Why is LG G Flex 2 never than before?
Design of LG G Flex 2 focuses on a particular aspect, the curved screen, that might look and feel a little odd at first, but there are definitely some great points when it comes to this phone’s aesthetic. For starters, the screen itself has been brought down from the very large size of its predecessor to a more accessible 5.5-inch, putting it in the territory of current flagship devices.
There are no buttons on any of sides, though the headphone jack and the microUSB charging port are found on the bottom. The button layout takes on the now iconic LG placement, on the back below the camera optics, with the volume rocker flanking the power button. Having the buttons here has already helped previous phones for LG, but the curve makes it feel even more natural, as index fingers easily rest on there.
The curve on the screen makes the entire phone perch up a bit when lying on its face, but the point of this phone is that you can flex it flat without much fear of breaking anything. The back cover also has the self-healing property that is supposed to make minor scratches fade over time, but the problem with this backingl is a real fingerprint magnet, and will collect dust quite easily because of its static cling. The back is, yet, removable, giving access to the SIM and microSD card slots.
The curve was already well acclaimed for its ergonomics in the original 6-inch G Flex, but the handling is even better with smaller screen. Getting from side to side is easy with thin bezels, but the way the phone sits in the hand makes hand manoeuvre ever easier. Though the red might be a little too flashy for my tastes, I can’t deny that the brushed look adds to what is a really attractive device all around, and if you are worried about the curve being hard to fit in a pocket, it fits nice and comfortably in all but the tightest jeans, so it’s not really an issue.
The 5.5-inch screen on the G Flex 2 brings a higher resolution than ever, the quality standard of 1080p in this IPS screen. The brightness is great even in broad daylight, and the curve does make the experience a more immersive. Colours tend to have an adequate saturation to them and this can be adjusted further in the settings, but keeping 1080p keeps sharpness constant compared to the over smoothing that was present in the LG G3’s Quad HD screen.
Seeing elements scroll along the curve is an effect that hasn’t become cliché, though in real usage it is so subtle that you won’t notice it every time. But without the phone being so close to your eyes, the immersive experience is something I’m convinced is only true for huge, high resolution televisions, and doesn’t really translate to this much smaller display.
The in-house screen coating claims to have even more protection compared to Gorilla Glass, but thankfully there was already a screen protector pre-applied because I found a scratch on the top right of it after just a few days. All said and done, I’ve had a very good time with the LG G Flex 2 screen, enjoying media on a screen large enough to do so, but also for handling all other tasks like text reading and menu navigation.
One of the surprises was the processor found within, with the LG G Flex 2 being one of the first widely available phones to have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, backed by an Adreno 430 GPU and maximum 3GB of RAM.
Everyone was expecting performance to be off the charts, and for the most part, playing games and performing just about any app task is an absolute breeze. Even the Dual Window functionality works quite well, with my typical combination of YouTube and Chrome working well enough for me to work and play comfortably. It’s also worth mentioning that issues with overheating were not observed. And while the phone did get a bit warm, I never noticed any slowdowns, and certainly no shutdowns, due to overheating.
Where I see the problems is in the operating system, the latest Android version with LG’s G UI on top, with the results being uneven. Where the LG G Flex 2 was to be a showcase of the Snapdragon 810, we get a choppy experience in even for the most basic of tasks within the G UI. Multitasking will have a rampant stutter, and even when scrolling through various elements like the home screen customisation screens, I do noticed a lack of smoothness that many of us probably didn’t expect with this next generation processor.
Hardware on the G Flex 2 brings the essentials and not too much over, but that’s not a bad thing. Removing the back cover gets you access to the microSD card slot, which allows for expansion of the 16 GB or 32 GB of onboard storage, which also determines how much RAM you get. Not surprisingly, the curved battery is irreplaceable though.
