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LG G2 - Anyone else have one? Thoughts?

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That is a good deal in my book. King of the specs, light and compact (for the screen size). I am not too picky on cameras but the G2 did impress me with its fast auto-focus when I handled it briefly at a store.
 
jpeyton said:
It has nothing to do with smoothness. Any high-end 2013 phone will be smooth. An HTC One which came out in March, with a Snapdragon 600, is still extremely smooth (and it just got updated to 4.3 as well).

It's more an issue with the manufacturer's "skin", and carrier add-ons. For example, on a GS4 GPE, there are 8 quick-setting toggles. On a GS4 with TouchWiz, there are 18 toggles.

Google's development pace is very fast. 4.3 brought TRIM support, and 4.4 is supposed to be a pretty major update. Some manufacturers are better than others about updates; HTC only took 2 months to update to 4.3 while Samsung will take 3 months. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it is a lot when new flagship devices are coming out every 6-8 months, and new revisions of Android are out every 3-4 months.
Click to expand...

You're speaking of updates that very little of the market actually care about. People want updates, but then realize after it brought nothing. (4.3 over 4.2 for example, most standard users cannot even see a difference yet people whine when it will be released, but thats mostly on here, an Enthusiast tech site)

From 4.1 and forward, very little has actually changed from a user standpoint - Especially after 4.2.

KitKat is rumored to bring some new icons and or/skins and the odd feature but functionality will still be mostly the same for most.

I have owned a lot of high end devices on the market and flashed almost every rom possible. I can tell you that in my opinion, LG makes the best stock rom. It's just as bit fluid and fast as any pure stock Android rom from Google.


I have to side with the G2 being a better buy @ $400 vs a Nexus 5 @ $400. The battery, camera and build is worth it more to me (And most other standard users) than frequent software updates. I'm hoping the Nexus 5 camera will be better, because I do use my smartphone camera a lot and the Nexus 4 was terrible in anything but perfect conditions.

Ask 10 Android users at Best Buy next time you there at Random if they know what Trim is.
 
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mrpiggy said:
I had both the Optimus G and now the G2 on AT&T. While I rooted and played with ROMS on the Optimus G, I ended up back to stock, simply because it wasn't that bad and everything in the phone just worked better (signal, camera, battery life, etc) under stock ROM. Sure it wasn't the absolute latest or slimmest android ROM version, but lately, all the new versions don't seem different enough for me to even care as long as the core thing I care about work fine. Hopefully KitKat will show some changes that make it actually different and interesting again.

With my new G2, I did root, but simply so I could freeze some of the AT&T bloat, but the actual stock ROM again is pretty nice, so I don't have any urging to play with other 3rd party ROMS. Is the stock ROM perfect? No, but it's just as im-perfect as most others are in the long run and is acceptable in daily usage. Plus I don't have to be worried about what version of the radio or other driver issues that playing with ROM's had me fretting over. While playing with ROM's can be fun for a while with all the different options and doohickeys, eventually I just want my shit to work and be acceptable in daily usage. This G2's stock ROM seems quite good in that regard.

This phone has awesome battery life for the screen size and power. Yes the back middle buttons throw me off once in a while, but not enough to make me disregard the phone's other strengths.
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I 100% agree with you. I did the whole ROM thing with my Gnex sometimes wanting to throw the phone to the wall.

I got my VZW G2 for $99+30 upgrade fee and I received the phone last night and spent a solid 3 hours on it installing apps changing settings..ect I installed Nova Launcher and Swiftkey, change the icons back to Stock Android.

Also I cannot believe VZW had the back buttons changed from the stock G2, the VZW version is chincy.

The stock sounds are hilariously bad which is no biggie since I changed it, just wanted to mention.

I will eventually root to delete bloat and backup my phone, and to also tweak a little things on the stock rom(smaller nav bar with more options) but otherwise the stock rom is decent.

They already have 4.3 Roms for the phone so its not like you are absolutely stuck with LG's updates but if in the future LG does not update fast enough I might ROM it up if theres a must have new feature in Android.

Going to see what a full day gets me today. First impressions are great.
 
