Note 4 to LG V20 or V30

[dlcpa]

Would you all go from the Note 4 to the LG V20 or V30 or forget about the changeable batteries?

 

[Laura Knotek]

Are you more interested in removable batteries or not? What are your personal preferences?

 

[JohnMcL7]

While it's frustrating to lose the replaceable battery, it's a V30 I'm looking at to replace my Note 4 - it has the bigger AMOLED screen and it's also getting a much wider release than the V20 so I think there will be more user support. Having said that though, the V20 is very cheap at the moment and still a very good phone.

 

[dlcpa]

And ironically the Note 4 wouldn't light up it boots but the screen doesn't come on. The lights on the bottom come on and you can hear it working but the screen is black. Now i'm on my Note 2. What the V20s going for?

 

[dlcpa]

Are you more interested in removable batteries or not? What are your personal preferences?

Laura, I'm a replaceable battery guy.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Laura, I'm a replaceable battery guy.

In that case, the V20 is your only option. I'm not expecting to see other new phones that have replaceable batteries, since even LG eliminated that option in the V30.

 

[dlcpa]

In that case, the V20 is your only option. I'm not expecting to see other new phones that have replaceable batteries, since even LG eliminated that option in the V30.

Wow, I thought the V30 went with replaceable batteries too. If not, their camera better be like a Nikon.

The Note 2 works for now so I'm sending the Note 4 back to Samsung. There is nothing about these new phones that don't use batteries that I like other than the fact that the camera is better and they are waterproof. But they're not very sleek once you wrap around a big *** rubber tire case. I have a Nikon d700 if I really want to take good pictures.

Problem is they can't make these batteries too long lasting because then they blow up. And with so much software accessing location devices and if you get lazy on leaving your screen brightness on high, you're going to run out of battery quickly, especially if you use it a lot. I just don't like the idea of running around with cables and a charger and a big 20,000 mAh power reservoir or sitting in Starbucks for an extra 45 minutes.

 

[Duard]

Hi, dlcpa. I'm no expert but according to what I read, the cpu in the n8 uses significantly less power than in the n4, and there are supposedly other significant power improvements in the Android Nougat OS. Although the display will probably be more juice hungry, the net of this is probably improved possibilities of making it through the entire day without a recharge, or if you need a recharge, limiting it to just one. That means that a 3kmah reservoir might be enough and a 5kmah would almost certainly do it. If you have a pocket big enough for the n8 then it is probably big enough for the reservoir as well, especially if there is one molded to the shape of the phone.

You should not need a charger and cables unless you need to recharge the reservoir and if that happens is means the reservoir is too small. Or, if you are traveling, not sure where you will sleep tonight then you need a charger and cables with your toothbrush but you were going to need that even if you have a pocket full of charged batteries.

To me, the big downside is, what if the battery stops taking a charge before I am ready to trade the phone in for a Note eleven? Will there even be anyone who can replace the battery without (a) mailing the phone in and living without it for a few weeks, (b) damaging the seal so the phone isnt water resistant any more, (c) charging an exorbitant fee.

My N4 is still working pretty fine except that when I touch the touchscreen I have to touch a little lower than what I am trying to hit. The same thing happened to my Infuse (aka Note Zero) and after a while if I wanted to tap something at the bottom of the screen I would have to scroll it up to the middle of the screen and then tap the bottom. If there was something nonscrollable at the bottom I was basically screwed. So I believe this will make me replace the phone sooner or later. Also, if security updates stop I am gone. I would not be comfortable running an N2 like you are doing, knowing how many serious security updates there have been since they last updated the N2.

Like you, I was looking to the V30 as the answer to my problems, and I am seriously disappointed that it's not. And I am sorry that this makes my know-it-all fanboi friend right when I said that LG will stay with replaceable batteries because of all the potential customers like you and me that the would loose, and he said "no way, Apple did it and everybody has to follow Apple". So now it's N8 versus V30 and I guess the consideration comes down to whether the stylus is worth an extra $300 or whatever. Probably not. In which case LG wins its gamble and drops replaceable bateries while still gaining me as a customer.

 

[pr3jker]

Great answer!

 

[natehoy]

To me, the big downside is, what if the battery stops taking a charge before I am ready to trade the phone in for a Note eleven? Will there even be anyone who can replace the battery without (a) mailing the phone in and living without it for a few weeks, (b) damaging the seal so the phone isnt water resistant any more, (c) charging an exorbitant fee.

This. This all day long.

I have few concerns about a [insert device with sealed battery here] being all-day strong on day one, month one, and even maybe year one. In other words, about as long as the warranty lasts.

But having to replace a $(high three digit number) phone (or pay a couple hundred dollars to have someone with special tools fix it) less than two years in because a $20 part wore out due to normal wear and tear makes about as much sense to me as welding a permanent casing around a 100,000-mile timing belt in a car.

I still have a Nexus 10, and thanks to the modding community it is running Nougat. And thanks to a clever "sealed battery" design that really means "you need to own a spudger and have 20 minutes to spare to swap this thing" it's also got pretty darned good battery life.

If my Note 4 wasn't the AT&T model, I could probably run something more current on that. Even as it is, it's still doing all I need - but there will come a day not long from now when work will require a more recent OS to connect to corporate things.

So now I find myself torn between keeping the Note 4 and holding out until the last in teh hopes that maybe someone will go back to replaceable batteries before then - or going with a V20 in the hopes that it will get more than a token Android upgrade (if that, LG is not strong in that area!) and I can get a couple of years out of it.

I suppose I could also wait until a few months after some other flagship comes out and check its iFixit score to see how hard/risky a battery swap is. Some of the "sealed battery" units really aren't that horrible. Some are - well - when instruction one says "set your heat gun to 900...." #NopeNopeNope

Decisions, decisions.... LOL

 

[datum9]

I went from LG V10 that bricked (the infamous bootloop issue) to Samsung Note 4 to Samsung S8 Plus back to Note 4 and my next upgrade is LG V20.

The 18.5:9 screen ratio appears to be smaller than 5.7" Note 4 screen. Especially considering that the lower part of the screen is occupied by the virtual keys. LG V30 is not any larger than Note 4.

16:9 ratio rules.

Curved Edge is awful.

Non-removable battery in LG v30 or all Notes newer than Note 4 is awful.

The virtue of Note 4 is you can buy it NIB for $100 to $150 and that's an awesome deal. That's where LG V20 will be in 2 years.