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Own(ed) the HTC One, S4 and now G pro. Here's my honest opinion

Ok so I have owned the S4 for about a week, the HTC One for about 3 weeks and the G pro for 2 days lol. I get myself familiarized real quick with phones so 2 days is already enough for me to give a good opinion. Before I give you guys my opinion let me just say that I am very unbiased, I could care less who makes these phones as long as the product is good but I have used Samsung phones more than any other phones and I do like them a lot. Anyways, here's my take ( my opinion) on these 3 phones:
Build/design/choice of material:
I will say that the HTC One takes this category. I have never really cared on how good a phone looks, I always pay more attention to functionality but the HTC One really deserves a lot of praises. Not necessarily because it uses metal but because of the design. It really does looks stunning with its curved back and the 2 front facing speakers. Talking about the material now, it looks and feels great especially when you pick it up in the morning and get that cold feel, really nice. Overall amazing looking device.
The galaxy S4 also has a very nice design. Yes it looks pretty much just like the S3 but its thinner, a little lighter despite having a bigger screen. The polycarbonate is just fine as it serves its purpose to provide a removable battery. The galaxy s 4 is the phone that feels the best in the hand, sooooo comfortable.
The G pro also has a very nice design, its thin, light for its size ( although I wish that it was just a little lighter but no big deal at all) and overall looks really nice. Much more comfortable in the hand than its competitor, the Note 2.
Button placement:
The HTC One is horrible in this category. I hate the power button at the top left with a passion. I despise it so much, it is so uncomfortable to reach. The volume rocker on the right hand side is just fine. Also don't like that there's no menu button.
The S4 is almost perfect, love the power button on the side as always, I also like the volume rocker on the left but I wish that it was just a little bit lower. Love that there's a menu button.
The G pro is the winner here, power button is perfect, volume is perfect on the middle left plus we get an extra button to access any app we want. Simply perfect. Menu button is great although i'm used to the back and menu the Samsung way ( the other way around) but no big deal, ill get used to it. Love the LED home button!
Display/screen size:
The HTC One display is OUTSTANDING. It is such an amazing display, I cannot emphasize it enough. It is absolutely jaw dropping. Sharp, nice colors ( maybe just a tad bit saturated but I love it). Overall its just an amazing display. You do need however to have the display at least at 50% if you want to see anything in direct sunlight. I like the 4.7 inch size but always prefer bigger displays.
The S4 display is the best Super Amoled display ever. If you're a fan of over saturated colors and deep blacks, this one is unbeatable. It is sharp, blacks are great, whites have a little blueish tint on them but not that big of a deal. Personally I think this display is easier to read in direct sunlight even at 0 brightness because the colors pop regardless. This size display is the best for an average smartphone in my opinion. Samsung did an amazing job at fitting a 5 inch screen on pretty much the same body size as the S3 and it doesn't feel big at all.
The G pro display is also INSANE! Despite having a lesser ppi than the 2 other phones, it is insanely sharp, text is crystal clear, colors are super accurate, viewing angles are excellent ( all 3 displays as a matter of fact). As far as screen size, this is my personal favorite ( im a sucker for big screens). It has the same 5.5 inch screen as the note 2 but doesn't feel too big, its just perfect!.
Overall all 3 displays are great, its just a matter of preference. If you take the display alone then I would give the ever so slight edge ( and I mean so slight that you cant measure it) to the HTC One, followed by the G pro and 3rd the S4 but again all are absolutely amazing. I f you consider display plus screen size, G pro takes it.
Performance:
The HTC One performs so well. It is super quick. Opening apps, exiting apps, swiping through the home screens, browsing the web, performance is nearly flawless ( literally). Once in a blue moon there can be a very slight hiccup but the average person wont notice it. ( Im pretty good at noticing these things).
The S4 performance is good but it does stutter...quite a bit. ( not lag where it completely stops but the animations can stutter a lot). My guess is that android 4.2 and the gazillion sensors are responsible. 4.2 is known to have quite a few bugs, as far as the sensors go they are always activated waiting for the user's gestures/movements so I think it might contribute to the stuttering. There has been a software update the past few days and I think it solved many issues. Don't get me wrong the S4 performs well but stutters a lot ( its hard to explain really).
The Optimus G pro performance is AMAZING. It is so fluid, I never had a device as fluid as this. Just an hour ago I was at work and I showed the phone to one of my co-worker who owns a nexus 4 and talks about how smooth and fast his phone is, I asked him to play with my G pro, you should have seen his face. First thing he said was " Holy sh*t this is so cool" referring to the lock screen animation and then " OMG this is so smooth and fast" as his fingers were gliding through the home screens. Seriously the G pro is INSANELY smooth, by far the smoothest device I have owned yet and I mean it.
If I had to pick a winner it would be G pro followed by the One and S4. The One might be a little quicker than the G pro but the G pro is so smooth and is also quick.
Sense 5/ Touchwiz/ LG's UI:
I like sense 5. Its very nice. Its very simple, in fact sometimes its too simple but it performs well. I thought that I would hate blinkfeed but I fell in love at first sight thanks to the impressive display. What I don't like is that people cant completely remove it if they don't want to use it, I don't like the fact that you have to double tap the home button to access the multitasking and have to close each apps individually. That is just stupid HTC, dumb. Love the music player, don't like that to add an app to the home screen you have to go in the app drawer, hold the app, drag it all the way to the top and then it lets you put it on the home screen, another dumb move. But still sense 5 is very nice nonetheless.
