LG’s latest phone, the G8 Thinq, may be full of tricks, but can it compete with what Samsung has up its sleeves?
LG have been battling for years to overtake Samsung, and with the Galaxy S10 (series) bringing more cool features to the Galaxy line, LG would have to dig deep if they want to shift eyes towards them. And the phone that they hope could do that is the G8.
On paper this phone looks like it should be competitive. Specs wise we are looking at a 6.1 OLED (3120 x 1440) display, 128 GB internal storage (with support for up to 2 TB micro SD card), Snapdragon 855, 3500 mAh battery, 6GB of RAM, two rear cameras (12MP standard and 16 MP Super Wide-Angle), 8MP front camera, Android 9.0 Pie, and a few gimmicks (features of their own). The specs alone fits the description of a flagship, but the features are what will make it a must buy or bypass.
Let’s talk about the features. First we have the Hand ID. This features uses the unique vein patterns in your hands to unlock the device. The second feature is Air Gestures. Air Gestures uses similar technology for detecting your hand for unlocking, and allow you to make gestures to adjust the volume on a song or video, answer calls, and snooze alarms. The last feature is that it uses its Crystal Sound OLED Speaker (technology brought over from their high end televisions) to emit sound through the glass. This means that the front screen has no speaker grills. On paper these features are intriguing, but do they work?
And here lies the problem. The Hand ID seems to be giving a lot of users and reviewers fits. Without any indication where exactly to put their hand, users find themselves fighting in frustration to get that feature to work. And for most users, they will quickly turn that off and use the fingerprint scanner, face unlock, or knock code to unlock their phones.
The second feature, Air Gestures, work a little better than the Hand ID, but not enough to warrant being able to use the feature consistently. And the Crystal Sound OLED sounds a little muffled compared to the previous LG phones.
So with a phone that is trying to provide a nice alternative to the S10, LG may have botched this thing. The selling point can’t be the features right now, because if they are as buggy as shown by various Youtube Reviewers, customers will be rushing that thing back to the store with the quickness. And the specs are not bad, but they are not great also. The display is not that edge to edge display like being shown on the Galaxy, and the Galaxy S(10 & 10+) have two cameras on the front and three on the rear, compared to the one front camera and two rear on the G8. But where the G8 has a leg up on the Galaxy S10 is with the battery size and the price.
And this may be where the G8 could steal customers from Samsung, in the price department. Where the S10 is going for 799.99 (at the time of this article), the G8 is going for 649.99, a whole $150 difference. Question is if customers are going to be willing to take the known issues with the G8 to save $150 (with the expectation that LG will fix them in a software update), or will they just pay the extra money for something they know will work?
