Lg g7 thinq review in Spanish (full analysis)

New year and new LG flagship. This time we talk about the LG G7 ThinQ. Whose nickname already indicates that the shots are going to be focused on including some function that makes use of Artificial Intelligence. In this case, supporting the already great cameras it mounts. Beyond that, we will find that the G7 provides few but interesting news. Like speaker quality or maximum brightness. None of them are a true revolution but they demonstrate that the brand wants to go further. However, they need to look back if they want to go forward since they continue to make some of the mistakes already seen in previous models.

Technical characteristics

Unboxing

The LG G7 continues to bet, as in previous models, on a black box with a minimalist design that is so fashionable lately. Only a few silver letters with the model name contrast with the black uniform. Opening the box first, we stumbled upon the LG G7 well seated. After removing it and under it, we find:

Type C microUSB cable. Power adapter. In-ear earphones and spare rubber. SIM tray extractor. Quick guide.

Design

It must be recognized that LG does a great job and pays special attention to the design of this LG G7. It is beautiful, has elegant curved lines and its glass construction on both sides makes holding it a delight. The problem, to call it somehow, is that it is not surprising in this regard. This design, the materials and even the notch are characteristics already seen in many terminals. In such a high-end, LG should dazzle with something that no rival has.

Despite this, there are two aspects very well resolved in the LG G7: Unlike other terminals made of glass and thanks to the aluminum frame on the edges, the grip is really good. During our testing we found that it does not slip easily from the hands and it must be taken into account that, despite having a 6.1-inch screen and a useful area of 84%, the measurements are only a few millimeters higher than what we found in others. models with a smaller screen. The concrete dimensions are 71.9 x 153.2 x 7.9 mm. Some measures that come at the mercy of the 19.5: 9 screen format. To top it off, the terminal has an exact weight of 162 grams, although later in the hand it seems to weigh less.

On the other hand, although the footprints are slightly noticeable on the back, we have seen no signs of scratches anywhere. This means that both the Gorilla Glass 5 technology and the military resistance certification fulfill their purpose. In addition, as if that were not enough, the LG G7 continues to bet like its predecessor, on resistance to water and dust. Obviously, it has the IP68 certification.

The front of the terminal presents us with the same as most terminals in 2018. The notch dominates the top and includes the selfie camera, speakerphone for calls, and proximity and brightness sensors. The lower part has a small empty edge of 1 cm and the sides despite the 2.5D curved glass have a few millimeters of edge.

Surprisingly, LG decided to remove the power button embedded in the fingerprint sensor and place it in isolation on the right edge. The volume buttons are still on the left side and divided into two buttons. So far everything is within normal, the curious thing is the implementation of another button at the bottom of this border, exclusive to launch the Google assistant that we will talk about later.

At the top edge is where the noise canceling microphone and tray for two nanoSIM cards or one nanoSIM and one microSD card are housed.

Lastly, at the bottom edge, you will find the lucky 3.5mm Audio Jack, the call microphone, the microUSB Type-C port and the speaker for multimedia sound.

At the rear of the LG G7 are the two main cameras, arranged vertically in the upper central area. Next to them, on the left, are the LED flash and focus sensors. The fingerprint sensor, on the other hand, is located immediately below the cameras. It is true that his situation comes that neither painted to be used with the index finger, the problem is that closeness with the cameras. Sometimes, when searching for the sensor for unlocking, it is normal to run your finger over the camera and get it dirty. Other companies opt for the simple solution of placing the cameras in a corner of the terminal.

In our case we have tested the terminal with a very beautiful color to look at, in a greenish blue, but there are five other colors available: black, gold, gray, red and white.

screen

This time LG mounts a 6.1-inch IPS LCD screen with a QHD + resolution of 1440 x 3120 pixels. This gives a very high density of 536 pixels per inch. The quality of the screen is certainly very good. If we focus on colors, it should be noted that the LG G7 uses the DCI-P3 color space, a really wide color profile that covers 86.9% of the chromaticity and 100% of the gamut point. This gives us a faithful reproduction of the colors but without possessing a supersaturation of colors or contrast.

