The LG G8 Review: Solid, But Not Great
by Andrei Frumusanu on April 30, 2019 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- LG
- Smartphones
- LG G8
- LG G8 ThinQ
Battery Life
The G7 didn’t have all too impressive battery life and the culprit here was the phone’s rather small 3000mAh battery as well as the very high base power consumption of the phone. The new G8 addresses the former issue with the inclusion of a new 3500mAh battery, however there’s still remaining concerns regarding the phone’s base power consumption.
The G8 seemingly continues to use LG’s own DDIC in the form of an SW43410, and this unit showcases the same issues as previous generation LG Display phones: The phone still idles at a black screen with a base power consumption of 580mW, which is extremely high and pretty atrocious.
Samsung with the new S10 generation seemingly moved on to a new process panel and DDIC generation as the phones base power consumption saw a significant reduction down to ~390mW. What this means for the G8 is although the battery is larger than the G7, we’re not really expecting the phone post very competitive battery results.
In the Web Browsing test, the G8 indeed slightly loses out to the G7 of last year. Even though the new phone has a bigger battery and more efficient SoC, it doesn’t help the phone as the new OLED panel is more power hungry than the G7’s LCD. For similar reasons and suffering from even high base power consumption, the LG V40 ended up with even more atrocious battery life results, among the worst of 2018’s devices.
In PCMark the G8 fares better than the G7 and V40, however in absolute terms still lags behind the newer competition from Huawei and Samsung.
Overall, it’s massively disappointing to see LG struggle yet again in terms of battery life. I think we can now safely blame this on LG’s display panels and DDIC choices which have not improved over the last few generations, and rather have seen degradations in terms of power.
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WildW - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
It looks the same as my G6. Maybe the screen and CPU are different but blah, it's a glass rectangle. I'm so bored of phones.Lord of the Bored - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
My first pocket computer was an HTC Evo 3D. The purple one, at that. I still miss the little guy.It was distinct even at the time, and the asymmetrical design made it easy to tell which end was up when grabbing it. And the purple looked REALLY GOOD in person.
...
I got zero usage out of the 3D screen. Neat idea, but being limited to a single model of dataslab meant that there was no software for it beyond the inbuilt camera. Even HTC didn't want to waste time on it.
nikon133 - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Considering how well G7 actually works for me in real life - with all the observed shortcomings - I am pretty sure I'd find G8 equally good. Only if LG would make an effort of updating phones.I can accept their reluctance to quickly release new OS... as someone said here before, better stable old OS than unstable, buggy new OS... but I cannot accept that my G7 still has only October 2018 security patch, and nothing after it. At least model for NZ/AU/HK/China market.
Wardrive86 - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Yeah I love my G7, amazing device. The lack of updates is surprising but not a big deal to me.andrewaggb - Friday, May 3, 2019 - link
I went from a Note 5 to an S7 edge, to a G7. Overall I think the S7 edge was a nicer screen and the Note 5 had the best camera. I don't like the G7 camera at all, though otherwise I think the phone is completely fine. Next phone will probably be Samsung again, maybe a Pixel if Samsung hasn't gotten their low light figured out by then.zeeBomb - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
My goodness...that display is just pitiful.Saxyboy - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Haha. The display miles aheaf of my samsung s8 display. I went to the store to upgrade to an s10 but came out with a G8 instead. The s10 screen looks washed out compared to the g8.Saxyboy - Tuesday, April 30, 2019 - link
Haha. The display is miles ahead of my samsung S8 display. I went to the store to upgrade to an S10 but walked out with a G8. The S10 screen looks washed out compared to the G8. I thought it was my eyes deceiving me but two reviewers on youtube confirmed same.zeeBomb - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
You could always change the display mode in settings, Natural mode helps best or simply use Vivid and change the white balance. I personally love screens with OLED, when calibrated right too, but I never disliked the display on my previous G device (I think the 6?) with its crisp, sharp display. Enjoy it Saxy!cthunder67 - Wednesday, May 1, 2019 - link
Lol! You are out your damn mind if you think that display is pitiful. Even negative reviews on the G8 praise the display. Better yet go look at the different reviews comparing the Samsung S10E and S10.