- Joined
- Mar 18, 2003
Thought I would show off my new toy today, the brand new LG G4 that showed up in my mailbox this afternoon.
Have to admit, I'm not much of a phone guy. This is my fourth mobile phone ever... I tend to replace them only at end of contract if I think I need to. Last one was a Galaxy Note 2 that had been getting flaky for a while with rather inconsistent battery life. Sometimes it would last a day between charges with minimal screen on time, other times 4-5 days like it did new. The latest update to it slowed the thing to a crawl, so I rooted it and upgraded it with Ditto Note 3. That brought back the speed and battery life, but made it even flakier. Wifi no longer worked properly, disconnecting at random. On occasion, the phone would lock up with the screen off and the CPU at 100% so the phone would go dead overnight. I had it spontaneously reboot a couple times, too.
But... it was still doing pretty well so now that my contract was done I decided to wait for the Note 5. And then... Samsung killed any chance of me getting one by actually releasing it. Replaceable battery? Nope, can't have that. Expandable storage? Nope, you pay through the nose to get the next one up, buddy. Oh, wait, you live in Canada... you can't have the next one up. 32GB only. I might have still considered going with it if not for one thing: too expensive. Way, way, WAY too expensive, even carrier subsidized.
I had myself a really flaky Note 2 and no hope of a Note 5. What to do? Well, if you've spent any time in the displays and digital cameras forum, you might have noticed I'm pretty seriously addicted to cameras. The camera was always going to be the deciding factor on the next phone (anything without RAW support was automatically out), and it didn't take me long to narrow things down to two models. Telus threw a $50 off promo my way to get a new phone a couple weeks ago, and budget constraints led me to the G4 or the Galaxy S6/S6 Edge 32GB. But there again... Samsung shot themselves in the foot and decided I don't need replaceable batteries or micro SD slots. I had doubts that the Edge gimmick was worth the extra money. The S6 is also a smaller phone than I'm used to... with my huge hands, the Note 2 was the perfect size for me. I didn't want to give that up, and the Note 4 was more money for less camera performance and features.
So, I went with the G4. It still wasn't an easy decision. LG's Canadian RMA department and I go way back, and not in a good way. Basically, the only way I talked myself into this phone over Samsung was the knowledge that due to the carrier subsidization, I only paid $100 to get it. And because I got it through Telus, I can deal with them for any issues it might develop.
How's the camera? Oh, you better believe I'll be giving it a proper shakedown in the next couple days. I can't wait to play with it. For now, though, I'm happy with the level of control it gives me. I'm not expecting a replacement to my DSLR, but it should make a great backup. Coming from the Note 2's nearly useless camera that only shot decent images in the middle of the day, I'm seriously impressed by the amount of control I have with this one. I'll post some shots as soon as I can.
Meantime, here's the new toy next to the old toy:
Have to admit, I'm not much of a phone guy. This is my fourth mobile phone ever... I tend to replace them only at end of contract if I think I need to. Last one was a Galaxy Note 2 that had been getting flaky for a while with rather inconsistent battery life. Sometimes it would last a day between charges with minimal screen on time, other times 4-5 days like it did new. The latest update to it slowed the thing to a crawl, so I rooted it and upgraded it with Ditto Note 3. That brought back the speed and battery life, but made it even flakier. Wifi no longer worked properly, disconnecting at random. On occasion, the phone would lock up with the screen off and the CPU at 100% so the phone would go dead overnight. I had it spontaneously reboot a couple times, too.
But... it was still doing pretty well so now that my contract was done I decided to wait for the Note 5. And then... Samsung killed any chance of me getting one by actually releasing it. Replaceable battery? Nope, can't have that. Expandable storage? Nope, you pay through the nose to get the next one up, buddy. Oh, wait, you live in Canada... you can't have the next one up. 32GB only. I might have still considered going with it if not for one thing: too expensive. Way, way, WAY too expensive, even carrier subsidized.
I had myself a really flaky Note 2 and no hope of a Note 5. What to do? Well, if you've spent any time in the displays and digital cameras forum, you might have noticed I'm pretty seriously addicted to cameras. The camera was always going to be the deciding factor on the next phone (anything without RAW support was automatically out), and it didn't take me long to narrow things down to two models. Telus threw a $50 off promo my way to get a new phone a couple weeks ago, and budget constraints led me to the G4 or the Galaxy S6/S6 Edge 32GB. But there again... Samsung shot themselves in the foot and decided I don't need replaceable batteries or micro SD slots. I had doubts that the Edge gimmick was worth the extra money. The S6 is also a smaller phone than I'm used to... with my huge hands, the Note 2 was the perfect size for me. I didn't want to give that up, and the Note 4 was more money for less camera performance and features.
So, I went with the G4. It still wasn't an easy decision. LG's Canadian RMA department and I go way back, and not in a good way. Basically, the only way I talked myself into this phone over Samsung was the knowledge that due to the carrier subsidization, I only paid $100 to get it. And because I got it through Telus, I can deal with them for any issues it might develop.
How's the camera? Oh, you better believe I'll be giving it a proper shakedown in the next couple days. I can't wait to play with it. For now, though, I'm happy with the level of control it gives me. I'm not expecting a replacement to my DSLR, but it should make a great backup. Coming from the Note 2's nearly useless camera that only shot decent images in the middle of the day, I'm seriously impressed by the amount of control I have with this one. I'll post some shots as soon as I can.
Meantime, here's the new toy next to the old toy:
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