V 20 Pros and Cons

[Shawn Magm]

I've had one for the last couple weeks and still testing it out.

Pro:Much of what was said above. Double tap to wake and sleep are indispensable features for me.

Con:Lack of notification LED.

 

[datum9]

Removable battery > Wireless Charging

Yes and by far.

 

[chanchan05]

People prefer pretty looking glass phones nowadays. Removable battery phones lasts longer.

Come to think about it, they can make the batteries come out similar to how the G5 did and still have predominantly glass backs. Just make the bottom or top panel open on a hinge or something. Although that might lose the water resistance.

 

[datum9]

Very aggressive throttling of charging rates. It's QC3.0 compatible, but you only get full speed charging with the screen off and the phone cool

this is not a bug, it's a feature.
Fast charging is very hard on the battery. To get the most lifetime out of a Li-ion battery, you want to charge it gently, with say 200 or 300 mAh. What fast charging does is hits the battery with an Amp or 1.5 Amps to charge it as fast as possible disregarding long-term damage that it does to the battery cell.

I think the reason for fast charging is that many new phones have undersized batteries that do not support high resolution screens and run out of battery in 4-6 hours. There is nothing new about fast charging, it is not a feauture, it just means they put maximum amperage in it so they can charge it in 40 minutes versus 3 hours.

To get the most out of the battery, you want to charge it slowly, ideally taking 6-8 hours overnight.

I disable fast charging on all devices.

 

[datum9]

Pros: ZeroLemon makes extended 10,000 mAh batteries that run for 2 days. And you get a spare meaning you won't have to immediately recharge it.

Cons: Second screen. Not that the idea is terrible but it has very limited functionality, little that you can do with it. I found out what I really want to do with it, I cannot.

 

[vasekvi]

Yes and by far.

And yet here I am now using a V30

 

[datum9]

there is a V30 forum available, you know.

 

[ScottMGS]

It was weird at first but the Second Screen is indispensable for me now!

 

[datum9]

It is an interesting addition, yes. It doesn't do as much as i wanted to but it's a shortcut to things you need, like messengers and stuff.

 

[vonhizzle]

Second screen, removable battery, Quad DAC, and IR blaster and the main pros for me and the ones that can't be matched by any other phone to this day.

My only con is screen retention. It is not as bad as burn in since it is not permanent. Also it can be mostly mitigated with a blue light filter. I use "iBlue Lite" and only get retention on the home touch buttons (without it I would get retention on the whole screen within seconds and it was really annoying).

 

[tickerguy]

The removable battery is a big plus, in that replacing it is easy.

And the second screen is something I thought at first was a gimmick, but it's in fact far more useful than a notification light, especially with how Android mishandles that (compared against BB10); Android only shows the *last* notification to post on the light, so if you have three pending, for example, they don't cycle through in different colors. With a RGB light this would be quite nice but Android's internal notification system doesn't know how to do that, which bites. The second screen will show several notifications at once, and thus is much-superior.

When I eventually replace my V20 I will very, very much miss that second screen.

 

[snowmutt]

Love this thread. V20 is on my list for a possible replacement phone if I decide to do the "cheap" route. I hate spending tons of money on cell phones these days, and I like LG. Seems silly to some to be considering a 2 year old phone, but I really like what it has to offer and you can find them NIB for super inexpensive.

Not a huge camera guy, and most of these cons seem to revolve around the camera. I am a huge music guy, so this and the G6 are right up my alley.

 

[Mooncatt]

...you can find them NIB for super inexpensive.

There may be some legit sellers out there with old stock, but I've also seen some reports of non-authorized re-sellers advertising the phones as new and there's obvious signs that they were not. Definitely buyer beware right now.

 

[snowmutt]

Totally true, Mooncatt. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Greedog]

There may be some legit sellers out there with old stock, but I've also seen some reports of non-authorized re-sellers advertising the phones as new and there's obvious signs that they were not. Definitely buyer beware right now.

