- Aug 26, 2010
- 649
- 25
- 0
I've had my G2 for roughly 2 weeks. Overall I love the phone, but it's not perfect. I had zero intentions of actually buying one when I went to look at them, I left impressed by the screen, the size of the phone for having a 5.2" screen, the speed of the phone, knock knock, the camera and large battery. The rear buttons don't bother me at all, I find on T-Mobiles version it's easy to know where I'm at with them but to be honest with the Window case I don't use the power button much and find it plenty easy to use the volume adjustment in the notification tray or on back. I also don't use knock knock to turn on the phone often because the Window case turns on the phone when opened. I do use it to turn off from time to time, truly a great feature I'm sure we'll see on more phones soon. The response to knock knock has been decent from my experience but as others have said once in awhile you have to do it twice.
For me to make the G2 usable (the way I like) I went back to Nova Launcher Prime & SwiftKey. The stock launcher is actually pretty dang good but you can't hide labels and I just want to be able to do that, my other issue with the stock launcher is not being able to change the icon if you make a folder. That's really it and compared to my very old Galaxy S Epic from back in the day, stock launchers seem to have come a long way. One big bummer is you lose the transparent menu and notification bar with a 3rd party launcher (this can be fixed with root I'd guess). I found myself missing word spelling often with LGs keyboard for some reason but SwiftKey works as good as it always does. The stock keyboard has a lot going on with built in emoji, dedicated # keys and several themes available. It is a nice stock keyboard but SwiftKey and the light theme has a perfect look and feel to go with the G2 UI.
I love the quick memo app (it's much easier to take screen shots vs. the rear buttons), turned off slide aside (Googles way works fine for me by holding home key), haven't tried qslide apps much and haven't tried LGs voice (siri/s-voice) implementation. My only complaint is the notification tray by not being able to minimize brightness and volume sliders, all it needs is to be able to minimize and expand like the qslide apps and it would be perfect (I think Verizons model may do this). Several of the pre-installed apps can be removed (I removed Polaris viewer & dictionary off the top of my head) and on T-Mobiles G2 the extra bloat is very minimal as in all I noticed was a couple T-Mobile apps that you probably want or don't mind them. It's definitely different than the Nexus software which doesn't have anything extra installed although there are a few Google Apps on my Nexus 4 that are not removable like Currents.
I see a lot of gripes about the onscreen buttons and configurations. I'm used to Nexus's setup as well but this setup works fine. I added the quick memo button to mine as I find it very useful. The menu key will be around as long as Samsung is using one let's face it and get over it. I'm just glad there's no wonky HTC bar for a menu button or a 2 button phone.
The camera on this thing is leaps and bounds better than anything else I've used on a phone. It has its version of photosphere thankfully as well.
Overall I love the Nexus line but decided to go here instead. The screen which is the biggest thing we use on our phones is really perfect (bravo LG), 32GB is welcome when a lot of top phones are still giving 16GB and no SD card isn't a deal breaker for me as I've been a Nexus guy, LTE and HSPA+ are fast, the battery life is really great in my experience and the phone performance is everything I hoped the S800 would bring. I feel LG put a great phone out, shiny plastic and all. No android phone is perfect for everybody. LG got my attention with the Nexus 4 and got another sale with the G2. My only hope now is for updates but even if they are few and far between this phone does everything I need and does it well, Jellybean has been great for Android. Hope KitKat comes to the G2, let's do it LG.
Posted via G2 Android Central App
For me to make the G2 usable (the way I like) I went back to Nova Launcher Prime & SwiftKey. The stock launcher is actually pretty dang good but you can't hide labels and I just want to be able to do that, my other issue with the stock launcher is not being able to change the icon if you make a folder. That's really it and compared to my very old Galaxy S Epic from back in the day, stock launchers seem to have come a long way. One big bummer is you lose the transparent menu and notification bar with a 3rd party launcher (this can be fixed with root I'd guess). I found myself missing word spelling often with LGs keyboard for some reason but SwiftKey works as good as it always does. The stock keyboard has a lot going on with built in emoji, dedicated # keys and several themes available. It is a nice stock keyboard but SwiftKey and the light theme has a perfect look and feel to go with the G2 UI.
I love the quick memo app (it's much easier to take screen shots vs. the rear buttons), turned off slide aside (Googles way works fine for me by holding home key), haven't tried qslide apps much and haven't tried LGs voice (siri/s-voice) implementation. My only complaint is the notification tray by not being able to minimize brightness and volume sliders, all it needs is to be able to minimize and expand like the qslide apps and it would be perfect (I think Verizons model may do this). Several of the pre-installed apps can be removed (I removed Polaris viewer & dictionary off the top of my head) and on T-Mobiles G2 the extra bloat is very minimal as in all I noticed was a couple T-Mobile apps that you probably want or don't mind them. It's definitely different than the Nexus software which doesn't have anything extra installed although there are a few Google Apps on my Nexus 4 that are not removable like Currents.
I see a lot of gripes about the onscreen buttons and configurations. I'm used to Nexus's setup as well but this setup works fine. I added the quick memo button to mine as I find it very useful. The menu key will be around as long as Samsung is using one let's face it and get over it. I'm just glad there's no wonky HTC bar for a menu button or a 2 button phone.
The camera on this thing is leaps and bounds better than anything else I've used on a phone. It has its version of photosphere thankfully as well.
Overall I love the Nexus line but decided to go here instead. The screen which is the biggest thing we use on our phones is really perfect (bravo LG), 32GB is welcome when a lot of top phones are still giving 16GB and no SD card isn't a deal breaker for me as I've been a Nexus guy, LTE and HSPA+ are fast, the battery life is really great in my experience and the phone performance is everything I hoped the S800 would bring. I feel LG put a great phone out, shiny plastic and all. No android phone is perfect for everybody. LG got my attention with the Nexus 4 and got another sale with the G2. My only hope now is for updates but even if they are few and far between this phone does everything I need and does it well, Jellybean has been great for Android. Hope KitKat comes to the G2, let's do it LG.



Posted via G2 Android Central App
Last edited: