Modular phones are believed to be the future of smartphones. Modular smartphones let you select all the components of your phone individually. This means you can customize your phone to your needs, at any given time. Although the technology hasn’t been perfected yet, there are some manufactures who have already started moving in that direction. LG is one of them, with their flagship G5. Announced this year at Mobile World Conference, the LG G5 created quite a buzz for being the first commercial smartphone to feature a modular design. Along with it, LG introduced a range of accessories for the G5 that can let you customize the phone. It sounds like an interesting concept. The phone is currently retailing at just under Rs. 47,000*. Let’s see if the modular design is a compelling enough reason to invest in the LG G5 and its accessories.
Design and Build
The LG G5, unlike its predecessors, features an all-metal build. It’s made of aluminium alloy, which feels extremely light, but is very sturdy. Overall, the phone looks very premium and pretty much every part of the design contributes to it. The phone is available in three colours, Gold, Silver and Black. Our test unit was gold and we like how the golden frame mergers with the screen at the front.
The rear panel is slightly reminiscent of the Nexus 6P. Here you notice the dual camera setup (we’ll talk about that later) and the fingerprint sensor / Standby button right below it. Both the camera and the button slightly protrude out of the panel, but that doesn’t create any problem while holding the phone or putting it in a tight jeans pocket. The smooth finish is a little slippery, but the metallic frame around the edges compensates for it. Overall, the LG G5 is easy to hold. We didn’t have any problems using it.
The screen-to-body ratio is just 70 percent, but the bezel looks non-existent. Part of it is because of the black bezel at the top of the screen. Likewise, the Gorilla Glass 4 coating on the screen is extended all the way to the top. The glass curves a little at the top edge, where it blends in with the frame. This makes the screen look seamless. It might not be a major advantage, but the arc curve glass makes it comfortable to talk on the phone, especially during long calls. The glass coating stops smudging and fingerprints easily, which helps maintain the look of the phone.
The modular design of the G5 lies in the phone’s battery compartment that slides off from the bottom, with the battery bar. There is a button on the side that unlocks the panel and lets you pull the battery out. Taking the battery off the panel is a little tricky. It requires some force and we thought we were going to break it the first time we detached it. However, it’s not as flimsy as it looks. After the first attempt, things were much simpler.
Features
The G5 comes with a top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, armed with four cores, clocked at 2.1GHz. The processor is definitely capable of running heavy applications. It features the Adreno 530 GPU, which is one of the best mobile graphics processors today. That coupled with the massive 4GB of RAM, should be enough for the phone to take on HD games without breaking a sweat. The Internal storage on the phone is limited to 32GB and expandable to 256GB, using a microSD card. Unfortunately, the G5 doesn’t come with a dedicated microSD card slot, instead it ships with a hybrid slot that doubles as a second SIM card. So people who want to use the dual SIM slots, but also want the storage, have to sacrifice on one slot.
When it comes to connectivity, the G5 features the latest technology. You get 4G with VoLTE support, Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2. The phone also supports NFC with Android Beam, which helps transfer data to other phones wirelessly, with a single tap. An IR Blaster is also included, which can be used to control your electronics at home. The G5 supports the latest USB Type-C port. The battery capacity of the G5 has been shrunk down to 2,800 mAh compared to the G4’s 3,000 mAh. It’s a little less for a flagship phone. The good thing is that the G5 supports Quick Charge 3.0, which can charge the phone really quickly. We were able to charge the phone to around 50 per cent in an hour. LG has even come out with an additional accessory called the Charging Cradle, which can charge the spare the battery when it’s not in use.
Along with the Charging Cradle, LG has launched a number of other accessories. Only a few of them take advantage of the G5’s modular design though. The most popular one at the moment is the Cam Plus. It features the battery panel, with an additional grip, making the G5 look and feel more like a portable camera. It looks more comfortable to hold. The adapter features a physical shutter button and a zoom-in, zoom-out scroll. There is also a 1,200 mAh battery included, so it doesn’t draw power from the phone battery.
LG has introduced a Hi-Fi Plus B&O module as well, that includes a DAC and a built-in amplifier for better sound output. Unfortunately, the module is not available in India yet. It’s a little disappointing because it’s a great add-on for audiophiles. LG has even launched a Bluetooth 360 Cam, which consists of two wide angle cameras placed on either side. Together, the camera can take 360 degree pictures and videos of everything around you. This accessory has nothing to do with the modular design and can work with other LG phones as well. Other list of accessories extend to VR headsets and Bluetooth headphones, nothing we haven’t seen with other phones lately.
The 5.3-inch screen features a QHD (2560 x 1440) resolution with a sharp pixel density of 554 ppi. It’s an always-on display, which means you get to see your notifications, missed calls and time, even when the phone is on standby. It doesn’t consume any extra battery while doing so. The speaker grill is placed at the bottom and comes off with the battery panel. This means with modules like the B&O Hi-Fi Plus, you also get a better a speaker.
The Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) is heavily layered with the LG’s 5.0 UI. It carries pretty much the same look we’ve seen on other LG phones. LG has included very few of their apps. You get the basic ones like Calendar, Calculator, Timer, Quick Tools+ and others. One feature we really liked is the Smart Bulletin panel on the homescreen. Here, you get easy access to other apps like Calendar, Music Player, Evernote and QREMOTE, which lets you use the IR blaster to control other devices. There is even a set of performance optimizing tools that helps clear up RAM and boost the processor, when needed. LG has also included a LG Friends Manager app that lets you take control of all the accessories mentioned above, when you connect them to the phone.
The dual camera setup at the back is one of the most impressive parts about the G5. It consists of a 16MP camera working alongside an 8MP camera for better imaging. You also get other top-of-the line features, like a 3-axis optical image stabilization, 4K video recording, slow motion video recording and time lapse.
The biggest advantage of the dual camera is the 135 degree wide angle, which can be used to capture wide shots in just one go. You can simply switch the angle with the same pinch to zoom in and zoom out gesture. The on-board camera app consists of a lot of features that revolve around the dual camera setup. For example, you have Multi-view mode, which lets you create a collage of images by using both, the rear cameras and the front camera at the same time. There is also a Pop-out Picture mode, which lets you click a photo within a photo. It basically uses the frame of the wider lens as a background for the photo shot by the other camera. These photos look creative and are fun to shoot.
The rear camera has three primary settings to click images in, Simple, Auto and Manual. The simple mode is nothing, but just the point-and-shoot, while the Auto mode gives you a few intermediate features to play around with. The manual mode gives you access to advanced settings such as shutter speed, manual focus, ISO and white balance. You can even shoot RAW images for editing them later. The front camera uses an 8MP sensor. It also supports a wide angle lens with touch focus and the full HD video recording. You only get Simple and Auto mode here. Auto consists of the Beauty mode. Voice activation and the gesture control are also included, which make it easy to click photo in difficult situations.
Performance
There is no doubt about that the LG G5 being one of the better performing Android phones out there. In the start, we didn’t have any problems with the phone. The interface feels smooth and the finger print scanner is quick. Pretty much every app opens almost instantly. While the LG G5 can run apps easily, it heats up a lot. To see how much the phone can handle, we opened plenty of apps on the device. We had Facebook, Instagram and Twitter running in the background, while playing with camera. Even with simple apps, we noticed the temperature to rise in a few minutes of usage. The same thing happens even when you’re playing games. It’s prominent, mostly because of the metal frame. Regardless of the temperature though, the performance was pretty smooth. We ran a couple of benchmarks on the G5 and as expected, it pretty much aced in all of them. AnTuTu scores are at par with other flagship devices we’ve tested. The same can be said about the Quadrant Standard and 3D Benchmark test. In the 3D Benchmark test, the G5 proves to be one of the best smartphones for gaming. The Adreno GPU even lets it download other gaming benchmarks in the app that usually don’t run on most smartphones.
The gaming experience on the G5 is among the best. Heavy games like N.O.V.A 3, Asphalt 8: Airborne, Real Racing and UFC work just fine. It doesn’t take a lot of time to load games either. We ran all the games at the highest quality and still didn’t face any issues. The 5.3-inch screen looks good and the vibrant colours do justice to HD games. Add a gamepad to the mix and the experience is even more immersive.
It’s not just the games that look good on the G5. The 5.3-inch screen offers a good experience while watching videos and photos as well. The black levels are good on the display, and as a result the videos look sharp and the detailed.
The rear dual camera setup clicks great images. The wide-angle lens helps a lot in taking images outdoors. There is a little warping around the edges, but it’s not a very big problem. The details in photos is good. The exposure is spot on, as is the white balance. Focusing happens instantly in brightly lit rooms, which helps a lot while taking videos. However, the image stabilisation isn’t refined. Videos with movement in them, had a noticeable jitter throughout.
The manual mode might not offer a lot of flexibility, but it helps in certain situations. We mostly used it to get access to manual focusing. It helped a lot in macro imaging. Although the images look sharp and detailed, we noticed that the G5 doesn’t focus on objects up close.
The front camera takes amazing selfies. It has a pretty wide angle lens too, so you don’t have to stretch your arms too much, while clicking selfies. The touch focus works brilliantly and the exposure makes sure you get the right skin tone indoors. Images look sharp and have breath taking detail. The beauty mode makes a difference as well. It’s one of the few beauty modes that we actually liked using. It doesn’t make the image look unnatural or gaudy, like many other smartphones do.
Verdict
The LG G5 is an impressive device. However, its unique modular design doesn’t have a lot to do with it; at least at the moment. What makes the G5 a great smartphone is everything else. Its stunning build, doesn’t fail to grab attention when you take it out of your pocket. The hardware is top notch, which makes it great for gaming and multi-tasking. The camera is one of the best in its class. To top it all, the 5.3-inch screen ensures an enjoyable experience with everything you do on the phone. The modular design has nothing except the CAM Plus module, but that might change in the future, if LG decides to make more modules for the phone. That aside, we are still happy to recommend the G5 today to anybody who wants to buy a flagship device. For more information on the product click here .