I always liked touchwiz. I thought that it brought many features to the table, I still think it does. But touchwiz is getting old, really old and needs a UI revamp ASAP!!!! Its pretty much the exact same as it is on the S3 and not too different from the S2 except the features. Speaking of features, the S4 has anything possibly imaginable. The bad is that many of them are really gimmicky but the good is that you can turn off whatever you want and I respect that, thank you Samsung for at least giving us the option to remove things unlike HTC lol. My favorite features on the S4 are Airview and multiwindow. Both extremely useful. Airview to access sub menus, preview emails ( don't have to open every email), works as a magnifier glass, works really well. Multi window takes multitasking a step further. Yes it is available on other Samsung devices but it is something that the S4 has over the G pro and HTC One. Air gestures, smart pause are fun for 15 min but then you wont find any use to it ( except for moving apps from one home screen to another with air gesture, pretty useful).
Lg's UI is awesome in my opinion. Starting with the lockscreen, love the animations, in fact I love all the animations of the UI. That's what I love about this device, you can pretty much customize ANYTHING YOU WANT. Colors of folders, lockscreen animations, settings in tabs or list, icons... you name it. Q slide is very nice but doesn't even come close to multi window. LG's UI is very close to touchwiz but they kinda created their own lane and they're doing a very nice job. Once again everything is so smooth, love the quick access button to access any apps on the phone. This UI is like a touchwiz refresh and feels very familiar but different and I love it.
The Gpro UI is my favorite because of the animations, the smoothness and the features. Touchwiz would have tied it if it wasn't for the stutter. Love sense 5 as well.
Camera:
S4 WINS HANDS DOWN, NO DEBATE EVER!!! Such a fantastic camera. The G pro camera is second and the One 3rd although the One is very impressive in low light.
Storage:
Definitely the G pro. Let me explain. Every android phone since ICS can only install apps on the internal storage except the S4 which just had an update to be able to install apps to the sd card. The problem with the S4 move to sd card is that the maximum size app is 40 mb. ( that's what I read) So considering all 3 phones entry models at 199$, the HTC One gives you 32 gig of storage but no possible way of sd cards, the S4 comes in 16 gig with half of it taken by the system and move to sd card only support apps that are 40 mb and under. The G pro comes with 32 gig AND has expandable memory.
Battery life:
Definitely the G pro but everybody knows that, no surprises here with its 3140 mah battery. Not too far behind is the S4 ( GT-I9500 exynos 5 octa version). Plenty of screen time as well and 3rd is HTC One with also great battery life but not better than the other 2. All of them get you through a day with normal use no problem but the G pro is the star of the show.
Music/sound/Speakers:
You already know, the HTC One is UNBEATABLE right now. I don't know if any of you had the privilege to hear the sound that comes out of the One speakers. The sound is so good and loud and clear that it literally puts a smile on my face, literally. It is so crisp, really HTC has Set the bar when it comes to sound quality on a smartphone meaning every new phones that come out will have to beat it to be impressive. Music through the headphones is also great, Beats audio is supported and HTC provides a nice pair of ear buds. Second place goes to the S4. The speakers are plenty loud, just not as clear as the One plus the placement is in the back so it can easily be muffled. Sound through earbuds is nice and loud but again doesn't match the One. Last but not least is the optimus G pro. The sound through the speakers is good ,not great but the volume isn't very high with the headphones. Plus the G pro doesn't come with any earbuds.
Development:
HTC One without a doubt. Not only that HTC provides a method to unlock the bootloader, but the One has S-off now. As you may know, S-off gives you pretty much complete control of your phone and lets you write things on the "write system partition". You can change boot animation, flash radios ect... plus it has super CID which lets you change the ID of your phone from for example an AT&T to the international version so when HTC pushes an update you'll get it on your AT&T phone despite it not being the international version. And the cherry on top of the cake is that any roms on the international HTC One can be flashed to the T-Mobile, AT&T and sprint versions ( some for the sprint versions). That is so amazing. The S4 (Gt I9500 octa core) has an unlocked bootloader, I love Samsung for that. Super easy to root and tools like Odin and CF root by chainfire are awesome. Development is good and will get better. G pro has an easy root method but as you all know the bootloader is locked ( damn you AT&T !). Thanks to thecubed, the bootloader unlock is just a matter of time and once that's done, everybody needs to step back cause the beast will be unleashed!
Call quality
No complains really, all 3 perform pretty well although the advantage goes to the One cause of the speakers for speakerphone calls.
Overall, all 3 phones are amazing. The One offers a quality device, amazing sound, nearly flawless performance and a fantastic display. The S4 is a worthy upgrade to the popular S3, pretty much same body frame but with a bigger screen, lighter, thinner and a bigger battery. Also the best Amoled display and the best camera on a phone yet.
And now the G pro, an optimus G on steroids just like the Note 2 is to the S3. Smoothest experience on a phone, so fast, incredible 5.5 inch 1080p display, fantastic battery life, customizable to the core, nice LED home button, very nice performing camera. My new favorite phone. Cheers!

