B0791WXJCC

I waited until I used the G6 for nearly two months before writing this review. I wanted to see how it held up. The G6 is one of those rare phones that hit when a maker looks back at their pervious phones, picks the best parts, and just goes with it.

PROS
Nice Screen, Awesome Camera, Water Resistant, Solid Build, Good Performance, Wireless Charging, Headphone Jack

CONS
Terrible Launcher, Too Many Junk Apps, Average Battery Life, 32GB of Storage, Mono Color Flash

As it stands now, the 18×9 screen looks nice, but it’s more of a gimmick than anything else. Very few little content / apps are available in a 18×9 format. The LCD screen gets the job done and looks nice, but I can’t help but wonder what this phone would look like with an AMOLED. You’ll ask that question at night, if you are using always on display. You’ll notice some light bleed that is very hard to avoid with an LCD screen.

The camera on the G6 is one of the best you are going to find on a smartphone in 2017. Not only is the quality top notch, but it’s usable. A lot of dual lens phones use both for bokah or image enhancement. LG has proven that you do not need two lenses for that. Instead they deliver the stellar wide angle lens to supplement the standard lens. It makes for a powerful duo and leaves me wishing that others would adopt a similar format.

The G6 feels good in your hand. It feels much more solid than the G5 did, thanks to its solid, one piece construction. The design meant going away from the removable battery, which is a big drawback for some, but it also allowed them to make the phone water resistant. I’ll take that any day over a removable battery, especially now that cheap, compact battery packs are so readily available.

The wireless charging is a feature I love, but there is an oddity here. You only get that in the US version. In fact there are a couple versions of the G6 out there depending on where you live. For the price, it would have been nice to merge all the features together and only offer one model. Instead you are stuck deciding if you want more internal storage, wireless charging, or high def audio.

LGs biggest weak point is its software. Why can’t they adopt Motorola’s philosophy? I like a phone that is close to stock with no duplicate apps and no bloatware. The G6 is neither of those. The stock launcher is a total nightmare. You can quickly add the version with an app drawer, but it’s not much better. You’ll get very few options to customize anything. You’ll quickly find yourself downloading Nova Launcher or the Google Now Launcher. I’ve forced myself to use the standard app drawer launcher that LG provides since it was designed to work with the phone, but it’s not great.

The battery life is about average. I list that as a con, because this is a flagship running an 821. It should be better than average. I went to this from a Moto Z Play. The SOT difference between the two phones is about 7hrs. That is not a typo. The average user is not going to notice the performance difference between the two phones, only the battery life. Power users are going to see the performance difference.

32GB of storage might seem like an okay option considering this phone also has expandable storage. Here is the problem with that – if you add enough storage, you don’t need also have expandable storage. For a flagship 64GB is quickly becoming standard and many makers have started offering higher options. I honestly think this is going to be one of the last flagships we see with 32GB of storage.

The flash annoys me. I haven’t had a phone with a single color flash in years. The last ten phones I have used have had a dual or even a triple color flash, and for good reason. The flash on the G6 will wash your subjects out. It’s a little thing, but little things can make or break a flagship.

Should you buy this phone?

The price of this phone has been dropping like a rock. If you can land it for less than $500, you’ll have an amazing phone in your hand at a good price point. Overall this is an amazing phone. It could have been the best, but a few cut corners kept it from being as good as it could have been. For those of you who really like to take photos with your phone, this is the one for you!

SIDE NOTE – This phone does not have an IR blaster. The G5 did. I want to mention that since some users love the functionality that comes with an IR blaster.

I was supposed to get the US997 version and got the Tmobile version like a bunch of reviewers here. This currently shows as shipped and sold by Synergy, but I looked at my order and it says Sold by: Amazon.com LLC. so I thought I would be fine.

The Tmobile version has a locked Bootloader and different LTE bands. The US997 version has an unlocked Bootloader. If you know anything about Android, you know an unlocked Bootloader lets you do a lot with your phone. You can Install custom ROMs, get rid of the bloatware and customize. The phone I got will have Tmobile bloatware which is even more useless to me since I have AT&T.

Edit: I am returning the phone and have a new one on order, but unfortunately it ships in two to four weeks. I will update this review when I receive it.

Edit2: I received the replacement and it’s Tmobile again. But I figured out why people keep getting the Tmobile version. Someone put a barcode for the US997 overtop of the word Tmobile in large print on the side of the device. I didn’t know that Tmobile was there in large print until I saw a picture on someone else’s review. There are a lot of barcodes on the other side along with the model number H872 which is the Tmobile model number. On the bottom of the box right under the large “LG” it also says Tmobile.

Full Disclosure – I am coming from a Google Pixel XL, got this as a second phone, so it has a lot to live up too, also i got this for $450 which makes it a great deal at that price point, since LG built the Pixel 2 XL and was in part based on this phone and the v30… one can almost consider this the working mans Pixel 2 XL.

I got the correct unlocked version of this phone, thank you very much.. The phone itself is very good, with the screen and overall modern 18:9 design and the wide angled lens being the stand outs… cons are the middling battery life and LG software (which is easily changed)

The auto-brightness feature is well just terrible, forcing the screen from barely readable dim to super bright sometime with very little reason, under work florescent lights the situation is the worst and i just keep it at 50% non auto, when at home with softer lighting the brightness works much better and i keep it on auto… consider installing lux from the play store, which has far superior brightness management IMHO.

The wide angled lens camera option is great in fact i wish in the future more smartphones would implement this to get much wider exceptional views and good closeup and mid range, a big plus… the standard camera lens is pretty good, not Pixel level good, but def above average.

I didn’t care for the native LG software and quickly replaced with nova launcher and the Pixel launcher with Google feed… and then replaced most of the default LG apps (calendar etc) with their much better Google counterparts… the phone is butter smooth with non of the Samsung “lag” and slowdown, LG really knows how to optimize in this area, kudos.

Biggest let down is the middling battery life, you can optimize this phone, but it will just barely get you through the day with mixed use you’ll get about 3.5 hours SOT before needing to hit the charger which itself is very quick USB-C 3.0 quick charge BTW… For a 2017 flagship this is just not that great with 5+ hours SOT being pretty standard these days as a reference point. For most people this will be just fine, phone tinkerers and power users will need to charge by evening.

Overall this is a very good phone, the design is wonderful and modern… very premium yet light in hand, it is kept from greatness by the middling battery life and LG software… The camera is good but the 2nd wide angled lens is great.

This is not a factory unlocked phone. The ad is completely misleading. it is a T-Mobile phone and does not work on Verizon as is stated in the ad. It is also not a new item and does not come with the original packaging. There are multiple reviews that state this, so it is not a mistake.