I'm in about the same boat as the poster above, activated the phone after work and only had a short time to play with it. I like it, it's not much bigger than my Razr, almost wish it were a bit bigger. I think the minimal bezel really helps keep the overall size down. I will leave it stock for now, tweak it and see how I like it and how the battery life is etc.

Don't mind the back buttons as much as I expected, they are better than the small side buttons I was used to. The display is gorgeous.
 
I got my mom one of these when the unlimited data glitch happened. She really likes it so far. The battery last all day for her and she uses it a lot (mail courier) and she says the screen is very nice. She's also pretty happy with the camera.

She said she was having some issues learning her way around it, but she was coming off a Samsung fascinate, basically the VZW SGS1, which I think was only running gingerbread so it was just a bit of UI shock for her.

I had to chip in $70 for her to buy it, but it was well worth it over the Droid Mini she almost got. I still think this is the best Android phone you can get right now unless there's some feature on a different phone you absolutely can't live without like a removable battery, mSD capability or a stylus.
 
I played with one when checking out phones and was pretty impressed. We ended up going with Note 3s, which is good for me but I think the other person would've been better off with the G2 since they don't really need any of the Note 3's features, and the exceptional call battery life would have been great for them. I was a bit concerned about the long term support, otherwise I'd have pushed the G2, but that might be a mistake if LG leverages the ties to Google and the Nexus 5 to make the software support good.

Especially at the $99 price you can find them for this is a very underrated phone. Definitely would recommend it over the GS4 easily and the Moto X (the X is a solid phone but needs to be $300 off contract or free on contract I think to be worth it). Even with the cheap back of the Verizon version it felt like a solid phone and I actually liked the in hand feel of it better than the HTC One (not that the One is bad but I think it feels a lot more plasticky than I thought it would).
 
I've had a bit more time to play with the phone.

The phone itself works okay for an android phone, and is mostly a function of the software so quirks it has are common to all android devices running 4.2.2. The speaker phone is average, and everyone seems to be able to understand me and I can hear them. Nuff said.

The camera is awesome for a phone camera. Best pictures I've seen out of a smart phone, iPhone 5s included. It has a bit of trouble with really low light, but the images are acceptable. I may be behind the times, but I don't see the need to carry a pocket camera anymore, this phone has blurred the line between $200 compact camera and built-in phone camera imho. Yes, it's still not quite as good as a separate camera, but if it's all you have you won't be disappointed by the images if you have time to frame the shot correctly.

The battery life is good, I used the phone from 7 in the a.m. until about 9 p.m. and it was at 48%. My old phone was always sitting on the charger at work and home, so this is a revelation for me lol.

I put a slim urethane case on it so I don't care if the backios glossy or not, and the physical size is acceptable to me. The buttons on the back I'm getting used to. I find that turning it on by tapping twice works well, but I still have to turn the phone around to hit the power button to turn it off, my fingers don't have the muscle memory for doing it automatically yet.

Apps are individual, so I won't comment on what I installed. I disabled most of the junk installed on the phone, customizing a phone of course is highly personal, and I don't like a lot of extra stuff running in the background. I can say "cheese" myself right before I press the shutter 🙂

Overall, I like it. It was $99 on amazon and activation was easy.
 
nOOky said:
I've had a bit more time to play with the phone.

The phone itself works okay for an android phone, and is mostly a function of the software so quirks it has are common to all android devices running 4.2.2. The speaker phone is average, and everyone seems to be able to understand me and I can hear them. Nuff said.

The camera is awesome for a phone camera. Best pictures I've seen out of a smart phone, iPhone 5s included. It has a bit of trouble with really low light, but the images are acceptable. I may be behind the times, but I don't see the need to carry a pocket camera anymore, this phone has blurred the line between $200 compact camera and built-in phone camera imho. Yes, it's still not quite as good as a separate camera, but if it's all you have you won't be disappointed by the images if you have time to frame the shot correctly.

The battery life is good, I used the phone from 7 in the a.m. until about 9 p.m. and it was at 48%. My old phone was always sitting on the charger at work and home, so this is a revelation for me lol.

I put a slim urethane case on it so I don't care if the backios glossy or not, and the physical size is acceptable to me. The buttons on the back I'm getting used to. I find that turning it on by tapping twice works well, but I still have to turn the phone around to hit the power button to turn it off, my fingers don't have the muscle memory for doing it automatically yet.