All of the connectivity options are available, including NFC and Bluetooth. Call quality was pretty standard, loud enough on the receiving end, with no complaints on the other side. The rear facing speaker is about as average as you can get, though the upward curve on the bottom portion does keep it from getting suppressed by the table it’s sitting on.
When it comes to battery, the G Flex 2 packs a 3,000 mAh. During time with the G Flex 2 over the last week, the battery lasted through full days of work with little problems, getting down to critically low levels before bed time. With high power usage, that involved snaping a lot of pictures and playing quite a bit of games, the device managed just over 3 and a half hours of screen on time, which is rather good, considering that with lowered usage you should be able to go pretty far. The battery life isn’t ground-breaking, but keeping screen down to conventional resolution levels seems to have averaged out the longevity when compared to its high resolution sister, namely the LG G3.
Though the camera experience gotten a bit of an upgrade, in mostly speed, quality seems to be in line with other high-end competitors.
The app is quite minimalistic, taking on a simple interface that requires you to tap only the point of focus and you get your shot once focused. This is due to the laser-guided autofocus that makes it one of the speediest cameras to use in the market today. Unless you have a subject running around in frame, you’ll get your picture in seconds with no issue. Other modes include the burst mode that is triggered by holding the shutter down; panorama, a dual shooting mode that uses both cameras in the same shot; and HDR, that does enhance backlit subjects and adds a little bit of colour to photos.
The biggest upgrade to the camera experience revolves around the self-portrait taker, who will be able to use the 2.1 megapixel front facing camera to quickly review the shot by moving the phone downward in a natural curve. The picture will automatically show when the phone detects the movement, making self-portrait shots easy to check out immediately, and delete when necessary.
Picture quality, though, is quite uneven, and dependent on the lighting in one’s scene. In the camera shootout, I found that while there were good shots snapped in broad daylight, going indoors already demonstrated a big change in the detail capture and colour saturation, with subjects that are supposed to have vivid colours getting washed out. As the scene loses lighting, the pictures becomes noisier, making this less than ideal companion to have in lower light, or even in indoor situations, like at parties. Despite OIS+ helping with general jittery movements in photo and video, it and the laser guided autofocus are about all that distinguishes this camera from others, considering its otherwise mostly normal quality.
As mentioned, it’s the software on this phone that seems to result in performance issues with the G Flex 2. Even though it has been preloaded with Lollipop, it doesn’t seem as though the G UI has been optimized to its fullest potential on the Snapdragon 810.
That said, there have been few changes to the way it works, because of Lollipop. The recent apps screen has been changed to a rolodex style, and the notification dropdown now uses cards. But seeing the original style in the quick settings on top of the notifications already alludes to the fact that G UI is mostly still the same.
The app drawer still has the same style, now very congested by the sheer amount of additional applications that were pre-installed on this phone. Settings area is tabbed, and it contains many different options that you can turn on/off to tweak the experience, when it comes to one handed usage, some of gestures, and a section to mess with the Knock Code. Speaking of Knock Code, it is a pretty nice way of unlocking phone. Main enhancement here is the addition of quick peek, which can be activated on a turned off screen by dragging finger down the screen to see the time and the notification bar.
There are certainly some useful features here, but what is particularly saddening is that without many changes to how interface looks, we also didn’t have many changes in the optimization. As it stands, this version of the G UI isn’t the best showcase for what was supposed to be a super-powered processor, and that is probably the biggest let down.
So there you have it – the LG G Flex 2! Updates to this phone’s design and faster camera experience are great, but the day-to-day usage of this phone is too unbalanced to call it a true winner. While the phone will be able to fare better, the G UI is a bit too messy for its own good, and doesn’t really show the performance the processor is capable of.
This is still one of the favourite form factors, with its much easier handling due to more compact screen, and the curve that is not only different but proves its chip as a design choice. It will be too critical to say that this isn't a worthy phone for daily usage, but without the much needed performance optimisations in the software, it is clear to us that this phone goes a few steps forward, but loses footing where it counts most.
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