My real life review and comparison to the S6 edge

[erasat]

After getting my LG G4 from T-Mobile yesterday and set everything as I wanted, I can say that after 24 hours with the phone I can have an honest opinion.

Look:

Both phones are gorgeous, the Leather on the LG G4 makes a huge difference, I thought that it s going to be bigger but it feels thin and not that big for a 5.5" screen size, last year G3 was a surprise because of the small bezels this is similar, one of the reason I decided to try it.

The unique and gorgeous design of the edge is amazing, and so far is taking me a lot of time to get used to the design on the G4.

Battery :

Sorry but for those of you that was thinking that the battery issues were Samsung's fault, sorry but it's obvious it's Google's.

I charged it while setting everything and charged it again to 100% and went to sleep, and just 5.5 hours later it has drained 6%. So far I've been using it non stop as I normally do every Saturday morning and it has drained 23% on 55 minutes of SoT, I'm at 70% already, I know that it drained 6% over night but still I'd be at over 85% if I unplug my S6 Edge when I wake up or 80% if let it unplugged all night.

So if that's an indication, no, it's not better on Standby than my S6 Edge as it has been draining 5-6% over 7-8 hours of sleep constantly for the past 2 months. This with the same amount of accounts and apps syncing on both as both phones are set the same right now, hence I can tell that so far, battery life is little worst than my S6 Edge.

I'm not liking how fast it seems to be draining while in use, it goes down in a hurry,. It seems to be averaging about less than 5 hours of SoT when in same conditions and usage I've bag being 5.5-6 his of SoT in the S6 Edge.

Screen:

This one is about even, I can't see any real difference other tham the colors, and they look gorgeous on each phone, Samsung's always over saturated colors on the S6 look great and LG really did a good job this time, not like the G3 last year.

Performance:

Sorry folks but I have experienced a good amount of lag in a lot of different places across the UI. I have done the same tweaks that I always do, and it seems to help but still I'm really noticing the difference between them, those that say that S6 lags and G4 doesn't are simply hating on Samsung.

As of now, my S6 Edge is showing that Exynos CPU and Samsung's own memory are a killer combo.

Pictures and videos:

I haven't done extensive tests, but so far both are very similar, can't really pick a winner yet, too close.

Extras:

Just hate that basically can't use Nova on this phone as besides losing LG's widgets I can't (haven't found a way yet) use the double tap to sleep (I'm not going to install a third party for that) and with thethe power button at the back, this feature is very convenient.

Helium is not working with the LG G4 and that simply means a pain in my initial setting. Having a lot of device in the past years I'm so used to have this and do a simple restore of my apps and data that not having it was a nightmare. Took me about 3 hours to set this MF.

Summary:

The G4 is a great phone, best LG phone ever. But it's not perfect, I'm seeing some glitches and lags in 1 days where I haven't seen them on the S6 Edge in 2 months. The removable battery and the SD card are nice to have but I really haven't missed any of those on my S6.

Extra battery, charger and the 32 GB SD card promo from LG and the additional 128gb card from T-mobile plus the good price ($600) make the deal very sweet but the uniqueness and gorgeous look of the S6 Edge make it easier to pay the difference in price.

Both of this phone are the best of the bunch, you can't go wrong with any of them but if I need to choose right now (I don't) one of them, it would be the S6 Edge.

Note: I've lost 7% of battery writing this post, and my battery stat is not showing nothing unusual, just the screen and it has been in 20% and Auto because I'm in a low light room and it goes dimmer than the 20%.

 

[belodion]

Give the G4 a chance to show what it can do....you can't necessarily tell much about a device, or indeed an OS, in the first few days.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[MDMcAtee]

I have Nova Prime...and double tap on the notification bar to put it to sleep. Easy Peesey.....

Posted with my awesome LG g4

 

[erasat]

Give the G4 a chance to show what it can do....you can't necessarily tell much about a device, or indeed an OS, in the first few days.

Posted via the Android Central App

I've always known that as a rule but for some reason, my past 2 devices (S6 edge and OnePlus One) were very consistant since the first battery charge, if the G4 battery life will get better, I hope it does because so far it looks worst than a lot of my past devices and today I'll receive my Alcatel Idol 3 and that one also looks like it's better in battery life.

 

[erasat]

I have Nova Prime...and double tap on the notification bar to put it to sleep. Easy Peesey.....

Posted with my awesome LG g4

I totally forgot about that, thanks, but not having Helium tu restore from this guy complicated real quick and from there it SAS just downhill.

 

[belodion]

It might just be worth Factory Resetting at this early stage while it's least inconvenient to do so. Even if it has no positive effect, at least you'll know that you've tried and have got that out of the way.

 

[erasat]

It might just be worth Factory Resetting at this early stage while it's least inconvenient to do so. Even if it has no positive effect, at least you'll know that you've tried and have got that out of the way.

Just did that last night after the first try, no difference.

 

[oldschoolsig]

As said before,if you have both phones go with what your eyes and ears tell you.
If you want to make the g4 work,I know I will get the anker battery as I would get an extra hour sot on it vs OEM on my g3. Its the reason to buy a phone with replaceable battery.