For video playback, the screen has the HDR10 and Dolby Vision standard that the G6 already had for the contents that support it.

Although the viewing angles are quite good, what this terminal can boast of is the brightness. Thanks to RGBW technology that adds a white sub-pixel, the LG G7 can reach 1000 nits of brightness in boost mode if necessary. Something similar to what could already be seen in other terminals when the sun shines heavily. And what better proof than these summer weeks on the Andalusian coast? The brightness of the G7 meets without disheveled, clearly showing what we have on screen.

In the software section, we find an option to change the screen resolution, although it is not an option that contributes much, not even to try to save battery power.

The adjustment of the screen color change is more interesting, and that is that we can vary both the color temperature and the different levels of RGB. We will have the option to choose between several predefined presets, the default automatic mode or the expert mode that gives the possibility of manually controlling the saturation, hue, sharpening and color filter.

One last option available is the famous Always On that you usually find in terminals with an AMOLED screen and that will allow us to show different notifications, the time and even access different utilities such as the flashlight, music player while the LG G7 is idle. It is even possible to perform extra functions by sliding your finger on the screen. A funny detail is that we have the possibility of adding a series of images that come by default and give an extra point of personalization to this screen.

Sound

As they already did with the LG V30, the company has once again put great care and care in the sound section. For this, the LG G7 includes a speaker called Boombox, with a sound power of 6 decibels. When you turn up the volume, you really notice that the terminal has excellent power and clarity. But where this speaker really hits the mark, is in its great resonance.

Thanks to its design, the Boomblox speaker uses the terminal as if it were a sound box. The resonances are 10 times higher than in other terminals. This is noticeable when holding it in the hand, you can feel the vibrations running through the hand. Although, the ideal is to support it on a wooden or metal surface so that it acts as a Woofer and achieves greater power in the bass. However, the LG G7 suffers from the same flaw that we saw in the V30. The speaker position can be easily covered with your fingers and set to find the best sound, why not add stereo speakers like the Razer Phone already did? This would have finished giving a point of perfection and greater surround sound to the multimedia speaker.

The thing does not end there, since if we connect headphones to the audio jack connector, we can activate both the Hi-Fi Quad DAC 32-bit and the surround sound DTS: X 3D Surround. In itself the sound with the included headphones is fantastic but if we activate these options we will have some extra adjustments.

With the DTS: X 3D we will be able to listen to the sound in an enveloping way and emulating different sources: Wide, the sound will surround us; Forward, the sound will come from a source in front of us; y From side to side, receiving the sound as its name indicates.

If we activate the Hi-Fi Quad DAC, we can choose between different sound presets: Normal, improved, detailed, direct and bass. We can also select one of the three digital filters: Short, with a more spatial and ambient sound; Sharp, with a more natural sound and Slow, with a clearer sound.

The last option will allow us to balance the earpiece of each ear separately.

OS

The LG G7 comes with Android 8.0 Oreo and LG's usual customization layer. As is the norm in this layer, we will have several main screens to choose from. One with all the icons on the desktop, another with a separate app drawer called LG UI 4.0, and a third with a simple design and large font, for seniors looking for simplicity and ease of use.

The LG cape is good in general, its use is very intuitive and you can even say that the style of the icons and animations is beautiful. On the other hand, there are not many junk apps, in any case company utilities to manage the terminal. Among them, the most important may be Smart Doctor, which is the typical memory, battery and storage manager. The good thing is that it does not usually bother and it is only activated when we access it.

In the settings we are offered a multitude of options, as is more and more usual: floating bar with different uses, game mode to take advantage of performance, automated mode to configure the terminal according to where you are or what you are connected to and there is an option strangely called: New Second Screen. Surely anyone who is told that, will run away. This option is neither more nor less than to configure the notch. What a way to call him. The notch is only seen in the main menu and in some applications of the company but if you wish you can change the color of the sides of the notch, leave it all black and camouflaged and even choose how the corners of this shading will look.

