add extra smoothness to those FullHD videos.

  
Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4 • HTC One

The build quality of the LG G2 seems great too, although the glossy plastic wouldn't have been out first choice of material. It's way too prone to fingerprints, particularly the black version, meaning you have to spend quite a lot of time cleaning it if you are to maintain its looks. Still, the smartphone feels solid and even if it's not as premium as the HTC One, we doubt anyone would mind being seen with it.

From what our relatively brief first encounter shows, every self-respecting geek will do well to put the LG G2 on their shopping shortlist. We'll need to spend some more time with it, preferably in the comfort of our office, to be sure that it's the one that needs the nod, though.