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

 

[anon(5630457)]

I am having a different experience with the G4's battery. It's performing so much better than the S6's battery. I unplugged my phone yesterday at 7 am and I didn't have to charge it up until I went to bed at 10. I was charging my S6 up at 3 pm. Also, I haven't experienced any lag on my G4.

Posted via the Android Central App on the LG G4

 

[aggie]

I have Nova Prime...and double tap on the notification bar to put it to sleep. Easy Peesey.....

Posted with my awesome LG g4

Been using nova for years and feel like an ***** for not knowing about that. Thanks!

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

 

[aggie]

I am having a different experience with the G4's battery. It's performing so much better than the S6's battery. I unplugged my phone yesterday at 7 am and I didn't have to charge it up until I went to bed at 10. I was charging my S6 up at 3 pm. Also, I haven't experienced any lag on my G4.

Posted via the Android Central App on the LG G4

Strange indeed. Did you ever try replacing your S6? I'm seeing almost the exact same SOT between the two both on T-mobile with a little more standby time with the G4. That said it's obvious none of the Lollipop devices are getting wonderful battery life. This appears to me to be all on Google. My Note 4 that I gave to my wife too a dip when upgraded to Lollipop. Nexus 6 didn't fare very well either. Big plus for the G4 is obviously that I can pop in another battery when needed. I've never been good at keeping portable chargers powered up and usable so definitely when I'm on vacation taking pictures and such the G4 would be the choice for me. Love both of these devices so much it really is a coin flip.

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

 

[anon(5630457)]

Strange indeed. Did you ever try replacing your S6? I'm seeing almost the exact same SOT between the two both on T-mobile with a little more standby time with the G4. That said it's obvious none of the Lollipop devices are getting wonderful battery life. This appears to me to be all on Google. My Note 4 that I gave to my wife too a dip when upgraded to Lollipop. Nexus 6 didn't fare very well either. Big plus for the G4 is obviously that I can pop in another battery when needed. I've never been good at keeping portable chargers powered up and usable so definitely when I'm on vacation taking pictures and such the G4 would be the choice for me. Love both of these devices so much it really is a coin flip.

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

I did not try replacing my S6. The couple times I did go into the AT&T store "ranting" about the battery life, the employees told me I wasn't the only customer ranting about it. It wasn't just my phone. Phones should not have 2550 mAh batteries anymore. This isn't 2006.

 

[angry english]

while i agree with you mostly, the lag part and hating on Samsung i disagree with. Ive had 2 S6 Edge so far, one with T-Mobile which was superb and almost lagless and one with my companies new provider sprint and this one on sprint is a terrible lag fest. When typing a message on that last S6 every 5-6th letter would miss completely as the whole system would lag up for a split second, meaning you sent messages that was unintentionally in broken English. For this reason i went out and paid full price for the G4, Plus Bestbuy are giving you a $100 giftcard even if buying off contract

 

[psp1232171]

I have Nova Prime...and double tap on the notification bar to put it to sleep. Easy Peesey.....

Posted with my awesome LG g4

Nice!

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[mikemeek]

Or install Screen off and lock from the playstore and under Nova gestures and inputs go to double tap,then to apps then click the screen off and lock app!

 

[erasat]

I posted this on other thread but I think is important I do it here also because of the relation with the topic.

When people question our intentions when we do comparisons, they forget that we can do it because people like me (tons here) and others that have multiple devices will basically set almost the same way all our devices with same apps and basically same apps running, so it's the best way to really compare devices, just like I did yesterday on this thread and the S6 forum. But when we do it, there are always a bunch of people accusing us of fanboys and liars if they don't like or agree with what we say.

Since April 2014 I've had the following phones as my daily drivers:

1-) Galaxy S5 - paid by my company, just used the Jump on it to get the S6 edge on April 10th.
2-) HTC M8 - late April 2014 - Used it for one week and return it to T-Mobile, didn't like the camera and was too big for me for the screen size.
3-) LG G3 - End of July - Great phone that I liked it but was having issues with the Bluetooth connection and was very active on my workouts and daily 5K running and I decided to keep the S5 because of the Waterproof certification, but I did like it more than the S5.
4-) Sony Xperia Z3 Dual - October 2014- Best phone I've ever had until recently, Insane battery life, almost 8-9 hours of SoT constantly. used it for 3 weeks until I got the regular Z3.
5-) Sony Xperia Z3 - End of October - Beg. December 2014 Same as above, used it for about 2 months until decided to try the Note 4 and sold it for a profit.
6-) Galaxy Note 4 - Beg. December 2014 - Great battery life but couldn't get used to the size, never used the S Pen and too similar to the S5 that I didn't like too much. Sold it in a week
7-) Moto X 2014 - Late December 2014 - Worst battery life on any phone that I've had (And still managed to get 4 SoT very often. liked the look with the bamboo battery cover but within a week the charger port got damaged and then the nightmare began trying to get service from Motorola, just decided to send it back for a refund, the one that took more than 2 months to finally get.
OnePlus One - January 15 - April 10 2015 - One of the best all around phone I've had, great battery life, between 6-7 SoT and for the price it's a killer. Sold it and got even on the sale.
9-) Galaxy S6 edge - April 10 2015 - Best all around phone I've ever had, replacing the Xperia Z3, constantly 5-5.5 SoT on weekdays with Bluetooth and Android Wear all day and 6-6.5 SoT on weekend when I barely use the Bluetooth.
10-) LG G4 - June 5th 2015 - Still testing, great phone but so far battery is not what I expected.
11-) Alcatel Idol 3 - June 6th 2015- Just got it yesterday, probably will keep it for my daughter, great great phone, so far very impressed with it, battery is superior to G4 and a little over the S6 but it has a bigger battery and a 1080p display, that by the way, great display and very bright, right now it's replacing the Oneplus One as the best budget oriented phone with great specs.

