LG has not had a good few years when it comes to their smartphones. Since 2016, the company’s smartphone strategy hasn’t been the best, resulting in their flagship phones missing out one or two critical features. The LG G6 was built like a tank but used a processor that was one generation older. With the LG G7+ ThinQ, LG is pulling out all stops and giving the people everything they could want. After spending some time with the LG G7+ ThinQ, it's difficult to dismiss this smartphone and here’s why.
Design and Build
LG utilizes Gorilla Glass 5 for both the front and the back, both tucked neatly into a beautifully polished metal frame. The unit I’ve been playing with is the Black coloured variant, which feels every bit as premium as a flagship should. The 6.1-inch display allows the phone to stay narrow enough to fit nicely in the hands. There has been a change in one functional part of the phone and that is the fingerprint sensor. On the LG G6, the fingerprint sensor doubled up as a clickable home button. That is no longer the case. This was something I particularly liked about the G6, but its removal means there’s one less mechanical part to fail here. Speaking of failures, you won’t have to worry about water damage as the phone. The phone is also MIL-STD 810G rated, meaning it can withstand a drop or two. This phone is built rather well and the only sad thing here is that it no longer looks like the G6, but more like the V30 with the back glass curving into the metal frame.
Display
Probably one of the most exciting things about the LG G7+ is its display. The Korean manufacturer has decided to go back to IPS-LCD panels for its flagships after a poorly received stint with AMOLED screens. But what you do get is a 6.1-inch QHD Display with 100% DCI-P3 coverage. In simple terms, this display is not only HDR10 compliant but also supports HDR content encoded in Dolby Vision. For the price, this is by far the most feature-packed display you can get, giving tough competition even to the more expensive flagships, at least on paper. We’ll be testing out the display to see if it can actually live up to all of its promises in the coming days.
First Impressions
The LG G7+ ThinQ is powered by the newest Qualcomm flagship processor the Snapdragon 845 mated to 6GB of RAM. There’s 128GB of onboard storage and Quick Charge 3.0 to quickly top-up the 3000mAh battery. Continuing the tradition of previous LG flagships, the Quad-DAC is also present on the G7+, utilizing ESS Technology’s ES9218P HiFi SoC with 32-bit stereo output. You also get a 16+16 megapixel dual camera setup on the back with a f/1.6 and f/1.9 aperture on the primary and secondary lenses. You also get OIS on the primary camera. The front-facing camera is an 8-megapixel shooter with an aperture of f/1.9. There is no doubt that the LG G7+ ThinQ is packing a serious spec-sheet and when we factor in the price of Rs 39,990, it becomes extremely difficult to ignore the potential value for money proposition the phone has to offer, especially in light of its nearest priced competitor; the OnePlus 6. For now, I walk away eager to figure out just how many of the expectations the LG G7+ ThinQ will meet, and on how many fronts it will disappoint.