Lg g8s thinq review in Spanish (full analysis)

LG G8s ThinQ is the bet of the Korean manufacturer to be again in high-end Android terminals. And it does not do it simply with its design in glass and IP68, but for benefits. 6 GB of RAM and Snapdragon 855 is its welcome card, implementing no less than 5 cameras, two of them front for the new Air Motion system that allows us to control certain functions of the device without touching the screen, in addition to unlocking Hand ID with its camera Z.

Do you think this terminal will measure up to its competitors? We will verify it with this in-depth analysis.

First of all, we are grateful for the trust that LG places in us by transferring its terminal to us for this analysis

LG G8s ThinQ technical features

Unboxing

The presentation that LG has used for its flagship consists of a rigid and solid cardboard box exactly the same as that of 99% of the available terminals. In other words, a quality case in graphite gray, very close to the dimensions of the LG G8s ThinQ and with sliding opening, a formula that never fails.

We open it, and find all the elements stacked one below the other, of course with the terminal as the main product first. Under this, we will have the cover and even lower the compartment for the other accessories. They all come packed in small plastic bags as they should be.

In this way, the bundle comes with the following elements:

• LG G8s ThinQ Smartphone 18W Power Adapter USB Type-A - Type-C Cable In-hear Earphone Set SIM Card Extractor Clear Silicone Case Microfiber Screen Cleaning Wipe User Guide

Well, for lack of things it will not be, LG has made an effort to give the user everything they need, including in- ear headphones a bit normal and with a Jack connector.

Design: continuous but elegant, although with great notch

The truth is that the design of the LG G8s ThinQ reminds us a lot of the previous generation, the G7, being practically the same with slight modifications. As a good high-end terminal, glass has been used entirely for its construction, with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection for the finishes. The terminal is only available in Black Mirror, a graphite gray finish with virtually the entire body in the form of a mirror.

In fact, LG boasts the resistance of its terminal thanks to having passed multiple military-grade tests. And it is not all, since it has IP68 certification with complete resistance to dust and complete immersion in water, being the maximum available.

It is a fairly compact terminal, with measurements of 76.6 mm wide, 155.3 mm high and 8 mm thick, camera included, weighing only 181 g. Well, it is a rather slim device, and its rear camera panel protrudes quite a bit from the main plane, which is good news. The low weight despite having glass is partly due to its battery, which in this case is 3550 mAh, a little smaller than what we are used to in terminals of this cost.

Its edges are all rounded 2.5D type for this 6.21 inch screen. The manufacturer has kept a huge notch on top, which is unusual already (except IPhone 11) but which has a good reason for this. And it is that here two cameras are installed , the IR sensor, proximity sensor and also the output of the upper speaker. An area quite full of elements that is completed with frames that are not too used and that give a useful area of ​​80.9%.

The rear area is practically a glass mirror, with its camera panel placed horizontally next to the LED flash. It is striking to have kept this configuration somewhat more traditional, although it is a differentiation tactic from the competition, avoiding the repeated vertical configurations or the "glass-ceramic" of the iPhones. Just below, we have the fingerprint sensor, very well located and perfectly accessible for the index finger of the hand.

Side ports and connectors

Now we are going to see all the sides of the LG G8s ThinQ, because we have a few things to say about it.

We start at the bottom, where we find the output for the bottom speaker, the USB Type-C port for data and charging, and also an interesting 3.5mm Jack that also remains in the LG flagship. The top is unremarkable, just the noise canceling microphone.

On the left side we find the two buttons to increase and decrease the volume and a third button for the voice assistant. A button not too useful unless it had the ability to be configured from the system itself.

And we come to the right area, where we have inexplicably exchanged the places of the tray for the dual SIM or Micro-SD and the power / unlock button. This button is very badly placed, in our hand it is literally not reached without losing contact with the fingerprint sensor. In my case I have directly chosen not to use it, and turn on the screen with the traditional double touch of LG. Differentiating yourself from the competition is fine, but this option complicates life a bit for the user who wants to use the phone with one hand.

The design in general we liked a lot, for its elegance and sobriety, if using bright colors the terminal is noticeable. The feeling in hand is quite good, although the glass slides a little and gets dirty just by looking at it, although this happens with everyone. A fairly thick transparent silicone shell is included, which is positive, even if it lasts for a couple of months at most.

Display and features

The screen of the LG G8s ThinQ itself is at the level of the best, both in image quality and brightness and resolution. LG has used a 6.21-inch panel with G-OLED FullVision technology made by themselves. The resolution we have is FHD + at 2248 x 1080p, which gives us a density of 402 dpi and a curious image format of 18.7: 9.