Yes! I bought a bad one that was supposed to be brand new. I found out the hard way that it had been previously water damaged, and had the solder reset at least once. I gave the seller the benefit of the doubt that maybe he got screwed as well.
However, I didn't give up. I bought a second one from a seller with a 60 day warranty. These guys told me up front that it was seller refurbished and may have some dings and/or scratches which didn't matter because the first one "DID" look brand new.
The second one arrived in pristine shape. Not a scratch. So.. Now I have backup parts from the original one.
Obviously, the mb was toast but everything else is good.
Only $249 Canadian a month ago.
I just love this phone.

 

[Greedog]

I agree with everything so far, so ditto the above posters plus these extras

Pros
-Rear curtain sync flash (manual mode only)
-RAW save mode for camera in manual mode
-Excellent video and sound recording quality
-On screen home buttons (subjective opinion)
-Customizable home buttons
-Qslide floating apps
-solid feel
-SD card slot
-I'm told I sound great on speakerphone (yes, someone actually wanted to know what phone I had when I let him know I had him on speaker)
-Quick finger print scanner response
-Power button on the back (subjective opinion)

Cons
-Very slippery body
-Can be too big for some and one handed use can be tricky
-No OEM calculator for Qslide
-Very aggressive noise reduction in the camera on auto mode.
-Very aggressive throttling of charging rates. It's QC3.0 compatible, but you only get full speed charging with the screen off and the phone cool
-Steady Record 2.0 for video seems buggy and may be best left off
-Volume buttons were returned to the side (subjective opinion)
-Limited OEM UI themes (third party themes are coming out in Google Play, though)

Things to watch out for (may or may not be a con depending on the user)

-Gaming battery saver may be on by default, hurting gaming performance. This can be disabled in the battery settings, but is not really advertised.
-Sprint removed the OEM music app
-Verizon and the unlocked version do not have FM tuners (not sure if any other variants are missing this)
-You can find and side load earlier LG OEM calculator apps to get it functional in Qslide if you really want that.
-Using manual camera mode and working with the RAW files in third party apps gets around the noise reduction problem, but may be more work than some would like.

Final word:
It's a niche phone for people that want lots of functionality for content creation, as well as performing well at most every other task. The biggest down side is the image quality in the camera auto mode. If that's your main concern, then I wouldn't suggest it. Otherwise, nothing else current on the market touches it from a functionality standpoint.

I'll agree somewhat about the camera. I tried using the Google stock camera app which does make a difference. However, there's no wide-angle camera support.

 

[datum9]

I went from LG V10 (bricked) to Note 4 to Samsung Galaxy S8+ and plan to go to LG V20 next.

LG seems to have a bit more quality issues than Samsung but 18.5:9 screen I don't like, nor fixed battery not the purposeless curved edge screen.

 

[datum9]

I've used the LG V20 for a few weeks now, and I love this phone. I dropped my Samsung Galaxy S8+ and it shattered the screen. So I got V20 as a replacement and I think I will keep it.

The pros, over the latest Samsung series are many:

* The power button is in exactly the right place, instead of on the side.
* 16:9 ratio that works well for me, I like using it in the vertical (portrait mode) and it's wider. Long and thin like Sx series doesn't work for me.
* Removable battery. I got ZeroLemon installed and it runs for 1.5 days easily.*
* Flat screen instead of that curved edge nonsense that complicates glass screen protectors and makes it even more fragile.

The cons are:

* It's a bit out of date software-wise and the update future is not certain.
* Less RAM than latest-greatest whatever.
* Reboots slower than Galaxy S8 series.

All in all I think it hits a sweet point in terms of price/performance ratio.

LG V20 is a nice phone in contrast to the latest trends of 18.5:9 or 19:9 screen ratios, non-removable low-capacity batteries, glass backs and curved edges. Last but not least it has become very affordable, you can easily buy a NIB/Open-box/etc. for under or about $200 or even less as it has been superseded since the fall of 2016 when released.

 

[datum9]

-Very aggressive throttling of charging rates. It's QC3.0 compatible, but you only get full speed charging with the screen off and the phone cool

As software developers say, it's a not a bug, it's a feature.