That was one heck of a comparison... Great job!
Sent from my Xolo_X500 using Tapatalk 2

Nice review...

Thanks for the review! Just wish we had the community the note ii has
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vivebatu said:
That was one heck of a comparison... Great job!
Sent from my Xolo_X500 using Tapatalk 2
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Teardrop45 said:
Nice review...
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ethanemc505 said:
Thanks for the review! Just wish we had the community the note ii has
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
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Thank you very much fellas, really appreciate it!
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barondebxl said:
Thank you very much fellas, really appreciate it!
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2
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Just a query... Can you also post the average (I mean ball park without any usage qualifications) SCREEN ON times you for with the 3 phones before the battery ran out?
Tks again
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vivebatu said:
Just a query... Can you also post the average (I mean ball park without any usage qualifications) SCREEN ON times you for with the 3 phones before the battery ran out?
Tks again
Sent from my Xolo_X500 using Tapatalk 2
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Sure thing. Don't have an S4 screen shot though.
HTC one:
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G pro:
It's pretty good although I was on WiFi all the time. It takes time to charge though.
For the S4, getting 5hours of screen time with constant use is so easy and I wasn't on WiFi all the time so it's definitely better than the HTC one. Also battery charges pretty fast.
The G pro is amazing, it's better than the S4 (exynos version) but not by much, I would say maybe 30 to 45 min more of on screen time. (Note that I had a custom kernel on the S4). The G pro has excellent stand by time plus the battery charges SO FAST!
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

Do you think that the G Pro has the most reflective screen out of the bunch? It would make the screen hard to see outdoors and even under strong artificial light.

Sharpshooterrr said:
Do you think that the G Pro has the most reflective screen out of the bunch? It would make the screen hard to see outdoors and even under strong artificial light.
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Maybe yes but again I think everything is Crystal clear from 50% brightness and above in outdoors conditions. All 3 displays are phenomenal.
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

GPro's got a nice big battery, but honestly, it's got NOTHING on the Note II. I've easily done 48+ hours with 5 hours of screen-on time on my Note II.
If the OGPro were out same time as the Note II, it would've been a tough choice between the two phones. I bought the Note II because I wanted the biggest, highest-powered phone you could buy in December.

raduque said:
GPro's got a nice big battery, but honestly, it's got NOTHING on the Note II. I've easily done 48+ hours with 5 hours of screen-on time on my Note II.
If the OGPro were out same time as the Note II, it would've been a tough choice between the two phones. I bought the Note II because I wanted the biggest, highest-powered phone you could buy in December.
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The note 2 does have a better battery life yes but the G pro isn't too far behind. Right now I'm at 16 hours off charge with a little over 4 hours of screen time with extremely heavy use, only 1 hour of WiFi use, lots of iron man 3 and granny Smith gaming, lots of web browsing and tapatalk and 30% left so battery life is definitely not an issue on this phone but yes the note 2 is a bit better. What I like about these phablets is that they charge so freaking fast ( yesterday my phone charged in 1h20 min from 9% to full charge) and the phone never gets hot/warm. The G pro is the best phablet until the note 3 comes out.
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

Fast Charging is definitely my favorite feature of the NII and OGPro.
As for that battery info from my Note II, that day I played CSR Racing for about 2 hours, listened to music for 6 hours (about an hour with the screen on) and was on wifi for 90% of the time. Of course I had a smattering of text, maybe 20 minutes of calls and 5 or 10 minutes of browsing. I wasn't using any of the phone's radios heavily that day. The absolute best I pulled out of it was 35 hours off-charge, with 8 hours of screen time, and 12% left.
You're right when you say battery life is not an issue. I have no problems leaving it off the charger for a long time. My S2, I didn't like being more than 20 feet from a charger, and used to have it plugged in, in my truck for the drive to work (30 minutes each way, screen on with music playing).

raduque said:
GPro's got a nice big battery, but honestly, it's got NOTHING on the Note II. I've easily done 48+ hours with 5 hours of screen-on time on my Note II.
If the OGPro were out same time as the Note II, it would've been a tough choice between the two phones. I bought the Note II because I wanted the biggest, highest-powered phone you could buy in December.
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Honestly, my easily lasts 3 days with 6hrs of screen time, for example now I have 50hrs spent with 57% left and 3hrs of screen time. My advice: don't push brightness over 40% and turn off everything you don't need as explained here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2292012

Billy Madison said:
Honestly, my easily lasts 3 days with 6hrs of screen time, for example now I have 50hrs spent with 57% left and 3hrs of screen time. My advice: don't push brightness over 40% and turn off everything you don't need as explained here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2292012
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It's definitely possible. I use my g pro heavily because I know the battery can handle it. 7 hours on screen time is more than doable.
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

G Pro Wins!!
I work with 5 guys that have the S 4. My friend and all his employees att the Att store where he is a manager all have the G pro. Without a doubt I think the G Pro is the better phone. It seems way faster. I was concerned about not being to connect my G Pro to the Tv but I just found a slim port adapter that is supposed to work.
BUT!!!!! Be careful the G Pro glass is weak. I shattered it in the first week with a 2 foot drop waiting for my case from South Korea. Ballastic or Otterbox please get a case out asap!!!

drrandall1 said:
BUT!!!!! Be careful the G Pro glass is weak. I shattered it in the first week with a 2 foot drop waiting for my case from South Korea. Ballastic or Otterbox please get a case out asap!!!
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Broke my Note II's screen from about a foot-ish drop to concrete. That's how I got a OGPro. No phone is immune.