Apart from finding the AI in the camera, we can find it in the system gallery doing a curious task, organizing the photos according to what appears in them. A curious detail but one that attracts attention and makes things a little easier for us.

The google assistant is already incorporated in many terminals. The funny thing about this model is that they decided to add a button specifically for it. Something that for most people is a useless or wrong decision since, let's face it, almost nobody uses this assistant. It is true that, once you have the possibility to launch it, at the beginning or on special occasions you can make use of it. Voice recognition works quite effectively and Google tends to give more or less correct answers.

Not only does the button have this function, but if we press it twice in a row, Google Lens will open, which uses the camera to give us information about what it is seeing. A store, a book or a garment among other things can be analyzed. It is a curious thing but after all it does not end up being used much. Luckily, from settings it is possible to disable the function of this button.

In general, as I usually say if there are no bugs and the system gears are well optimized, the operating system works quite well without cracks.

performance

We find hardware very on par with the latest smartphones on the market. The famous Qualcomm SnapDragon 845 eight-core processor with four cores at 2.8 GHz and another four at 1.8 Ghz, and the Adreno 630 GPU. This obviously places him at the top of the tables, with 254875 points on AnTuTu. Something that is not surprising and falls within the expected range. And that we are talking about a terminal that has only 4 GB of RAM, a strange figure considering the amount of memory that other high-end models mount but the truth is that it is not missing at any time. As much the operating system as the applications and the games work in a fantastic and fluid way. At no time have we seen any slowdown and that is appreciated.

A drawback that can be attributed to the hardware is the slight overheating that the device may suffer on rare occasions. Curiously, it is a defect that we could already see in the LG G6. Little happens but it happens. Above all, now in summer, there was a punctual day in which overheating increased beyond mild. It is a point to improve for the future and although it does not influence the end use of the device, it must be taken into account.

As with RAM, we will only find a version with 64 GB of storage. An acceptable but low capacity considering that we are talking about a high-end terminal, what less than having included 128 GB? It is not something very understandable. Luckily, they give you the possibility to use a microSD card.

The fingerprint sensor works exceptionally quickly even with the phone in idle mode. In this regard there are no complaints. Biometric or facial recognition follows closely. It is good but not great. In good light the unlock is fast and good but as the light goes down or we have sunglasses, recognition starts to fail. Advanced face scanning is possible and help improve your effectiveness. We can also use the biometric sensor with the screen on or configure it to activate when lifting the terminal from the table using the accelerometers.

Camera

The fashion for the double (or more) rear camera continues to boom. Although what continues to matter is how they understand and optimize with the software. In this case, we find a 16-megapixel main camera, with a very good 1.6 focal length and another 16-megapixel secondary camera and a smaller aperture of f / 1.9 but with a greater angle, specifically 107º. Cameras similar to those of the G6 but opting for larger apertures, which means better lighting, especially at night.

Well- lit main cameras capture truly detailed snapshots that deliver faithful color and tone reproduction. Perhaps the contrast is the section in which it can fail a little, giving some image with a slight wash. Sometimes it will be necessary to use the HDR and in others, it will be necessary to jump to manual mode.

Without HDR

With HDR

With angular

The surprise, in my case, were the night scenes and it is that thanks to the large focal aperture of the main camera, the images are very bright. Sometimes even more than our eyes can catch. The sensor in these cases offers photos with great sharpness but also a grain that can go from light to medium depending on the situation. The secondary camera, in this type of scenes captures less light and less detail.

Photo taken at 10pm

main camera

With angular

The portrait mode so famous lately has its place here and the truth is that it does a great job overall with the Bokeh effect. Defocusing is usually done by very well separating the edges between the focused and the back. We will always have the option of slightly modifying the image to adjust it to what we want. In this regard, although the software sometimes lacks a bit, it must be recognized that even in night scenes and with the front camera, it does a good job.