It highlights a powerful brightness that is around 600 nits at maximum, with a contrast of 1, 000: 1 and supporting HDR10. In addition, a fairly wide color space is ensured, with 100% NTSC and Gorilla Glass 5 protection . Experience has left us in no doubt about the quality of the panel, worthy of a high-end as we have already mentioned and excellent quality in colors and resolution.

If we are not totally satisfied with its configuration, in the "screen" section we can modify some parameters of it. A feature that LG continues to use is the Alway-On Display function, showing the time while it remains locked as long as we do not use the battery saving option. Similarly, we have capacitive multi-touch 10 points and unlock / lock with two taps.

The only thing that reminds us of the previous generation is that huge notch, we understand that the entire front is saturated with sensors, but perhaps the frames could have been optimized a little more in this regard. 80.9% of usable floor space is a bit small compared to the competition. Especially if we refer to terminals such as the Mi 8 T Pro or the OnePlus 7 Pro that are an "all screen" thanks to the retractable camera. At least they have the consolation that the all-powerful IPhone 11 features insultingly large frames and notch.

DTX-X 3D sound

Also in the sound system the LG G8s ThinQ has quite a bit to say, with not one, but two speakers at the top and bottom ends and DTX-X 3D Surround technology making use of Meridian for sound delivery. This system that integrates offers us a very good audio quality, taking advantage of the double speaker to reproduce in perfect stereo and at a medium-high volume without distortion. In fact, the sensitivity of the bottom speaker is about 103 dB

LG has also installed a dedicated DAC for the 3.5mm Jack that offers up to 7.1 audio channels, something that is not usually seen in this type of device. The situation of the upper speaker is somewhat moved to the right, not being too much when it comes to making calls, although the sound output will be done without major problems.

Is it at the level of gaming terminals? Well certainly not, the Razer Phone or Asus Rog Phone 2 are untouchable here, since in bass and maximum volume it is not exactly a portent. But there is a noticeable improvement over single speaker setups, good work from LG.

Biometric security systems: debuting Hand ID

In this LG G8s ThinQ we do not have two, but three biometric authentication systems that we can use simultaneously without hindering each one of them.

The system that opens in this terminal, and which is also one of its great novelties for this 2019 is the Hand ID. It involves unlocking the phone using a scanner of the veins in our hand. This is achieved thanks to the new Camera Z with a ToF or “Time of Flight” sensor with focal 1.4, located in the notch that records every detail of our hand and also supports gesture control thanks to its ability to record in 3D with help of an IR sensor.

This system is one of the big bets of LG and we value it, since the unlocking speed is very similar to face detection. The only downside is that the success rate is not as high as the other systems, since the placement of the hand must be done at a very certain distance from the sensor and we do not always succeed in this regard. In addition, with direct light and shadow in hand, it also costs you quite a bit.

The other two systems are indeed perfectly implemented, the first through a perfectly located and very fast rear footprint sensor. And the second is face detection with a brand-specific function that makes a 3D scan of our face. This unlock is also quite fast, although not TOP, and it does detect the face in almost any circumstance, since it allows us to add variants of our appearance such as the use of glasses and other accessories. This is extremely useful and very successful to overcome the barrier of mirrored sunglasses, and it does it with the screen off.

Hardware and performance

In this section we have more or less what could be expected in a terminal that undoubtedly belongs to the high range such as the LG G8s ThinQ. The set is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor along with an Adreno 940 GPU, being the most powerful configuration with permission from the 855+ and the impressive Apple A13. This 64-bit CPU has 8 cores, 1 Kryo 485 at 2.84 GHz, 3 Kryo 485 at 2.4 GHz and 4 Kryo 485 at 1.8 GHz, with 7nm manufacturing process as normal.

Along with it, a total of 6 GB of 2133 MHz LPDDR4X RAM has been installed, a configuration that may draw attention because we do not have a version available with 8 GB, more normal in this price range. Regarding internal memory, the only version available has 128 GB of UFS 2.1 type. It is the standard technology in the terminals, although the flagship of the competition is already using the 3.0 technology, which doubles its performance. For what they do not have enough with 128 GB, we have memory expansion capacity with Micro-SD of up to 2 TB in the Dual SIM tray.

Benchmarks and experience

Next, we leave you with the score obtained in AnTuTu Benchmark, the benchmark software par excellence in Android and iOS terminals. In the same way, we will leave you the results obtained in the benchmark of 3DMark oriented to games and GeekBench 5 that evaluates the performance of the CPU in mono-core and multi-core

The performance experience is very similar to any phone with this type of specifications, although perhaps the storage and the 6 GB will lower the marks a little. A beast in fluency and daily use and the same goes for games, there are the results to verify it. In this sense, we have absolutely no complaints, since the system is perfectly implemented, as well as its customization layer, very fluid and consuming very few resources.