barondebxl said:
Ok so I have owned the S4 for about a week, the HTC One for about 3 weeks and the G pro for 2 days lol. I get myself familiarized real quick with phones so 2 days is already enough for me to give a good opinion. Before I give you guys my opinion let me just say that I am very unbiased, I could care less who makes these phones as long as the product is good but I have used Samsung phones more than any other phones and I do like them a lot. Anyways, here's my take ( my opinion) on these 3 phones:
Build/design/choice of material:
I will say that the HTC One takes this category. I have never really cared on how good a phone looks, I always pay more attention to functionality but the HTC One really deserves a lot of praises. Not necessarily because it uses metal but because of the design. It really does looks stunning with its curved back and the 2 front facing speakers. Talking about the material now, it looks and feels great especially when you pick it up in the morning and get that cold feel, really nice. Overall amazing looking device.
The galaxy S4 also has a very nice design. Yes it looks pretty much just like the S3 but its thinner, a little lighter despite having a bigger screen. The polycarbonate is just fine as it serves its purpose to provide a removable battery. The galaxy s 4 is the phone that feels the best in the hand, sooooo comfortable.
The G pro also has a very nice design, its thin, light for its size ( although I wish that it was just a little lighter but no big deal at all) and overall looks really nice. Much more comfortable in the hand than its competitor, the Note 2.
Button placement:
The HTC One is horrible in this category. I hate the power button at the top left with a passion. I despise it so much, it is so uncomfortable to reach. The volume rocker on the right hand side is just fine. Also don't like that there's no menu button.
The S4 is almost perfect, love the power button on the side as always, I also like the volume rocker on the left but I wish that it was just a little bit lower. Love that there's a menu button.
The G pro is the winner here, power button is perfect, volume is perfect on the middle left plus we get an extra button to access any app we want. Simply perfect. Menu button is great although i'm used to the back and menu the Samsung way ( the other way around) but no big deal, ill get used to it. Love the LED home button!
Display/screen size:
The HTC One display is OUTSTANDING. It is such an amazing display, I cannot emphasize it enough. It is absolutely jaw dropping. Sharp, nice colors ( maybe just a tad bit saturated but I love it). Overall its just an amazing display. You do need however to have the display at least at 50% if you want to see anything in direct sunlight. I like the 4.7 inch size but always prefer bigger displays.
The S4 display is the best Super Amoled display ever. If you're a fan of over saturated colors and deep blacks, this one is unbeatable. It is sharp, blacks are great, whites have a little blueish tint on them but not that big of a deal. Personally I think this display is easier to read in direct sunlight even at 0 brightness because the colors pop regardless. This size display is the best for an average smartphone in my opinion. Samsung did an amazing job at fitting a 5 inch screen on pretty much the same body size as the S3 and it doesn't feel big at all.
The G pro display is also INSANE! Despite having a lesser ppi than the 2 other phones, it is insanely sharp, text is crystal clear, colors are super accurate, viewing angles are excellent ( all 3 displays as a matter of fact). As far as screen size, this is my personal favorite ( im a sucker for big screens). It has the same 5.5 inch screen as the note 2 but doesn't feel too big, its just perfect!.
Overall all 3 displays are great, its just a matter of preference. If you take the display alone then I would give the ever so slight edge ( and I mean so slight that you cant measure it) to the HTC One, followed by the G pro and 3rd the S4 but again all are absolutely amazing. I f you consider display plus screen size, G pro takes it.
Performance:
The HTC One performs so well. It is super quick. Opening apps, exiting apps, swiping through the home screens, browsing the web, performance is nearly flawless ( literally). Once in a blue moon there can be a very slight hiccup but the average person wont notice it. ( Im pretty good at noticing these things).
The S4 performance is good but it does stutter...quite a bit. ( not lag where it completely stops but the animations can stutter a lot). My guess is that android 4.2 and the gazillion sensors are responsible. 4.2 is known to have quite a few bugs, as far as the sensors go they are always activated waiting for the user's gestures/movements so I think it might contribute to the stuttering. There has been a software update the past few days and I think it solved many issues. Don't get me wrong the S4 performs well but stutters a lot ( its hard to explain really).
The Optimus G pro performance is AMAZING. It is so fluid, I never had a device as fluid as this. Just an hour ago I was at work and I showed the phone to one of my co-worker who owns a nexus 4 and talks about how smooth and fast his phone is, I asked him to play with my G pro, you should have seen his face. First thing he said was " Holy sh*t this is so cool" referring to the lock screen animation and then " OMG this is so smooth and fast" as his fingers were gliding through the home screens. Seriously the G pro is INSANELY smooth, by far the smoothest device I have owned yet and I mean it.
If I had to pick a winner it would be G pro followed by the One and S4. The One might be a little quicker than the G pro but the G pro is so smooth and is also quick.
Sense 5/ Touchwiz/ LG's UI:
I like sense 5. Its very nice. Its very simple, in fact sometimes its too simple but it performs well. I thought that I would hate blinkfeed but I fell in love at first sight thanks to the impressive display. What I don't like is that people cant completely remove blinkfeed if they don't want to use it, I don't like the fact that you have to double tap the home button to access the multitasking and have to close each apps individually. That is just stupid HTC, dumb. Love the music player, don't like that to add an app to the home screen you have to go in the app drawer, hold the app, drag it all the way to the top and then it lets you put it on the home screen, another dumb move. But still sense 5 is very nice nonetheless.
