Modern living revolves around connectivity.
We may leave our wallets when leaving home but never our mobile devices. LG has released their latest smartphone the LG G7 ThinQ. The mobile device space has matured significantly in the past two years with form factors and specifications becoming very similar across all top devices. LG have maxed out the technology, added some of their own thinking, and unleashed their attack on the high end of devices. Steven Ambrose spent time traveling with the LG G7 and did not need to ThinQ to hard.
LG has a long and illustrious history in the mobile device space, from the LG Chocolate to the LG Mirror phone and the G2 of a few years ago, LG have produced some of the most trend-setting and iconic devices in mobile history. The one overriding feature of all LG device has been quality and dependability. Their latest offering the LG G7 ThinQ has all that and then some.
Hardware
The LG G7 ThinQ is a smart looking device with a reasonably standard candy bar shape.
There are no standout curves notches, though it has a notch if you want, or other features. In fact, the overall look of the G7 ThinQ is very plain and almost featureless. That said it is sleek smooth and very well put together. LG also offers some exciting colours to help the G7 stand out in a crowd.
Starting with the screen, the LG G7 Thinq offers a 6.1” QHD+ display, super sharp in other words. It’s an LCD panel, unlike most other flagships which have opted for OLED. The panel LG chose has outstanding sharpness, excellent colour and one standout feature is that it can go unbelievably bright by virtue of its Super Bright Display feature, making it the easiest phone to see in direct sunlight.
The screen does have a notch which can be hidden whilst still using that extra screen real estate for information when hiding the actual cutout. The screen almost edge to edge and apart from a small chin, there is almost no bezel, which makes for a very compact device despite the larger screen.
The second standout feature is the ability of the LG G7 ThinQ to play exceptionally loudly via its Boombox enabled speaker. If gaming or conferencing or just listening to music from the phone itself is your thing, then LG has the answer. LG have included a resonance chamber inside the G7 and this results in far louder speaker sound than you would expect from such a slim phone.
LG has also added their audiophile sound setup from the V30 to the G7 ThinQ. When headphones are plugged into the 3.5mm socket, and yes there still is one, the ESS based Quad Dac system with added DTSX virtual 3 D sound kicks in. Simply put this is the second best sounding mobile I have ever used. The best remains the LG V30 which uses a similar setup. If audio is important, then there is no better mobile device.
LG has retained the rear centrally mounted fingerprint reader, which in my opinion is the best place for this, except if your phone is flat on a table. On the LG G7 ThinQ the fingerprint reader does not double as the power switch. The power switch is on the right of the phone and there are volume buttons as well as a dedicated Google assistant button on the left.
Camera
On the rear of the LG, G7 ThinQ are two 16 Mp cameras which are AI enabled.
The front Selfie camera has also been significantly upgraded to 8 MP and takes excellent detailed pictures. The rear cameras, however, are the best LG have released. The two cameras offer an f1.6 and f1.9 aperture camera, one being the main standard unit and the other a wide angle camera, both have stabilisation. The AI feature is not as user-friendly or useful as that on the Huawei P20 Pro but offers similar functionality. The LG G7 ThinQ will try to identify what you are taking pictures of and set the camera up for best effect
Software
I found the AI was a little random and not particularly useful, often mistaking objects, left in regular mode the LG G7 ThinQ does an excellent job of taking pictures in almost any light and was fast and simple to use.
Future software updates will hopefully improve the AI capabilities. There is also a super bright mode for really low light conditions, and this worked amazingly well unless you wanted to capture night time skylines with the sparkling light effect near water, as I did in Taipei and Hong Kong, then standard night mode was best.
The LG G7 ThinQ has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with 4 Gig Ram and 64 Gig of storage which is expandable. The LG G7 ThinQ is very fast with no lag whatsoever no matter what you try. Android Oreo 8 is available with the latest version 9 promised as an upgrade.
The battery is a 3000 mAh affair which gave me a full day of navigating taking pictures and Instagramming. Overall battery life is good but a top up in the early evening was needed to get me to midnight. In normal use a full day is easily achievable. Wireless charging is included as well as full IP67 waterproofing
Conclusion
It may look plain and apart from the screen camera and sound system have no flashy standout features, in my opinion, the LG G7 ThinQ is a slick smart and exciting alternative to the other top flagships from Samsung Huawei and Apple. The LG G7 ThinQ has all the technical prowess of a top 2018 flagship and LG have included every technical feature possible in a slim light and very well-made device. The LG G7 ThinQ has an outstanding screen decent battery life, very competitive cameras, and the best sound around.
I have left the best part until last. The price. LG has priced the LG G7 ThinQ very competitively at around R13,999.00 and are offering a whole bunch of extras such as chargers and headphones to sweeten the deal.
The LG G7 ThinQ is available from dealers and operators countrywide.
For more information www.lge.co.za |
