Could this be the perfect phone?
Most people who know me know that I’m somewhat of a hardcore mobile phone enthusiast. Unfortunately it isn’t because I’m an early adopter who always insists on getting the best hardware — it’s merely due to the fact that I am a clumsy moron who regularly breaks his tech. Either it be dropping it from a high distance (well, my last smash was due to a 20cm drop onto concrete), shoving it into a pocket or bag full of sharp, screen-scratchy objects or casually drowning phones in a toilet. I regularly murder phones (as well as cameras, headphones and other tech) and I’m not likely to stop. To me, phones are just tools. No sense in treating them like a newborn. You don’t expect a hammer to lose functionality simply because you dropped it in a smelly nightclub toilet, so why compromise with other tools?
My phone destruction all started in the mid-90s with the Motorola StarTAC. It was my first cellular phone and I managed to murder it by butt (I sat on it) This resulted in the phone splitting into two limp, useless pieces of plastic (this was the original #bendgate before Apple made it cool).
These days though, I try to keep at least two smart devices in my arsenal — a powerful daily driver alongside a backup phone (for when I break my main phone, guaranteed within a 6–8 month period). So far over the past few months I’ve been impatiently using the Asus Zenfone 2. It didn’t make sense to buy a second phone at that time of year as new flagships were due to be announced. I’ve been lugging around this underpowered cheap slab for ages desperately waiting for the Galaxy Note 5 to be released. The Note 4 was a juggernaut, so it was safe to assume the 5 would be as well, right?
Everything was all fine and dandy until Samsung made their official announcement for the Note, revealing a couple of things that made me re-think my entire game plan. Ugh.
A tiny, imprisoned battery
Firstly, they changed two important things with their batteries — they dropped the capacity from 3,220mAh to 3,020mAh and then sealed them inside the phone. In the past, I’d usually carry a second battery with me as I’d generally run out of charge by 3PM thanks to heavy use. Shrinking the battery and making it impossible to replace is a minor pain as now they support fast-charge, allowing you to completely charge the phone in 90 minutes.
This is all fine and dandy I suppose, but I’ll now have to carry a charger with me or perhaps a USB power bank. Sure, I used to carry a spare battery which isn’t all too different, but the form factor was much thinner than these new alternatives.
Aside from introducing quick charge, Samsung also modified Android to kill software processes in the background in an attempt to conserve battery power. If you’re anything like me you’ll be working on multiple apps at the same time, having them force-killed in the background is extremely frustrating and usually results in lost data. Sure, you could always root the device and manually change the build.prop or install a custom ROM but c’mon, this is just dumb. Why not allow users to turn off the “feature” in the settings? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
Choc-full of content creation tools, nowhere to put them
Compared to the previous generation the Note’s camera was beefed up from 13 to 16 megapixels and on top of this Samsung has slapped on 4K video recording to its arsenal. Great right? Well, sure, as long as you have somewhere to store all these large files.
Traditionally the Note came with removable storage, an incredibly convenient option for all your photos and videos. Aside from ease of use, it makes editing a helluvalot easier. Simply pop out the card and stick it in your PC. None of this slow wifi/cable malarkey. Well, that WAS the case until Samsung decided to remove SD storage altogether with the Note 5.
The lack of removable storage isn’t a major deal-breaker right? Well, yeah, it is. If you’re wanting to film and take photos, you’ll need space. 4K video is HUGE but without removable storage, there is a simple way to deal with that — buy a phone with 128GB of storage! Right? Well, the problem we have here is that you simply can’t.
WHAT?
The 128GB version of the Galaxy Note simply does not exist. Anywhere. This is supposed to be the cream of the crop, flagship phone like none other but it does not offer this storage option. The S6 has it, so why not the Note? Fine, whatever. Let’s just get the 64GB version instead. Oh right, this doesn’t exist either.
WHAT???
In Australia the Galaxy Note 5 ONLY comes in 32GB. Looking at my phone right now, I currently have 11.31GB onboard with 27.22GB on my microSD. So uh, I’ll probably have to clean house I guess. And I’m unsure as to how much 4K on this phone will use but if it is anything like other phones, it’ll be about half a gig a minute, so I guess we’re not actually expected to use 4K? *sigh*
If I’m going to spend AU$1,300-odd on a phone it isn’t too much to ask for decent features right? Samsung drastically dropped the ball this year and there is no way in hell I’m going to shell out cash on a phone that won’t suit my needs.
So what exactly are these expectations?
☐ A screen over 5.5 inches in size
☐ Screen pixel density of over 300ppi
☐ Removable battery
☐ =/> 64GB storage (32GB is acceptable if storage is expandable)
☐ grum-proof (i.e. drop/water/scratch-proof)
☐ =/> 3GB RAM
☐ A “Wordphone” (covers most 3G/LTE bands worldwide)
☐ Dual-SIM (second slot must be 3G minimum)
☐ Rear camera of 8MP at f2.8 or faster
☐ Focal length of 29mm or wider (35mm equiv)
☐ RAW & manual camera modes
☐ Optical Image Stabilisation
☐ Front-facing speakers
☐ A reasonable price for the features — around US$800
Naturally, there is no way in hell any manufacturer would release a device with almost all these specs covered. Right?
Enter, the LG v10.
So how exactly does the LG V10 fare with my checklist?
☑ A screen over 5.5 inches in size — 5.7 inches (5.9 if you include the 2nd screen)
☑ Screen pixel density of over 300ppi — 531ppi (super crispy!)
☑ Removable battery —Yes. 3,000mAh beast with Quick Charge
☑ =/> 64GB storage — Yes, also has expandable storage UP TO 2TB
☑ grum-proof — MIL-STD-810G Transit Drop Compliant & double-paned Gorilla Glass 4. The back panel is covered in extra-grippy material for added butter-fingers friendliness. No waterproofing however neither is the G4 and that can survive a good drowning.
☑ =/>3GB RAM — 4GB more than enough
☐ A “Wordphone” — bands unknown, however this is an LTE-A CAT 6 (up to 300Mbps speeds). No Australian model announced.
☒ Dual-SIM — No, however the G4 does have a dual-SIM variant.
☑ Rear camera of 8MP at f2.8 or faster — 16MP at f1.8
☑ Focal length of <29mm — 28mm focal length + 120° front-facing camera
☑ RAW & manual camera modes — Yes, full manual video too!
☑ Optical Image Stabilisation — 3 axis IS from the G4 (one of the best in the industry)
☒ Front-facing speaker — Nope. Downwards-facing.
☑ Around US$700 — priced in South Korea for 799,700 won/US price “similar to iPhone 6S+ pricing (US$850)
In a nutshell, the V10 is just a G4 with a larger screen and beefed-up specs. It fits the space that the G4 “pro” was expected to fill, however that lineup seem to have vanished.
Yes, the phone is full of gimmicky junk such as the second screen (I have a smartwatch, this’ll just duplicate functionality) dual-front cameras (WTF is a “groufie”?). Additionally LG will likely dump a bunch of bloatware on top of Android which will undoubtedly piss me off. But all this aside, it is a pretty impressive phone.
So will I buy the V10? Maybe.
The Australian release date is unknown and at this stage, Australia isn’t even hinted as part of the second-stage release (unless LG considers Australia is part of the Asian market). It is likely that the phone will become available in mid-December, which will roughly be the same time when the iPad Pro is released. I’ve had my eyes on this tablet since day one and the likelihood of me shelling out over a grand twice in such a short period of time is quite slim.
Well, that’s assuming I don’t break my Zenfone in the meantime…
*nudges phone off table*