I always liked touchwiz. I thought that it brought many features to the table, I still think it does. But touchwiz is getting old, really old and needs a UI revamp ASAP!!!! Its pretty much the exact same as it is on the S3 and not too different from the S2 except the features. Speaking of features, the S4 has anything possibly imaginable. The bad is that many of them are really gimmicky but the good is that you can turn off whatever you want and I respect that, thank you Samsung for at least giving us the option to remove things unlike HTC lol. My favorite features on the S4 are Airview and multiwindow. Both extremely useful. Airview to access sub menus, preview emails ( don't have to open every email), works as a magnifier glass, works really well. Multi window takes multitasking a step further. Yes it is available on other Samsung devices but it is something that the S4 has over the G pro and HTC One. Air gestures, smart pause are fun for 15 min but then you wont find any use to it ( except for moving apps from one home screen to another with air gesture, pretty useful).
Lg's UI is awesome in my opinion. Starting with the lockscreen, love the animations, in fact I love all the animations of the UI. That's what I love about this device, you can pretty much customize ANYTHING YOU WANT. Colors of folders, lockscreen animations, settings in tabs or list, icons... you name it. Q slide is very nice but doesn't even come close to multi window. LG's UI is very close to touchwiz but they kinda created their own lane and they're doing a very nice job. Once again everything is so smooth, love the quick access button to access any apps on the phone. This UI is like a touchwiz refresh and feels very familiar but different and I love it.
The Gpro UI is my favorite because of the animation, the smoothness and the features. Touchwiz would have tied it if it wasn't for the stutter. Love sense 5 as well.
Camera:
S4 WINS HANDS DOWN, NO DEBATE EVER!!! Such a fantastic camera. The G pro camera is second and the One 3rd although the One is very impressive in low light.
Storage:
Definitely the G pro. Let me explain. Every android phone since ICS can only install apps on the internal storage except the S4 which just had an update to be able to install apps to the sd card. The problem with the S4 move to sd card is that the maximum size app is 40 mb. ( that's what I read) So considering all 3 phones entry model at 199$, the HTC One gives you 32 gig of storage but no possible way of sd cards, the S4 comes in 16 gig with half of it taken by the system and move to sd card only support apps that are 40 mb and under. The G pro comes with 32 gig AND has expandable memory.
Battery life:
Definitely the G pro but everybody knows that, no surprises here with its 3140 mah battery. Not too far behind is the S4 ( GT-I9500 exynos 5 octa version). Plenty of screen time as well and 3rd is HTC One with also great battery life but not better than the other 2. All of them get you through a day with normal use no problem but the G pro is the star of the show.
Music/sound/Speakers:
You already know, the HTC One is UNBEATABLE right now. I don't know if any of you had the privilege to hear the sound that comes out of the One speakers. The sound is so good and loud and clear that it literally puts a smile on my face, literally. It is so crisp, really HTC has Set the bar when it comes to sound quality on a smartphone meaning every new phones that come out will have to beat it to be impressive. Music through the headphones is also great, Beats audio is supported and HTC provides a nice pair of ear buds. Second place goes to the S4. The speakers are plenty loud, just not as clear as the One plus the placement is in the back so it can easily be muffled. Sound through earbuds is nice and loud but again doesn't match the One. Last but not least is the optimus G pro. The sound through the speakers is as loud as the S4 but the volume isn't as high with the headphones. Plus the G pro doesn't come with any earbuds.
Development:
HTC One without a doubt. Not only that HTC provides a method to unlock the bootloader, but the One has S-off now. As you may know, S-off gives you pretty much complete control of your phone and lets you write things on the "write system partition". You can change boot animation, flash radios ect... plus it has super CID which lets you change the ID of your phone from for example an AT&T to the international version so when HTC pushes an update you'll get it on your AT&T phone despite it not being the international version. And the cherry on top of the cake is that any roms on the international HTC One can be flashed to the T-Mobile, AT&T and sprint versions ( some for the sprint versions). That is so amazing. The S4 (Gt I9500 octa core) has an unlocked botloader, I love Samsung for that. Super easy to root and tools like Odin are great plus there is CF root by chainfire. Development is good and will get better. G pro has an easy root method but as you all now the bootloader is locked ( damn you AT&T !). Thanks to thecubed, the bootloader unlock is just a matter of time and once that's done, everybody needs to step back cause the beast will be unleashed!
Overall, all 3 phones are amazing. The One offers a quality device, amazing sound, nearly flawless performance and a fantastic display. The S4 is a worthy upgrade to the popular S3, pretty much same body frame but with a bigger screen, lighter, thinner and a bigger battery. Also the best Amoled display and the best camera on a phone yet.
And now the G pro, an optimus G on steroids just like the Note 2 is to the S3. Smoothest experience on a phone, so fast, incredible 5.5 inch 1080p display, fantastic battery life, customizable to the core, nice LED home button, very nice performing camera. My new favorite phone. Cheers!
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I disagree on camera quality. HTC One pictures look better overall, even if they are lacking a little detail. The G Pro tends to blur the photos a bit much and you lose a lot of detail that you should have on a 13mp camera.
The GS4 definitely wins on quality, however the camera is slow. Like the rest of the UI, it lags and takes significantly longer to launch and take a picture. This translates to missed opportunities and blurry action shots. I don't have this issue with either the One or the G Pro, although the One is the champ in the fast camera department. Honestly, if Samsung could optimize Touchwize and speed up the GS4's fluidity, it would be boss.

