So I was in a situation where I needed to trade in the G6 and the V30 seemed like the most likely choice. I had a real love/hate relationship with the G6, with the latter becoming more as time went on (anyone who frequented the G6 board probably knows my saga already).
Now, the V30 is an incredible phone. The one I had won the lottery and the display is actually really good. Even the blue shift is minimal, at steep angles and only with white screens. Really a total non issue. Performance is great, lightyears better than the G6... that thing would cough and spit up after running for a few days and sometimes launching the camera became more of a suggestion than command. UI performance is really smooth. I mean, LG has never been associated with fluid UIs. V30 fits that bill. It feels GREAT in hand and its surprisingly light.
And the camera. Now, the G6's camera is my biggest gripe with that thing. Everything was way too oversharpened and the halos just made things look weird. And noise was reduced so heavily that any sort of texture, from walls to faces, all completely washed clean of any depth and realism.
V30 has NONE of that. Well, almost none. It launches with immediacy and takes pictures the instant I tap that shutter button. Well, other than the somewhat annoying 'slide to zoom' function that had me dropping to the wide angle way too easily but it is quick. Outside it does wonderful; great detail, nice colors and the processing cudgel that the G6 slammed on every pic was nowhere to be seen. Even little bare branches way off in the distance look like little bare branches way off in the distance and not glowing wires.
Now, my biggest concern was in lower light shots since LG, for some reason, has stubbornly stuck with small sensors. Wide aperture or not, small sensor is small. But I found that it still did a great job. I took a shot under my desk at work and I could read the printing on the side of the power cable plugged into an outlet, V30's flexing its 16MP muscles there... my XL took a well appointed shot in the same situation but the high res detail of V30 just did a little bit better.
Now, here's the part where I get to the 'but...' I was sure I had what very well might be as close to perfect a phone as I could have hoped. That is, until I started taking pics of my kids in the evening and the V30 fell completely flat on its face. The well preserved skin tones and features that I saw out in the sun were now strangled within an inch of their lives. It's clear to me that LG does some sort of face detection and then applies what I can only describe as a what you would get if you gave a 2 year old a Wacom tablet and let them go at it in Photoshop.
Remember that story a while back where the person tried to 'fix' a fresco in Italy and ended up completely destroying the portrait of Jesus? Yeah, that's pretty much what happens if you try to take a picture of a person inside or at night.
And the crazy thing is that LG does this on purpose. If I took the same pic without the aforementioned child in the frame, details were crisp, noise reduction kept to a nice level, you name it. But if it sees a face in there somewhere.... *splat*
And since my wife takes way WAY to many pics of my kids in situations like this. It might as well be sparks shooting out of the charging port every time you unlock it. If I were to hand her this thing, well, next time you'd see ol' LeoRex, it would be on the side of a milk carton.
Needless to say the V30 will be going back before the return period expires... which is sad since it was SO.... VERY.... CLOSE to being an absolute stunner of a phone.
Now, the V30 is an incredible phone. The one I had won the lottery and the display is actually really good. Even the blue shift is minimal, at steep angles and only with white screens. Really a total non issue. Performance is great, lightyears better than the G6... that thing would cough and spit up after running for a few days and sometimes launching the camera became more of a suggestion than command. UI performance is really smooth. I mean, LG has never been associated with fluid UIs. V30 fits that bill. It feels GREAT in hand and its surprisingly light.
And the camera. Now, the G6's camera is my biggest gripe with that thing. Everything was way too oversharpened and the halos just made things look weird. And noise was reduced so heavily that any sort of texture, from walls to faces, all completely washed clean of any depth and realism.
V30 has NONE of that. Well, almost none. It launches with immediacy and takes pictures the instant I tap that shutter button. Well, other than the somewhat annoying 'slide to zoom' function that had me dropping to the wide angle way too easily but it is quick. Outside it does wonderful; great detail, nice colors and the processing cudgel that the G6 slammed on every pic was nowhere to be seen. Even little bare branches way off in the distance look like little bare branches way off in the distance and not glowing wires.
Now, my biggest concern was in lower light shots since LG, for some reason, has stubbornly stuck with small sensors. Wide aperture or not, small sensor is small. But I found that it still did a great job. I took a shot under my desk at work and I could read the printing on the side of the power cable plugged into an outlet, V30's flexing its 16MP muscles there... my XL took a well appointed shot in the same situation but the high res detail of V30 just did a little bit better.
Now, here's the part where I get to the 'but...' I was sure I had what very well might be as close to perfect a phone as I could have hoped. That is, until I started taking pics of my kids in the evening and the V30 fell completely flat on its face. The well preserved skin tones and features that I saw out in the sun were now strangled within an inch of their lives. It's clear to me that LG does some sort of face detection and then applies what I can only describe as a what you would get if you gave a 2 year old a Wacom tablet and let them go at it in Photoshop.
Remember that story a while back where the person tried to 'fix' a fresco in Italy and ended up completely destroying the portrait of Jesus? Yeah, that's pretty much what happens if you try to take a picture of a person inside or at night.
And the crazy thing is that LG does this on purpose. If I took the same pic without the aforementioned child in the frame, details were crisp, noise reduction kept to a nice level, you name it. But if it sees a face in there somewhere.... *splat*
And since my wife takes way WAY to many pics of my kids in situations like this. It might as well be sparks shooting out of the charging port every time you unlock it. If I were to hand her this thing, well, next time you'd see ol' LeoRex, it would be on the side of a milk carton.
Needless to say the V30 will be going back before the return period expires... which is sad since it was SO.... VERY.... CLOSE to being an absolute stunner of a phone.
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