Android 9.0 operating system

The operating system that is included in the factory on the LG G8s ThinQ is Android 9.0 Pie along with the LG UX customization layer. This layer personally I know well from the time of the LG G3, and the truth is that in aesthetics little has been updated, although it does in functions. It is a rather intrusive layer, not in the sense of having applications, but it does modify the main interface, the home screen and the configuration options a lot.

However, it is a very light layer, quite fast and well adapted, so we will not have problems in the sense of the overall performance of the device. In this case, the notification system is perfectly implemented despite that huge notch, not as it happens in the Xiaomi layer. Of course, there is only space to show a single notification. The options menu is quite intuitive and has its own search engine, so it will not be difficult to access what we want.

Air Motion system: your hand has the power

And another of the main novelties with which this LG G8s ThinQ terminal was presented is with the Air Motion system. It is an application integrated in the system that allows us to carry out a control by means of gestures of our hand without even touching the screen, although not at the level of "Minority Report".

For this, the terminal will again use the Z ToF camera and the IR sensor that it integrates into the notch, detecting the 3D shape of our hand and identifying our position and gestures to transform them into useful functions. The system will guide us perfectly during the configuration, for example, the way in which we must place the hand and the most annoying thing, the distance at which it will identify the gestures.

And is that the range of use will be a bit limited to 15-20 cm, over time we will get used to it, but we must adapt the position of the hand to the orientation of the screen and inevitably look at it and calculate the appropriate distance. The process will consist of placing the hand in front of the screen as best we can and after being detected make the appropriate gesture. The functions will be as follows:

• Quick access to applications (a selection wheel will appear) Capture the screen Control of multimedia playback Take or hang up calls and the same with alarms

It is true that when the hand pulls it, it is faster than Google Assistant, for example, but in the end we will have to touch the screen to unlock it if we intend to use the function. For now you do not have too many options and the control should still be done somewhat exaggerated and unnatural, so we hope that in successive iterations this will improve, because it has a large margin of maneuver and many possibilities.

Cameras and performance

The next section and always one of the most important in a terminal of this price is that of cameras. The LG G8s ThinQ features a triple rear sensor system for maximum versatility and a front sensor for selfie.

Triple rear sensor

In the rear area we have three sensors:

• Main Sensor: 12 MP with 1.8 to 78 focal length ^or stabilized and capable of recording 4K @ 60 FPS and slow motion content at 120 FPS. Super wide angle: 13 MP sensor with 2.4 to 136 ° focal aperture and stabilized. Telephoto: 12 MP sensor with focal aperture 2.6 to 47.7 ^or giving a 2x optical zoom.

With this pack of sensors we will have the maximum versatility available, and compatible with HDR, although it is true that the 2x zoom may be short compared to the competition. On the other hand, the quality of the photos is magnificent, with great detail not only in the automatic mode, but also in the portrait mode and wide-angle mode for being sensors with a large number of megapixels, especially we are surprised by the high quality of the telephoto lens.

We have Artificial Intelligence to take the photos and a very complete personalization panel in LG's own application, which we will see later in a little more detail. Similarly, portrait mode allows us to select the degree of blur we want in the image, although the sensor itself automatically adjusts this level based on the distance between the main object and the background, something that is done by measuring the distance using infrared.

We have the night mode in a separate option, with the ability to adjust the exposure as the competition usually does. The truth is that in the tests we have carried out in night scenes, the performance has been more than solvent, although we have discovered its weak point with the sodium vapor lamps (the yellow ones) where it gives us a very very yellow image, more than in reality. In general, the night mode has lights and shadows, obtaining very good photos on certain occasions and others that can be improved in more difficult conditions such as the one in this review.

In the other conditions we have also obtained an excellent experience, although it is true that not at the level of the best Flagship of Samsung, Apple, Huawei or the Pixel. We are surprised to be able to use a super wide angle with an extra depth of fisheye style, although the result is somewhat curious and artificial.

Regarding video recording, the good thing about this hardware is that it allows us to capture in 4K and 60 FPS, thanks to the integrated GPU. We have excellent optical stabilization working properly at all resolutions and FPS rates, both wide angle and main lens. The funny thing is that it only records in slow motion at a rate of 240 FPS, and perhaps a small drawback of the focusing system is that it shows that you are always trying to find a reference object, which gives the feeling that you are never still.

Now we leave you with some images of these rear sensors.

Automatic

Automatic

Automatic

Portrait mode

AI Cam

Wide angle

Wide Wide Angle

Zoom x2

Automatic

Automatic

Night mode

Night mode

Night mode

Automatic

Automatic

Dual front sensor with Z ToF camera

The one that really interests us about this LG G8s ThinQ to take the photos is not the Z camera, but the 8 MP sensor with 1.9 focal length and stabilization. The overall performance is correct, although it is noted that the detail in the image is not as good as the 13 or 16 MP sensors. As in the rear sensors, in portrait mode we can select the blur in depth.

