The LG X Power Review
by Brandon Chester on August 31, 2016 9:03 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- LG
- LG X Power
Final Words
LG's strategy with their low-end and mid-range smartphones has been to segment them into products that all focus on a single feature. You have the LG X Style, the LG X Screen, the LG X Mach, the LG X Max, and of course, the LG X Power. I suppose that the thinking behind this strategy is that consumers tend to value one thing in a smartphone more than all the others, and by providing different models that focus on one thing you can hopefully attract the attention of the consumers who care most about that feature.
Unfortunately, I think LG's strategy has really missed the mark. Consumers definitely do value some things more than others in smartphones, but just by looking at LG's smartphones you can see that they sacrifice the quality of other aspects to focus on a single feature. No consumer wants a phone that only does one thing well, they just have priorities about what a phone should do best. In that situation, a phone that tries to provide a good all-around experience is going to win every time, because a smartphone that only does one thing well and fails at everything else is just going to frustrate the user and drive them away from the device.
The LG X Power does live up to its name if you interpret its name as meaning it has a large battery. In our WiFi web test and PCMark's battery test it topped the charts. However, the victory wasn't always by a large margin. Xiaomi's Redmi Note 3 was very close, and it's a phone that does many things well, which contrasts with the LG X Power that really only focuses on providing long battery life. To me this really signifies the failure of LG's strategy. You can build a good all-around smartphone that isn't really much worse than the LG X Power as far as battery life goes, and better in every other respect.
When you set aside battery life, the LG X Power is mediocre at best, and often a lot worse. The camera isn't very good in daylight, although it's better than I expected when shooting in the dark. The display is not pleasing to look at, with a low brightness, dull colors, and a ghastly blue cast. I don't know why the display was even produced, but it never should have shipped on a modern smartphone.
As for performance, it's just completely unacceptable on the North American model. The UI is janky and slow, and the process of opening apps is painful because there's not enough RAM to keep even a modest group of apps resident in memory. It's the only device I've seen where the DiscoMark launch times were barely any faster when launching apps that could and should have been in RAM. General performance within apps is no better, with the jankiness remaining and the SoC being too slow to keep up with tasks like web browsing and general UI navigation. These issues may not be as pronounced on the international model, but the fact that LG is shipping two vastly different models is a huge problem in its own right.
I mentioned this once before, but I don't think the LG X Power even needs its large battery to provide long battery life. The phone's experience is bad enough that users will want to avoid using it, and by virtue of that it will last a long time by being constantly idle in a pocket or a drawer. In that sense, the phone is really a failure at its one key task, because the phone has a giant battery but nothing worth powering.
I never mean to be overly negative in reviews, but in the case of the LG X Power it's really just a case of there being very few positive things to point out. It's a phone that can last a long time, but the user experience is poor and the phone is slow enough that it isn't plesant to use. The display is basically not usable outdoors, and it has a lifeless feeling to it that I didn't think I'd see on a smartphone again. There are just so many better options than the LG X Power in the crowded sub-$200 market, and some of them like the 2015 Moto G are a year old by this point. You simply cannot make a good smartphone by focusing on a single feature, because good smartphones care about every feature.
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Notmyusualid - Wednesday, August 31, 2016 - link
This is truly a talkers phone - on a budget! Can't argue with that price at all.But Josh - if you want to reivew a phone with a BIG battery, that isn't terrible, and seems to be popluar out here in Asia, I'd be happy to send you my < week old Samsung A9 Pro for review (assuming I get it back when you are done!).
Specs: 5000mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 (fastest charging phone I've seen), 6" 1080p, 16MP camera, 5MP front, DUAL sim slots, Snapdragon 652, 4GB RAM, 32GB internal + internal microSD slot.
Incidentally, PC Mark work score 5499.
Let me know...
serendip - Wednesday, August 31, 2016 - link
+1 on the A9. It's almost twice the price of cheap Chinese competitors like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 but it packs a heck of a bang with the massive battery and huge AMOLED screen.I can't make sense of this LG phone though. For $150, a Redmi Note 3 (again) uses a proper chip like the Snapdragon 650 instead of puny A7 cores that can barely do anything.
Cliff34 - Wednesday, August 31, 2016 - link
This is not the same price range as LG X right? Love the specs though.Notmyusualid - Sunday, September 4, 2016 - link
Indeed it is not.But performance on par with S6, and half the price of the Note 7.
rhysiam - Wednesday, August 31, 2016 - link
Thanks for the review!I know you can't review everything, but I'm wondering whether the ZTE Axon 7 is on your review-list anywhere? It's getting positive reviews elsewhere and I'm seriously considering buying one, but if I knew an Anandtech review was in the works or even on the horizon, I'd hold off for a couple of months.
Seems like most people suggest it matches or edges out the OnePlus 3 in most (not all areas) for a similar price.
JimmiG - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
Too bad there are so many compromises with this phone. I was hopeful when I saw it was coming out, because battery life is really important to me.I've always found the battery life that reviewers (including AT) manage to squeeze out of their phones to be completely unrealistic and made-up. If a reviewer gets 8 hours of web browsing, that typically means I'll get 3, maybe 4 hours. So 13.5 hours with the LG X Power should translate to at least 5 hours of actual battery life..
serendip - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
I'm wondering how AT got 12 hours for WiFi web browsing on the Redmi Note 3 and Meizu something-or-other. I can get 10 hours with mostly web browsing but that's with CM13, a custom kernel and lots of tweaks, whereas AT got their number with a stock MIUI install. How?Matt Humrick - Saturday, September 3, 2016 - link
We calibrate the screen to 200 nits at 100% APL and minimize background processes. If you have third-party apps such as Facebook installed, you're going to get less battery life. Even just being signed into Google will reduce battery life. We also turn off the cellular radio (we have a separate test for that) to isolate Wi-Fi performance.Again, aside from PCMark, the goal of the battery life tests are to try and isolate the affects of different parts of the system on battery life rather than tell you how long your phone will last on a charge, which is impossible. Each person uses their phone differently, has different apps installed and running in the background, different signal strengths for Wi-Fi and cellular, different screen brightness, etc.
nikon133 - Thursday, September 1, 2016 - link
Without googling around... anyone has rough idea how is this SoC comparing with SnapDragon 400 and Adreno 305 combo?My personal phone is currently Lumia 830 which runs above combo. While noticeably slower than my work phone, Nexus 5X, it is actually very acceptable and smooth. But SoC is couple of years old, if not more.
Just trying to put this new phone into correct perspective.
zodiacfml - Friday, September 2, 2016 - link
It can be fixed by a price drop.And, can't flagship phones have huge batteries? Flagship SoCs deserve fat batteries!
There is an exception for the S7 active but I don't need the builtin case.