After several delays to ensure a higher-quality product, LG has finally released its G7 ThinQ in South Korea and the United Kingdom; it is set to be released in the United States on June 1 and Australia on June 7. It is LG’s 2018 flagship smartphone, its most powerful yet with the AI-powered Android Oreo operating system (which was the inspiration for the name ThinQ).
Price
- United States: $749 through T-Mobile and $792 through Verizon’s Sprint
- United Kingdom: ₤619 through O2
- Australia: $1099 AUD through retailers like Mobileciti and JB Hi-Fi
Display, Design, and Other Features
This smartphone boasts many new and/or enhanced features, like its Super Bright Display mode. This mode allows brightness up to 1,000 nits. To put this into perspective, other smartphones average a brightness up to 500 or 600 nits. This advanced brightness is good for activities like reading outside on a sunny day. LG boasts “superpixel” technology to take better photos in low-light settings. To prevent overheating and fast battery drainage, this phone is able to shut down its brightness after 3 minutes.
Its AI-enhanced cameras are another unique feature of this phone. It has both front-facing and rear-facing cameras. Its rear camera has 16MP dual lens for wide-angle photos. One is a normal lens with an f/1.6 aperture and the other a wide lens with a 107-degree field of view that is perfect for capturing images close to the camera. Its front-facing camera is 8MP. The cameras can record videos at: at 30 fps, 1080p at 30/60 fps, and in HDR mode. Scene-recognition AI helps recognize objects to adjust filters and brightness accordingly. This interface can also generate captions/words about the image.
Other options include:
- Right-side sleep/wake button for a better touch
- Left-side AI button. Single press activates Google Voice Assistance. Double press opens Google Lens
- 6.1-inch screen with a 1440 x 3120 QHD+ pixels resolution
- Optional notch at the top of the screen
- All-screen design
- Waterproof with an IP rating of IP68
- Available colors: New Platinum Gray, New Moroccan Blue, Raspberry Rose, and New Aurora Black
- Headphone jack
- Battery life of 3,000 mAh
- Quick Charge 3.0 option
- Wireless charging
- Snapdragon 845 chip
- Android Oreo OS
- Optional 4GB RAM with 64GB storage and 6GB with 128GB. Both options have expandable storage capacity up to 400GB for microSD card.
The Takeaway
While pricey, this phone boasts the ability to take high-quality photos and provide quick access to Google Voice Assistant. It has an amazing display with a sizable screen-to-body ratio. You can furthermore make it both notch-less and bezel-less for a smoother-feeling phone.
The phone does have a lower battery life (3,000 mAh) than some of its predecessors, like the G6 (3,300 mAh). This life expectancy is expected to worsen due to brightness for both display and camera use. While the AI camera can provide some fun features, there appear to be some issues with AI correctly identifying objects in pictures. You can avoid this, however, by switching to auto or manual mode.
