The Korean invasion is well underway. Even though Korean tech giant LG announced its flagship LG G6 mobile phone way back in February, it’s only make its local debut later this month, and Geek Culture got to spend some quality time with a unit, to deliver this first looks.

The delay between announcement and launch also means that other devices that were announced after it have been able to enter the market, but it does not negate the impact of the G6. Together with the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S8, it looks like the Korean smartphone invasion is here to stay.

Unlike other handset makers who have found their footing and come up with an iteration of an existing design, LG has had some difficulty establishing its footing, until now. The LG G2 had the power and volume buttons located at the rear, and while that remained the same for the LG G3 and LG G4, the LG G5 introduced a modular design with dual rear lenses, but it moved the rear volume controls back to the side.

The LG G6 is the first LG Android flagship phone that does away with the removable battery, and opts for a sealed one within a water and dust proof chassis. It has also ditched the modular approach, but has retained the volume controls at the edge of the device.

But the final outcome is one of the most streamlined Android devices in the market.

The edge to edge display means that while both the LG G5 and LG G6 share the same physical dimensions, the 5.7-inch QHD display here beats the 5.3-inch one on the LG G5. Camera wise, the dual lenses on the rear are both 13MP, compared to the 16MP/8MP combo on the G5. The dual lenses here allow the camera to switch between single and widescreen more, with no loss of megapixel quality between the mode.

So far, the pictures taken on the G6 are mighty impressive, though it will take some time before we can compare it against the Huawei P10 and the Samsung Galaxy S8.

Here, we took some night shots with the both the LG G6 and the iPhone 7 Plus and as you can see, there are stark differences between the two. While the iPhone manages a slight better balance in night time shots, the LG G6 shows that it is also up to the challenge.

But in real low light conditions, the LG G6 offers better details and colours compared to the iPhone 7 Plus.

The following 3 sets of photos comprise of shots taken with the LG G6 (on the left) and the iPhone 7 Plus (on the right). Move the slider to view each photo.

 

 

 

There are some notable camera shortcuts, such as a Square Camera app that automatically takes photos in a square shape, for those who spend a lot of time on Instagram. This means users can snap away without worrying about cropping photos in post production.

For food lovers, there is also a Food mode that over saturates the colours of the shot. It might seem like an overkill, but photos taken with this mode have a nicer punch to it, so that burger, plate of fries or hotpot will come out looking more appetizing than it normally should.

The following 2 sets of photos comprise of shots taken with the Food mode on (on the left) and off (on the right). Move the slider to view each photo.

 

 

Design wise, the tight compact design and construction of the G6, together with its rear glass panel gives it a premium feel. We’re already quite used to the rear Power/fingerprint scanner, and it’s a surprise that not more companies have made the switch.

To save real estate on the front for the larger display, a portion of the display itself is used for touch sensitive Home, Back and Menu controls of Android devices. The construction of the sides of the phone also seems to indicate that the straight edge is not uniform, and that the sides slide inwards towards the screen, to offer users a better grip of the device.

One place that LG has not spent much time on though is on the software side. Unlike Samsung, which likes to pack its phone with numerous features to see which ones stick, the LG G6 is a rather safe device that doesn’t push the boundaries. One interesting feature is that the G6 has a trash folder to recover deleted files. If there is capacity, the phone stores data in this thrash folder for up to 7 days, just in case you deleted something by accident and want to recover it.

But otherwise, the company spent more time on the phone’s design and construction. Check back later this month when we spend more time with the LG G6, to deliver a deeper review.

Specifications

• Processor: Quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 (2 x 2.35 GHz + 2 x 2.16 GHz)
• Display: 5.7-inch IPS LCD Corning Gorilla Glass 3 (1,440 x 2,880 pixels, 564 PPI pixel density), with Dolby Vision/HDR10
• Camera: (Rear) Dual 13MP (f1.8) + 13MP (f2.4), OIS, dual LED flash, (Front) 5MP (f2.2)
• Memory: 64GB, microSD expandable up to 256GB, 4GB RAM
• Operating System: Android 7.0 Nougat, with LG UX 6.0
• Battery: 3,300 mAh
• Others: Dual SIM, Always-On Display, High-Res Audio