Apps are individual, so I won't comment on what I installed. I disabled most of the junk installed on the phone, customizing a phone of course is highly personal, and I don't like a lot of extra stuff running in the background. I can say "cheese" myself right before I press the shutter 🙂

Overall, I like it. It was $99 on amazon and activation was easy.
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These are my sentiments as well, it's a great phone, a few little odds and ends I wish were different, but overall a very good phone, with terrific battery life, and a gorgeous screen. I have already started to get the memory of where the buttons are on the back so by the end of the first week I am thinking it will be a non-issue.


The included charging cable is infuriatingly short per-usual, but nothing a $6 cable from amazon wont fix.

I am really enjoying the IR blaster, no more trying to find the remote, I can just open up the quick remote app and control pretty much anything that uses IR.
The LG PC suite is actually pretty easy to use and setup, and allows me to transfer movies/tv/music to my phone over my home wifi, so no need to hook it up directly to the computer.

OTG USB seems to work, but I have only tested it briefly with a 64GB USB drive.
 
I've Had to flash custom ROM(cm 10.2) Since I was having some bad issues with GPS and Media over Bluetooth.

The ROM fixed both issues but now I have some other smaller managable issues related to custom ROMs. But overall stock android is great on this phone.

Was super easy to root and flash.
 
Loving mine so far.

The battery life is by far the best I've used on a phone this size. (I'm talking you S4, HTC One, and Nexus 4)

This phone is very compact and feels solid in hand.

The Camera performance has me impressed - LG is really making strides here.

Overall based on the initial Camera/Battery life info on the Nexus 5 I think I made the right call.
 
When I played with it in the shop I kind of liked it but had two comments:
a) The sound quality was not that great (compared to my note 2). It is loud but pingy (if that makes sense)
b) I hate how verizon mucked (cheapen?) the switches. For a company that charges an arm and a leg for everything why do they also have to go and break everything (vendor roms/hardware).
 
The rear buttons are a non issue for me.

It didn't take long to get used to it, and the Double Tap on the screen to Screen unlock/screen lock works handy.

Way too many complaints on this issue IMO. (mostly from people who haven't used them)

RE: Camera. Level of detail is great. Low light performance is also very good so far. (for a cell I'm talking)

UI feels very fluid @ Stock. This is the first phone I've owned in a while that I haven't wanted to flash roms on right away. Sticking with stock for now.



One Complaint I will say - The Speaker on this phone sucks.
 
mnewsham said:
But the sound quality with headphones is much better, especially since the G2 supports 24bit/192kHz FLAC files.
Click to expand...
Actually, it's not "much" better, if at all. The Note 2 had an excellent implementation of its Wolfson DAC. And you aren't going to get even 14 bits of resolution from the hardware of a portable device anyway.

By all accounts the Note 3 has at least as good headphone out as any device today.
 
I didn't have the Nexxus 5 as a choice, so I'm glad I went with this phone. I can't believe how long the battery lasts! I'm always at 70% battery left at the end of the day. The more I use it, the better I like it. I have a few complaints, such as the volume down button doesn't activate the camera when I'm running other apps, the double tap sometimes requires more than one try, and I can't remove some of the installed apps.

I typically don't root a phone until the warranty is up, so I'll deal with it for a while. But really, the stock software isn't a deal breaker for a casual user like me anyway, I could see how it would bother a power user though.


thebigbolgna said:
Loving mine so far.

The battery life is by far the best I've used on a phone this size. (I'm talking you S4, HTC One, and Nexus 4)

This phone is very compact and feels solid in hand.

The Camera performance has me impressed - LG is really making strides here.

Overall based on the initial Camera/Battery life info on the Nexus 5 I think I made the right call.
Click to expand...
 
zerogear said:
So question -- people who got it from AT&T -- is the bootloader encrypted/locked?
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Like usual yes, but there TWRP works on the G2 which doesnt unlock the bootloader, but allows you to flash ROMs, kernals, back up, etc. which is as good as an unlocked bootloader.
 
I'm returning the iPhone5s I got from Tmobile 13 days ago today. I am leaning on the G2 or Note 3. Which would you guys go for? Hm...
 
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