G4 Incoming

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:

Manual camera, shot RAW and post processed in RawTherapee. The only thing I let the camera do was focus itself.

I've heard good things about the LG G3 OW, hopefully the LG G4 is as good or better. Nice picture with the camera, now where are the Northern Lights?

They're not active here right now

The camera is excellent for a smartphone. It's no DSLR, showing some issues with lens distortion and vignetting, but I'm impressed thus far. Makes a decent backup for my D5100

I hear ya, when one knows their way around a DSLR it's tough to compare it to a smartphone camera. That said the new phones coming out do take really good pics for what they are.

For comparison, here's the straight out of the phone JPEG version of that shot. No edits of any kind.

Don't know how I missed this thread, but congrats on the new phone! I'm a big fan of my G3 and the G4 was supposed to be a solid improvement, especially with the camera. From all I've read, it's basically in a three way tie with the iPhone 6s Plus & Galaxy S6, so you made a wise choice.

hokiealumnus said:

Don't know how I missed this thread, but congrats on the new phone! I'm a big fan of my G3 and the G4 was supposed to be a solid improvement, especially with the camera. From all I've read, it's basically in a three way tie with the iPhone 6s Plus & Galaxy S6, so you made a wise choice.

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Especially since Samsung went away with the option of adding a Sd micro card.

Necroposting for an update - the G4 died last week. Froze up in an app, had to pull the battery to get it to stop. Never booted again... it came down with an acute case of bootloopitis. Seems I'm far from alone in this one - tons of complaints around the net about the G4 and V10 doing this. Supposedly the issue was fixed by the time my serial number was manufactured - wrong. There have been reports of even later models than mine exhibiting the issue, with some people reporting multiple replacements going down to the same issue.

I was hoping LG had gotten their act together since the great monitor debacle of 2011. Me getting this phone was my way of testing them to see if they had - figured all I needed it to do was last until the contract was up. Didn't even make it half that time.

However, it was still 27 days short of the warranty expiring, so Telus quickly set me up with a refurb replacement. I do not expect it to last. I'll run the refurb until it dies, then go shopping for something not LG.

A shame, the camera really is fantastic on this thing. However, 95% of the time I need a decent camera the DSLR is with me and very much superior. I haven't really gotten the use out of the camera I thought I would.

It really is a shame about the hardware failures on the G4. That said, my G3 is still an amazing piece of hardware. If you don't mind taking a step back in generation, you can get one for about 100 dollars or less on swappa.

I use OpenCamera on my S5. I also have Cameringo-never used it, but there's this brand new apk called Footej, playstore only atm dammit, that supposedly rocks. It uses droid's camera2 api if phone supports it and has a pro version. Can't wait til I can grab it through a friend or from apk-dl.
http://footej.camera/
Personally I'm getting a real camera from https://light.co/. ~$1100

A shame for sure. Were these hardware issues reported on any other major LG phones? My brother just got a Stylo 2 Plus and it'd crush him to have to replace it any time soon

I believe there have been some issues with the G5, but not sure they're anything like as widespread as the G4's bootlooping.

Personally, I'm not sure yet what I'd replace this thing with if I needed to. I was looking at a couple Huawei built phones, the Nexus 6P and Honor 8. The former would give me back my camera RAW support, but as mentioned I don't believe I need that anymore. I'd probably be looking to buy the next one outright... I'll lose my nice affordable plan if I get another one through Telus, and I'm starting to like the idea of a dual SIM phone, which sort of pushes me more toward the Honor 8.

Samsung is probably out unless I can get a Note 5 for a good price.

I have seen a few things about the G5, but nothing like the G4 issues (which makes me wonder if they actually exist, or if it's just a few vocal people).
Are refurbed G4's safe? Seemingly they'd be repaired by LG to include whatever fix they implemented to stop the failures, right?

From what I've seen around the net, not really. However, I'd trust a factory refurb more than a new one at this point. I did play around with the idea of tossing this one on eBay and buying something else, but I want to see how long it holds up.

Also, the camera is still more than good enough to give it a chance. Here's one from February, when I'd forgotten the DSLR at home. Shot RAW and post processed in RawTherapee.

That sucks OW! I've only ever owned LG phones, and both are good and still working.
Makes me wonder about my G3 though. Maybe I ought to open it up and apply TIM to the CPU just to make sure the damn thing doesn't catch fire lol.

I haven't really heard about the G3 having problems like this.

Silver_Pharaoh said:

That sucks OW! I've only ever owned LG phones, and both are good and still working.
Makes me wonder about my G3 though. Maybe I ought to open it up and apply TIM to the CPU just to make sure the damn thing doesn't catch fire lol.

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Eh don't have to worry about the G3 catching fire lol. Use one as my work phone, more than a few days I'd spend 8+ hours standing around in 90F+ heat (32C+) with the thing crammed in my pocket. Considering I don't have 3rd degree burns in...places...I don't think you need to go putting TIM on it

Damn thing is a rock though. Been legible for an upgrade for almost a month now, and since it's been so solid I haven't even looked at new phones yet.

Oklahoma Wolf said:

I haven't really heard about the G3 having problems like this.

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That's good to hear

freakdiablo said:

Eh don't have to worry about the G3 catching fire lol. Use one as my work phone, more than a few days I'd spend 8+ hours standing around in 90F+ heat (32C+) with the thing crammed in my pocket. Considering I don't have 3rd degree burns in...places...I don't think you need to go putting TIM on it

Damn thing is a rock though. Been legible for an upgrade for almost a month now, and since it's been so solid I haven't even looked at new phones yet.

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I dunno, I've seen 84C when gaming on it...
That's why I throttle it back to 1.7Ghz rather than 2.4.

They are quite solid yeah. I've only had one issue: My brother cleared all my recent apps (100+) and after that my phone wouldn't launch any app (I don't clear my recent apps). I had to factory reset it to get it working again Otherwise no issues.

Silver_Pharaoh said:

I dunno, I've seen 84C when gaming on it...
That's why I throttle it back to 1.7Ghz rather than 2.4.

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Well there's your problem Since mine's my work phone I can't do anything screwy with it like OCing.