greyhulk said:
I disagree on camera quality. HTC One pictures look better overall, even if they are lacking a little detail. The G Pro tends to blur the photos a bit much and you lose a lot of detail that you should have on a 13mp camera.
The GS4 definitely wins on quality, however the camera is slow. Like the rest of the UI, it lags and takes significantly longer to launch and take a picture. This translates to missed opportunities and blurry action shots. I don't have this issue with either the One or the G Pro, although the One is the champ in the fast camera department. Honestly, if Samsung could optimize Touchwize and speed up the GS4's fluidity, it would be boss.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is your opinion but I definitely disagree with you, the S4 is the best camera on a phone at the moment. The one does not even come close and really lacks detail. If you talk about shutter speed then yes the One is quicker but the S4 excels in detail and the pics looks absolutely stunning.
I don't think it's fair to call the One camera better because it has a faster shutter speed. What about the picture quality (the thing that really matters after all)?
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

barondebxl said:
It is your opinion but I definitely disagree with you, the S4 is the best camera on a phone at the moment. The one does not even come close and really lacks detail. If you talk about shutter speed then yes the One is quicker but the S4 excels in detail and the pics looks absolutely stunning.
I don't think it's fair to call the One camera better because it has a faster shutter speed. What about the picture quality (the thing that really matters after all)?
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You basically reiterated what I said, but camera launch and shutter speed are important because it doesn't matter how good the picture quality is if you miss the moment completely or get a blurry shot due to movement. The whole point of a smartphone camera is speed and convenience, otherwise, you might as well use a DSLR for the best quality.
I regularly miss photos with my GS4 because by the time the screen unlocks and the camera loads, the moment has passed. This is never an issue on the One and rarely on the G Pro.
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

greyhulk said:
You basically reiterated what I said, but camera launch and shutter speed are important because it doesn't matter how good the picture quality is if you miss the moment completely or get a blurry shot due to movement. The whole point of a smartphone camera is speed and convenience, otherwise, you might as well use a DSLR for the best quality.
I regularly miss photos with my GS4 because by the time the screen unlocks and the camera loads, the moment has passed. This is never an issue on the One and rarely on the G Pro.
Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well once again I have to disagree with you. " the whole point of a smartphone camera is its speed and convenience". What if the pic quality isn't that great?
I don't know about you but most pictures I take are still pics, people posing stuff like that. Yes shutter speeds are great, but ill take the image quality of the S4 with its slower shutter speed over the fast shutter speed of the One but with far less picture quality anyday. I don't understand your point about carrying DSLRs since we are comparing smartphones here. So if I understand correctly, you think the HTC One's camera is better because of faster shutter speed to capture that "moment" while I prefer the S4's camera because its picture quality is absolutely superior. And its not like it takes 10 seconds for the S4 to launch the camera plus capture a pic.
Your quote to my huge post was " I disagree with camera quality", well this isn't even a point to be argued since everybody knows the S4 captures more details with its camera.