Well, I know that the list is long and boring, but what I wanted to show you is that when I talk about battery life is because I've had the experience with all of the above plus the ones on my family, BUT all of the above have been set the same, same apps and services syncing, basically same usage all the time, Bluetooth to my car and my watch all the same, so with that in mind and clear, no, G4 battery is not better than the S6 or a couple of other phones I've had (so far), it's almost on par with S6 and like I've mentioned before, for the past 2 days it has been worst, I hope it gets better, but so far I was expecting a lot more from it.

 

[itguyjax8430]

I think this is a pretty good review. I too came from the Galaxy S6 and most of what he says is pretty spot on. I have my own issues with the LG G4 vs my Galaxy S6. The touch screen sensitivity on the LG G4 is no where near as good as the Galaxy S6. That could be do to the process in which they lay the glass I am not sure. I installed an app called SGS TouchScreen Booster to remedy the issue. It seems to be doing better than it was but there are still some missed recognition when touching.

Performance wise my Galaxy S6 was way faster in a lot of areas. Apps tend to take about a second to open on the LG G4 vs just popping open on my Galaxy S6. (Side note, I have all my animations in developer options turned off on all the phones I use.) I will say that the camera seems to be a little quicker in processing on the LG G4 vs the Galaxy S6 and when I say quicker I mean by maybe milliseconds. The call quality on the LG G4 seems to be a little better on the LG G4 vs the Galaxy S6. The Galaxy S6 using HD Voice tends to be over modulated on calls where as on the LG G4 its soft and crystal clear.

I like both phones and I am going to stick with the LG G4 for a while to see how much I like it. Most of my phones have been Samsung phones and I have had a lot of them. I wanted to venture out and give the LG G4 a try and that is why I bought it. I may be a little biased towards Samsung but only in some areas as far as software and usability go. I use my phone a ton every day and pretty much do the same thing on all of the phones I have owned.

Just my opinion on the matter.

 

[ColdBrew]

I'm getting my Verizon version today and yours not working with Helium has me depressed... Have you tried FoxFi with it?

 

[murfaman]

I think this is a pretty good review. I too came from the Galaxy S6 and most of what he says is pretty spot on. I have my own issues with the LG G4 vs my Galaxy S6. The touch screen sensitivity on the LG G4 is no where near as good as the Galaxy S6. That could be do to the process in which they lay the glass I am not sure. I installed an app called SGS TouchScreen Booster to remedy the issue. It seems to be doing better than it was but there are still some missed recognition when touching.

Performance wise my Galaxy S6 was way faster in a lot of areas. Apps tend to take about a second to open on the LG G4 vs just popping open on my Galaxy S6. (Side note, I have all my animations in developer options turned off on all the phones I use.) I will say that the camera seems to be a little quicker in processing on the LG G4 vs the Galaxy S6 and when I say quicker I mean by maybe milliseconds. The call quality on the LG G4 seems to be a little better on the LG G4 vs the Galaxy S6. The Galaxy S6 using HD Voice tends to be over modulated on calls where as on the LG G4 its soft and crystal clear.

I like both phones and I am going to stick with the LG G4 for a while to see how much I like it. Most of my phones have been Samsung phones and I have had a lot of them. I wanted to venture out and give the LG G4 a try and that is why I bought it. I may be a little biased towards Samsung but only in some areas as far as software and usability go. I use my phone a ton every day and pretty much do the same thing on all of the phones I have owned.

Just my opinion on the matter.

Agree with this quite a bit. S6 is a beautiful device. You really cant go wrong with either.

That said my battery life with G4 (TMobile) has been much better than the month i had the S6, (yesterday among other things I streamed pandora on the golf course for 5 solid hours and then was on twitter reading and posting thru NBA finals. Bedtime at 1130p with 68% REMAINING) Call quality (especially via BT in the car) is better as is music output.

I wasn't a fan of the slippery nature of the S6 (and iphone) and prefer the feel of the G4. For those saying put a case on it...why bother with making an all glass and metal device then?

The battery/SD card fight had no bearing on my evaluation.

G4 is a new device and i expect a few first gen hiccups that LG will address. But to date the 3rd week i had the sammy there were far more hangs and even some white screens...

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[erasat]

I'm getting my Verizon version today and yours not working with Helium has me depressed... Have you tried FoxFi with it?

No need for FoxFi, so no, l haven't tried it.