BLENGOK

When LG cooked up last years G3, we (and many of our contemporaries) fell in love with it. At last, a well-designed phone with a killer Quad HD screen and a custom interface that didnt make us want to wrap a USB cord around our necks! Building a beloved smartphone is no small feat, but its still not as hard as crafting a sequel that will be just as well-received. When it came time for LG to design the new G4, the company latched onto a handful of areas it thought people really cared about. It rebuilt its 16-megapixel camera from the ground up. That Quad HD screen? LG tried to make it more "accurate." Now the question is: Howd LG do? Did it figure out how to excite people for another year? The answer -- in case youve got somewhere else to be -- is "almost."

Honestly, did anyone expect LG to rewrite its design rules this year? With a mostly flat front and the subtlest of curves to help it settle into your palm, LGs latest sits somewhere between the G Flex2 and last years more pedestrian G3. Its thoughtful moderation in action, though Id argue the dramatic slope of the G Flex2s arched back is more comfortable to grip. The look is about as far from revolutionary as things get, but you could argue the physical shape doesnt really need fixing. Still, I cant but feel the broad strokes of LGs industrial design are getting a little tiresome.

Thankfully, LG has tried to shake things up this year with its fashion-forward line of vegetable-tanned leather backs. Theyre a step in a more organic, more luxurious direction -- which Im very, very fond of -- but theyre just one of several options. The version I tested came with the standard "Metallic Craft" rear finish that looks like a hammered piece of steel... but is actually just a curved sheet of metal-looking plastic like what we saw on last years G3. The rest of the G4s posterior is an exercise in repetition. Just like the last two powerhouse phones the company churned out, the rear camera (now boasting 16 megapixels) sits high on the back, flanked by a two-tone LED flash on the right and the infrared autofocus module on the left. Just below all of that is LGs signature volume rocker/power button combo, except this time, the power button is actually a hair smaller, making it a little tougher to find by feel.

The G4s face looks downright spartan compared to its rump, and LG plans to keep it that way -- Dr. Ramchan Woo, LGs head of smartphone planning, stressed the importance of crafting a distinct identity for LG phones, and that means these dark, monolithic faces arent going anywhere yet. The 5.5-inch IPS Quantum display deserves a lot more verbosity than I should muster in this section, but know this: Its easily among the best smartphone screens Ive ever seen, despite what I may have said in the past. When its off, though, its scarcely distinguishable from the dark gray bezels that surround it, making the teensy speaker grille, 8-megapixel camera and LG logo the only things that break up the dusky monotony.

So yeah, our particular G4 doesnt exactly thrill in the looks department, but whats chugging along inside that plastic body is a little more interesting. Youd think a companys annual flagship phone would insist on using the most powerful chipset it could get its hands on, right? Not this time.

LG already included a top-tier Snapdragon 810 chip in the G Flex2 earlier this year and decided to go in a different direction with the mass-market G4; it has a cheaper 1.8GHz hexa-core Snapdragon 808 instead. Do yourself a favor: Dont be fooled by the model number dip. The Snapdragon 808 might lack a pair of Cortex-A57 processor cores and sport a slightly lower-end Adreno 418 GPU, but its still a very capable piece of silicon. (More on that later.) Tear off that plasticky back plate and youll find a handful of other near-extinct goodies too, like a removable 3,000mAh battery and a duo of slots for microSIM and microSD cards. LGs lasting fondness for these little touches wont go unnoticed by the nerds burned by the stinginess of other phone makers, but man, what I wouldnt give for a more adventurous sense of design.

When I first started putting the G4 through the wringer last week, I said its vaunted 5.5-inch IPS Quantum screen didnt necessarily look better than any of the competition; just different. Well, I still dont think people will go crazier for a super-accurate screen than they did over a super-saturated one, but theres no denying this panel is worth your attention. LGs done a lot of crowing about the display already, most of it hinging on how its tech makes for amped-up brightness and more natural color reproduction. We could dig into the very complex nitty-gritty here -- the screen uses a different kind of liquid crystal that aligns vertically to let more light through, and a revamped backlight setup that makes for very clean, organic colors -- but Ill spare you the rest of the breathless jargon. Long story short, the screen here is lovely, if still a few steps from perfection.

With the backlight cranked up all the way, the G4s display is a touch less bright than both the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge (its most notable when youre looking at a stretch of plain white). Blacks lacked the depth and sumptuousness that are a hallmark of AMOLED screens, and the rest of the color spectrum isnt nearly as punchy as Ive come to appreciate on my smartphone screens. Then something funny happened. After looking at the overly saturated colors on the Galaxy S6s screen (especially the reds, my goodness), I found myself appreciating LGs subtler take. Reds in particular are more nuanced, rather than the nearly eye-searing rendition youll spot on Samsungs wares. Theres something to be said for seeing photos on your phone in a way that more faithfully recreates what youd see in the real world. Thats not to say that visuals on the G4 lack oomph, though -- colors popped dramatically compared to the G3 we keep around, which looked pretty washed-out in comparison. Alas, things can get dicier once you look at content from an angle; youll notice that the screen loses some of its vibrance. Its a relatively minor niggle, and overall Im still very fond of this display, but I still wish it were as attractive from off-center as it is head-on.

LG devoted less attention to the G4s speaker, which shouldnt come as a shock. The single driver wedged into the bottom of the phones back played back test tunes ranging from Sambomasters screechy Japanese rock to boisterous picks from the Whiplashsoundtrack at a respectable volume, though youll only get so much clarity and channel separation from a setup like this. Still, the G4 manages to out-blast the Galaxy S6s speaker without too much muddiness at high volumes, so itll do just fine in private (or when you dont have a pair of headphones handy).

As it turns out, one of the G4s neatest little audio tricks is one LG doesnt talk much about in public. If youve got some music playing through a connected pair of Bluetooth headphones and plug a pair of wired ones into the headphone jack, the audio will be routed to both with hardly any latency. Yeah, it basically makes the old, romantic "two people sharing a single pair of earbuds" trope irrelevant, but dont expect it to disappear from the movies anytime soon. The only bummer: You cant route two different audio tracks to each set of headphones.

If anything should be clear by now, its that LG isnt one for seismic shifts; its more about steady, measured progress. As such, youd have a tough time telling the difference between LGs UX 4.0 and the interfaces weve seen running on the G Flex2 and even the G3 before it. Thankfully, LGs Android skin has been getting lighter and less kludgy with every new version, even if the overall look hasnt changed much. The quickest way to tell the difference is to swipe right from the home screen; theres a new Smart Bulletin page that aggregates data from your calendar and apps like QRemote and LG Health (which still tracks your steps and weight information with aplomb). All that is coupled with tips for using the phone. While the experience isnt as great for killing time as BlinkFeed or Samsungs Flipboard integration, it does a fine job of spelling out your day for you.

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