HTC Desire Eye mini review

So, I picked up a Desire Eye on launch day. I feel like I was one of the few people intrigued by this device when it was announced. Since then, it has received almost zero attention: Few reviews, no posts on XDA, very little buzz on the internet in general. So, if you're even remotely considering this device and want a little info, here's a personal perspective from someone who bought the phone.
Disclaimer: I have owned dozens of flagship phones over the last several years. I'm also quite a fan of Sense UI and HTC in general. I did not buy this phone for the front facing camera. I don't care about selfies, so I'm probably not the target audience. I really just wanted an M8 with a better camera.
Display
The display is probably my one gripe about the device so far. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it looks washed out to me. When I first turned it on in the store, it immediately looked dull. A lot of the HTC wallpapers and themes are a sort of pastel, so it's really hard to tell, but next to my iPhone 6 Plus, and even a Windows M8 in the store, it just doesn't look as vibrant as I'd expect. Compared to my Note 4, it looks positively depressing, but that's to be expected. That said, it does get plenty bright. I just wish I still had my M8 to compare it with because I swear the M8 had more contrast and vibrance.
Camera
My only real beef with the M8 was the camera, mainly the low megapixel count which made cropping nearly impossible. It also had trouble with exposure and focus. I was really hoping that they fixed that with this phone. I know it's not their flagship and is, in fact, marketed as mid range, but it's really just an M8 with a different build and cameras. I have taken quite a few photo samples and compared them online to the Z3 Compact, iPhone 6 Plus, OnePlus One, G3, and Note 4. There is definitely more detail and you can crop in much further than the M8, but it still gets soft when you do. I also noticed the same issues with exposure. If you're not careful about where you tap to focus, you'll get a blown out sky or dark subject. Focus is fast, but not always accurate. It sometimes blurs the subject instead of the background. Definitely not on par with the focusing systems found in the Note 4 and iPhone 6 Plus. Colors are good, if not great. They lean toward the warmer and more vibrant side, which I personally prefer. Overall, it's an upgrade over the M8 and on par with phones like the OnePlus One and G3, at least in my testing.
Build
I know a lot of people are fans of metal, but there are advantages and disadvantages to metal and plastic. The advantages here are water resistance and weight. This is a light phone and it feels good in the hand. Coming from my Note 4, it is significantly lighter and easier to hold. It's also fairly grippy. I don't feel the need for a case. My one complaint about build is the size. This thing is big. It's nearly as big as the iPhone 6 Plus and Note 4, which is kind of sad when you consider the 5.2" screen. Part of this is the 13mp front-facing camera. Part is the speakers, even though the grills are much smaller this time around. They still needed that blank "HTC" strip on the front for components and that adds to the overall size. The camera shutter button is very difficult to press. I only see using this thing under water. If you try to use it for normal pictures, you'll get blur because the phone will move when you try to press it. I find this to be a problem on a lot of phones with dedicated shutter buttons, but it's much more pronounced here.
Battery
My other primary concern with this phone was battery. It's the same internals as the M8 with a bigger screen and a smaller battery. While disappointing, so far it's not as bad as I expected. It seems to be about on par with the M8, though I'm not sure how. Standby time is pretty good (in my limited testing so far) and it doesn't drain horribly fast when the screen is on. Since HTC doesn't show screen on time and I had to install GSAM, I don't have any screen on results yet, but I will be testing that over the next few days.
Performance
This is the reason to get an HTC phone, in my opinion. Sense and stock Android are easily the fastest, best performing versions of Android, in my experience. But Sense brings some nice enhancements to the table that I think are worth it over stock Android. There's no lag or delay anywhere on the phone so far. Everything is fast and fluid. It makes my Note 4 look positively slow. Just the gallery lag on the Note 4 alone is enough to drive someone mad. HTC is doing it right. I'm actually a fan of Blinkfeed, too, though I know other people hate it. Since the introduction of Blinkfeed, I almost always end up putting a widget on my left most homescreen of every other Android phone that gives me a full page of news, though nothing quite compares to HTC's solution. I like their enhancements to the gallery, contacts, etc. Very nice overall experience.
Misc.
1. Minor annoyance, but the stock email client makes you tap to show images on every HTML email. Since I actually use it, it's kind of annoying. I wish they would at least give an option in the settings to "always show".
2. Some of the camera features are really need, like face merge and photo strip. I do miss slow motion video and 4k recording, though.
3. Internal storage is only 16gb. You have a little over 9 free out of the box. This is the only other con to this phone, in my opinion.
4. I'm a pretty big fan of the screen on gestures. I basically never have to use the power button. And now we can launch straight into the camera, too.
5. I received an update yesterday and it auto installed. There's no info anywhere on what it was. The phone just rebooted and installed with no warning.
6. There is a ton of bloatware on this thing (AT&T). Seriously, brace yourselves. It's even more insulting with only 16gb to start with.
7. Bootloader is unlockable at HTC Dev so, there's at least hope that we'll get root soon. The main issue will be S-Off, as usual. But I really only want/need root.
8. The front-facing speakers are every bit as good as you'd expect, despite the water resistant membrane and smaller grills. It's pretty impressive how small and unnoticeable they are.
Wrap Up
Overall, I really like the device. My main concerns are camera quality and battery life, which I will continue to test. I really like the user experience overall, though, and it's one of my favorite phones of the year. I don't think this phone is really getting the attention it deserves. Even the tech bloggers seem to be ignoring it. I hope this helps anyone who's on the fence about this phone and/or looking for more information.

Obligatory Camera Samples
Here are some camera samples. XDA is compressing them, but you get the idea.

Thanks for the review and photos. The camera was better than what I was expecting from the sensor HTC is using, to be honest. The only downside from what I've read in your review is the screen: while I don't like oversatured screens, I also don't appreciate "dark" screens (it hasn't to do with brightness, but with the white tone).
Regarding the speakers, I know you don't have a M8 to compare, but do you notice much of a difference between the devices?
Can you please confirm that it has MHL and it works?

For what it's worth, I held my One M8 side by side with a Desire Eye in store and compared the screens while displaying the same images and websites. They looked pretty much exactly the same to me other than a slight difference in size. Didn't think it looked dull. Of course, the lighting in AT&T was pretty harsh so it wasn't the best environment for comparison. Maybe you just got used to the super punchy over saturated colors of the Note 4?

gtg465x said:
For what it's worth, I held my One M8 side by side with a Desire Eye in store and compared the screens while displaying the same images and websites. They looked pretty much exactly the same to me other than a slight difference in size. Didn't think it looked dull. Of course, the lighting in AT&T was pretty harsh so it wasn't the best environment for comparison. Maybe you just got used to the super punchy over saturated colors of the Note 4?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's actually what I was thinking too. Not a bad display by any means.

Thank you for this mini review! Really helpful.
Could you please state in which degree you can use the phone with one hand?
Would it feel closer to the use of a One M8/Galaxy S5/LG G2 or would it compare more to a One Plus One / Iphone 6 Plus (which is for me slightly to big).
The 5.2 inch of the LG G2 is of perfect size, but that phone had way smaller bezzels, so this is in fact something that scares me of the HTC desire EYE.

