A few weeks ago, I was able to borrow the latest on the V series of LG. I didn't have a proper unboxing of the device as the review unit that I had was a Korean variant but still, the specs are as similar as to the one that you can buy in local stores. Here is the LG V20 review.
For a change, I used the black theme for my test and I love the UI of it from black wallpaper and pulldown menu, the app icons where simplified on this theme which is definitely of of my most liked UI so far in a phone.
On the build quality, I missed the rugged back plating of the V20 but the removable metal casing, slim profile and replaceable battery just gave another bonus points for the V20. One hand navigation for a big hand was definitely a breeze except that you need an extra hand if you want to maximize the second screen.
On connecitivity, I had no problems in texts, calls, WiFi, Bluetooth, mobile data and GPS. The one thing that gave me some concern is you only have either 3G or LTE only for mobile (no 3G/2G or 2G only options) as to fully maximize the battery life. Like in the usual trick that you are only in the office and always connected to WiFi for hours, it is better to put the phone in 2G only to save some power juice.
If to compare to LG G5, I had a longer battery usage on the LG V20. The video battery rundown test gave me at 11 hours and 50 minutes. In real life usage, I can manage this phablet in a 16 hour workday with mixed usage and 5 hours of screen on time. In addition, thermal management was definitely a lot better on the V20 compared to the G5 which you only used a few apps and suddenly, you can feel the heat in such a short amount of time.
From Asphalt 8 to Modern Combat 5, it was a really a breeze for me on the gaming depeartment.
Audio was another strong department for the V20 especially on the 3.5 mm audio jack output. If you have a good noise cancelling earphone, you may not need that Quad DAC selection but enabling it will really immerse you to the song. From lows, mids and highs, it was one of the best smartphones that I tested on this department.
Ultimate camera-centric phone indeed for the V20. From almost all the situations that I came in and using both the normal and wide angle cameras, the image processing speed was really fast. Almost Less noise on low light. Color accuracy was great, too. Here are my camera samples
Here are the camera samples:
Normal rear camera shots
Wide angle main camera shots
Pro mode: ISO 50, Shutter at 4 seconds
Normal to HDR camera comparison
Normal to wide angle selfie comparison
On extras, I found out the V20 has USB OTG support too as long as you have a micro USB to USB Type C adapter and you're good to go.
At this time of review, we are facing an upcoming LG G6 with a bit better Snapdragon 821 processor in the same screen size but with a smaller form factor at Php 37,990. So far, the LG V20 is priced at Php 32,990 which for today's 2017 standards, I hope that LG Philippines will bring this one at below 30k. I don't mind the bit old but still powerful Snapdragon 820 as almost every app that threw in, it just worked nicely. I can't find any faults so far on the V20 except for the 3G and 4G only options on the mobile network side. I will gonna give 4.5 out of 5 for the LG V20