Camera app

The application as we say is very complete, especially in the large number of adjustments that we can make in real time before capturing the image. In the lower area we have the typical image modes, such as the normal mode, portrait mode or a mode exclusively with artificial intelligence. The rest of it will be in "more" including the night mode that for me should be in the main menu.

The top is left for the general options, color balance shift to the front and the flash. The most striking we have in the image area, here we have available in one touch the different photo modes with their respective sensors. The most interesting thing is that dragging your finger upwards, we will take out a wheel of image options where we can specifically select the photo mode we want, thus merging the different sensors.

We liked the treatment of the options and the fidelity of colors with which this application works. The processing is not very pronounced and neither is the saturation of the AI ​​mode as it usually happens in the Xiaomi.

Battery and connectivity

Finally, we will see the autonomy section of the LG G8s ThinQ. The terminal has a 3550 mAh battery in which an 18W Quick Charge 3.0 quick charging system has been used and also wireless charging. It is a fairly acceptable power that will give us a full charge cycle of approximately 100 minutes.

In the days that we have been using the terminal we have experienced a very good autonomy despite not having those 4000 mAh that other terminals have. We have obtained an autonomy of approximately 8 hours of screen and 50 hours of total use with the brightness at half. In this cycle, we have carried out the corresponding benchmarks, the corresponding photos and the rest of the usage tests. During the night, we have activated the extended battery mode to deactivate notifications and the on-screen clock.

Connectivity is also quite extensive, incorporating NFC, Dual SIM and Wi-Fi compatible with 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac. Similarly, we have geolocation sensors compatible with A -GPS, GPU, Beidou and GLONASS. We have only lacked the FM Radio, since we even have a 3.5 mm Jack at the bottom.

Final words and conclusion about LG G8s ThinQ

We come to the end of this LG G8s ThinQ review and the overall balance is very positive. It is a terminal with excellent finishes, high IP68 protection worthy of a high range and an elegant and sober design. Although it is a bit continuist, with the horizontal camera panel and a notch and frames with more prominence than we would like. Something that we did not like is the location of the unlock button, very high and not very accessible.

The performance is as good as we hoped, with the Snapdragon 855 and 6GB inside. It is true that the scores are not as high as for example the OnePlus, and this is due to having a UFS 2.1 storage instead of 3.0. 128 GB is enough that we can expand with Micro-SD up to 2 TB, although a version with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB ROM could be welcome.

One of the great bets that differentiates this terminal is the integration of a 3D camera with IR and ToF that allows unlocking with the palm of the hand or Hand ID, and the basic control by gestures of the terminal, the so-called Air Motion, which soon that we practice we will be able to take advantage of it. Both the fingerprint sensor and facial recognition work perfectly and in all kinds of situations.

We recommend reading our guide to the best high-end smartphones

We have of course Android 9.0 Pie with LG's own customization layer. This layer is more intrusive than the others and perhaps not as visually beautiful as for example Oxygen OS. But its implementation is perfect and its fluidity more of the same. All this makes the autonomy with 3550 mAh very good, with 8 hours of screen without major problems. We have discreet, 18W fast charging and wireless charging.

To this we add a very good photo application, although it is true that the cameras are still a step behind the best, we are talking about Samsung, IPhone, Pixel or Huaewi. Not for that reason they are bad, on the contrary, the experience that they give us for their price is the best we have if we have to pay more than 600 euros, maximum versatility with the triple sensor, natural and detailed photos although the selfie is improvable and the night mode according to what occasions.

We always end with its availability and price, and this terminal is only available in a Black Mirror version that was released for 699 euros. Currently we can find it for a price of between 468 and 600 euros depending on where we buy it. Much cheaper than other flagships, although Chinese terminals are strong competition for it.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ ELEGANT AND DISCREET GLASS DESIGN	- VERY HIGH AND LITTLE ACCESSIBLE UNLOCK BUTTON
+ HAND ID AND AIR MOTION AS A BIG DIFFERENTIATION BET	- UFS 2.1 STORAGE
+ IP68 PROTECTION	- SELFIE QUALITY A LITTLE JUST LIKE THE NIGHT PHOTOS
+ SNAPDRAGON 855 + 6 GB RAM	- SOMETHING OUT OF DATE PERSONALIZATION LAYER
+ VERY GOOD AUTONOMY +8 HOURS OF DISPLAY
+ HIGH QUALITY SOUND WITH DOUBLE SPEAKER
+ ACCURATE AND FAST FACE AND FACE RECOGNITION
+ CAMERAS OF GOOD QUALITY AND VERSATILITY WITH EXCELLENT APPLICATION

The Professional Review team awards him the gold medal:

LG G8s ThinQ

DESIGN - 88%

PERFORMANCE - 91%

CAMERA - 88%

AUTONOMY - 91%

PRICE - 87%

89%