LG V10 review - The Verge

Unlike the Xperia Z5, which also has a superb camera sensor, the LG V10 isn’t hamstrung by poor software or performance. LG’s camera app is close to perfect. The automatic modes are a great entryway for neophytes and casual users, paring down the settings to only the most essential options. The manual mode flips that around with granular control over all aspects of the photo, including a manual focus option. I love both ways of taking pictures with the V10. In auto, this camera focuses quickly, exposes correctly, and processes in a flash. But sometimes I prefer to underexpose a scene to give it a certain mood, or to overexpose and warm up the colors in order to simulate a bright and sunny day. Those are just a couple of examples of what LG’s manual settings allow me to do, and the thoughtful and comprehensive nature of this app shows that LG can indeed do good software.

Editor markup for LG V10 camera sample photos. This is only visible in the story editor.

Good photography was already a strength of the LG G4, and with the V10 the Korean company hopes to extend the same quality and versatility to the task of shooting video. The manual controls like ISO and white balance are now video options too, and you can set your own shutter speed and frame rate. Along with LG’s new video stabilization, this library of options makes the V10 a compelling choice for anyone that wants to get more serious (or more creatively frivolous) about mobile video. Panning around with the V10 is delightfully smooth, obliterating the ill effects of unintended hand motion. It’s not quite so awesome as to let you walk and record without producing a jerky image, but in most circumstances, the V10’s video stabilization ensures a clean and very steady shot. As far as video goes, LG’s new system is nothing revolutionary until you capture your first unique video that only the manual controls could make happen — and then it’s awesome.

Apple’s iPhone sets a high bar for the convenience and ease of use of a cameraphone, and LG’s V10 comes as close as any other device I’ve used. LG’s phone isn’t quite as reliable as the iPhone 6 or 6S in nailing the focus every time, and it can sometimes make photos look obviously artificial by processing away the noise (and detail) that an iPhone would keep. But it is still such a joy to use and so damn good in the quality it produces. The V10’s manual flexibility is also an advantage over the iPhone, lifting the creative ceiling that most other phone makers impose. I feel empowered by this camera.

The less time spent on the gimmicky pair of front-facing cameras the better. They exist, one for individual selfies, another for group selfies. They work. But is there any reason why LG couldn’t split the difference with just one camera? Nope.

Also superfluous is the 2.1-inch secondary display, which sits above the main 5.7-inch screen. Think of all the low-priority notifications that Android doesn’t bother to show you live on screen — such as app installations or the currently playing song — and you’ll find them on the second screen. It doesn’t replace anything, because the Android status bar and notifications system still work exactly as on any other device. It duplicates, which is the very definition of a redundant part.

The biggest problem with LG’s second screen is that it’s not big enough. It’s supposed to be an always-on display with useful information when the main display is powered down, but I find it easier to just turn on the phone to check things instead of squinting at the dim, small sliver at the top. You can customize a set of commonly used shortcuts to fill the second screen, but they have the same problem, requiring more precision to reach and tap than just unlocking the phone and opening an app from the home screen. On such a large device as the V10, it’s silly to have a tiny info ticker that doesn’t fit all that much information in the first place. Switch this thing off and you’ll immediately upgrade your V10 user experience.

The story of the LG V10 begins and ends with its brilliant camera, but the connective tissue that makes this device a compelling smartphone is the software on board. Though it doesn’t ship with the latest Android Marshmallow, the V10 has pretty much everything Android users want and expect from their device. Well, apart from a clean and unoffensive skin. For all its sincere design efforts, LG continues to spoil rather than improve the look of Android. Case in point: there is a Settings menu for the Smart Settings inside the General Settings tab of the Settings menu.

I wish LG would do one of two things: abandon its Android skinning efforts in favor of shipping the stock Google experience (which the new Nexuses prove is pretty damn good), or hand the whole project over to its camera app team. Where the camera, photo editor, and gallery apps are understated, thoughtful, and always useful, the rest of the LG UI feels scatterbrained and disjointed. The circles of the notifications menu have no relation to the squares of LG’s default apps. The only saving grace here is Android’s inherent flexibility. Download Nova or any other third-party launcher and you’ll immediately upgrade your V10 user experience.

Other than its camera app, the thing LG has done right on the software front is optimize performance. It might be the V10’s 4GB of RAM talking, but this new smartphone is noticeably smoother in operation than its G4 predecessor, which has the same screen resolution and processor, but only 3GB of RAM. Having used the V10 as my daily smartphone for over a week, I only notice in retrospect how frictionless many of my workflow interactions with the phone have been. It doesn’t lag, stutter, or delay anything. HDR photos can take a bit of time to process on most smartphones, but the V10 chews through them almost instantly. I can multitask like a champion, darting in and out of apps without any hangups. Basically, the V10 performs exactly as well as you’d expect from a high-specced device. It promises speed and delivers it.

If there’s one aspect of the LG V10’s hardware that disappoints me, it’s the battery life. I get a day and a half of use on a single charge with this phone and no more. That’s actually par for the course, with the Galaxy Note 5 and Nexus 6P achieving similar results, but just because it’s a trend doesn’t make it a good one. Big phones should beget long battery life, however the current crop of leading Android smartphones (and the iPhone 6S Plus too, for that matter) just doesn’t live up to that standard. It probably has to do with all three devices having huge 5.7-inch Quad HD (2560 x 1440) displays, which burn through a battery quickly even if you’re not recording 4K video or tearing it up in Real Racing 3 all day. On the plus side, LG’s V10 is one of the last remaining flagship phones to still offer a user-replaceable battery as well as a microSD card slot for storage expansion.

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