Indoors

Back camera at night

At night with front camera

AI is the most important section of the camera, it is supposed, and for this there is an option to activate it. Luckily it is not always activated. Why am I saying this? Once activated, the AI launches a word cloud of what is possibly in front of it. Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it does not, but when you are sure of what is in front of you, you change the type of scene and with it the image adjustments. Sometimes recognizing an animal, baby, or group of people may make a good adjustment, but in general, the adjustments you usually select only overexpose colors or contrast, resulting in less natural images.

AI disabled

AI activated

AI disabled

AI activated

The front selfie camera has 8 megapixels, a not inconsiderable 1.9 focal length and an 80-degree angle. The quality of this camera is quite successful, it has colors and tones that closely match those of the skin. On the other hand, the details it captures are quite clear.

For video, we have two options: 4K at 30 fps or 1080p and 60 fps. The quality of the videos is very similar to that of the photos. It should be noted that stabilization only works when recording in FullHD and not in 4K. Among other modes we find slow motion recording, Cinema mode and support for recording in HDR10.

Battery

This is one of the weakest sections of the Lg G7. With its 3000 mAh lithium polymer battery and making normal use of social networks, web browsing and videos, the maximum autonomy has been 1 day and 6 hours with 4 and a half hours of screen. It is a somewhat disappointing but expected amount. That battery capacity added to the large screen resolution, the powerful processor and the use of the resonance of the speaker, already hinted that the consumption would be high, as much as the software and the screen save battery power.

QuickCharge 3.0 fast charge also falls within expectations, without being the best on the market. Charging 50% of the LG G7 takes just over half an hour and the full charge, just over an hour and a half.

Connectivity

If we talk about connectivity, we find the following options: Bluetooth 5.0 LE low consumption, Wi-Fi 802.11 a / ac / b / g / n / 5GHz, Dual Band, A-GPS, GPS, GLONASS, FM radio, VoLTE, NFC, DLNA, LG AirDrive, MirrorLink. Many of them are the ones that we usually find in most terminals but it is good to see how LG offers different options and technologies to connect devices, share files and screens.

Conclusion and final words of the LG G7 ThinQ

The LG G7 as we mentioned at the beginning does not offer great news with respect to other terminals. It has taken its predecessor and evolved it with the improvements currently present. That gives us a very nice device and very resistant to both water and shock and scratches. In addition, we found a perfect screen, without flaws, with one of the best brightness on the market. The same pampering can be found in the sound, which grates to a great level and is just as worked as other sections, unlike other companies that hardly pay any attention to it.

As for power, there is not much to say, wearing the best processor on the market says it all. Luckily they had to optimize the system well with those 4 GB of RAM if they had not been thrown on them like the lions. Nor can you forget that great section of photos with many good things and just an AI, the main course, which does not say as much as expected.

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What are the drawbacks? Basically, the battery is the worst stop. Disappointing in this regard, which should focus more companies instead of adding so much resolution and assets. The button to call Google assistant, has its one in wanting to enhance the AI in all aspects but as it is a feature still in diapers, nobody uses it and ends up being a button that hinders more than helping. Something similar to what happens with the notch. Slight overheating is one point LG should look at. It may not influence the use, but it does not give a good feeling.

It is not a terminal that is worth its starting price, as it happens with almost all, but at this point, it is possible to find it at much more competitive prices and then, when it is definitely worth it. Always taking into account its great characteristics and its just battery.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ Waterproof and scratch proof design.	- Autonomy can be better.
+ Great shine.	- The button for the assistant is left over.
+ Powerful and resonant sound.	- AI is not as efficient as it should be.
+ Very good camera.	- The terminal sometimes overheats.
+ Headphones included.	- Face unlock has room for improvement.