Waarez said:
Thank you for this mini review! Really helpful.
Could you please state in which degree you can use the phone with one hand?
Would it feel closer to the use of a One M8/Galaxy S5 or would it compare more to a One Plus One / Iphone 6 Plus (which is for me slightly to big).
The 5.2 inch of the LG G2 were perfect.. but this phone had way smaller bezzels, so this is what scares me of the one M8.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's definitely closer to the OnePlus One or iphone 6 Plus size wise, but it is MUCH lighter, which does make it easier to handle with one hand. Unless you have gorilla hands, though, you definitely won't be able to reach all four corners of the screen with one hand.
It's tall, rather than wide.

I got the Desire EYE in the mail 2 days ago, it's a really good phone, really fast, takes nice pictures, overall I'm happy about it, the only downside about it is the internal storage, it has like 7 gb out of the 16 dedicated to the OS and stock apps... But other than that, really good phone!

To start off, I will say I am a big HTC fan. I talked about 7 people into buying the One M8 over the S5 this year. I love Sense, Blinkfeed and the snappiness of their devices. I have since sold my One M8 earlier this summer, around May, and have been jumping around to different devices. I strayed from the One M8 mostly due to the camera and the fact that I like to try the latest and greatest devices. I have been using an iPhone 6 since it launched. When I saw the Desire Eye was announced, I got excited. I was really hoping for an M8 Eye, which I think would have been the perfect smartphone for 2014, but this was almost as good. I picked one of these up on Friday at an AT&T store. The guy kind of looked at me funny when I said I wanted one, I don't think he was trained on the device or knew what it was. I didn't open it until Saturday night, but in the store, when playing with it, the first thing I said was, this screen looks washed out. I think it has something to do with the default theme, when I changed it back to one of the same Sense stock themes on the One M8, it didn't look as bad. It is something to do with that pink color they are using. I am torn on the device, it is like 2 steps forward, a couple steps back. I didn't like the first few indoor pictures without flash I took of my 3 month old daughter, so I switched back to the iPhone 6 yesterday because it was her baptism and I didn't want to miss any shots, or risk them coming out badly. One thing that Apple knows is how to make a camera that focuses fast and gives you good pictures. The Boom Sound is also a bit of a disappointment. The bass and clarity seems to be lacking compared to the M8. I played some Vevo music videos on the demo models in store. I am currently thinking about trying to find a second hand M8 Google Play Edition in mint condition (so I have full T-Mobile support for the $30 SIM I have for my play phone line), and keep either it or the Eye and my iPhone 6.
Y2J

Thanks for the review!
The camera doesn't seem bad but for some reason i was expecting it to have a bit more "wow" factor, don't know why and they the shots seem good enough.
You mentioned no-slow motion (i had actually talked about this in the other thread) and the info i read was that it didn't have. However, i was just watching a video review of the desire eye and in the settings i noticed the slow motion icon and the review actually pressed it and it sayed it was slow motion (its an italian video, i actually looked it up to see the translation lol). It was in the camera interface under the " ... " icon and on the modes (it usually says auto) it has the slow motion icon/cartoon - Here is the video @ 11:45
Still no mention of 4k, so that is not from stock but maybe with a mod.

griffin_1 said:
Thanks for the review!
The camera doesn't seem bad but for some reason i was expecting it to have a bit more "wow" factor, don't know why and they the shots seem good enough.
You mentioned no-slow motion (i had actually talked about this in the other thread) and the info i read was that it didn't have. However, i was just watching a video review of the desire eye and in the settings i noticed the slow motion icon and the review actually pressed it and it sayed it was slow motion (its an italian video, i actually looked it up to see the translation lol). It was in the camera interface under the " ... " icon and on the modes (it usually says auto) it has the slow motion icon/cartoon - Here is the video @ 11:45
Still no mention of 4k, so that is not from stock but maybe with a mod.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't see a slow motion option anywhere in the settings. The only video options are for the resolution (MMS, 1080, etc). One thing they did do right, though, is put the video record button back on the main interface full time next to the camera shutter button. They were crazy to ever take that away.
Quality is okay. It's about on par with the OnePlus One and G3, in my testing. Most of the shots I took were on an overcast day, so not the best testing environment, but overall I think it's acceptable. I think I'd still grab my Note 4 or iPhone 6 Plus if I was going somewhere to take a lot of pictures, but I don't feel like I'm carrying around a bad camera when I have this phone.

griffin_1 said:
Thanks for the review!
The camera doesn't seem bad but for some reason i was expecting it to have a bit more "wow" factor, don't know why and they the shots seem good enough.
You mentioned no-slow motion (i had actually talked about this in the other thread) and the info i read was that it didn't have. However, i was just watching a video review of the desire eye and in the settings i noticed the slow motion icon and the review actually pressed it and it sayed it was slow motion (its an italian video, i actually looked it up to see the translation lol). It was in the camera interface under the " ... " icon and on the modes (it usually says auto) it has the slow motion icon/cartoon - Here is the video @ 11:45
Still no mention of 4k, so that is not from stock but maybe with a mod.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, I was totally wrong about slow motion. I just found the option. It was not where I expected, but I'm stoked to see that it's there!

Great Slow motion on htc is good, at least if its like on the m8. I think only htc and sony in Android lets you record 120fps and then edit what parts to slow down, which is how slow motion should be. Glad to see its there and websites like gsmarena should mention it and update the specs info with that.

battery update?

G1_enthusiast said:
battery update?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery is really good for the capacity. Idle drain with my apps and setting was about 3%/hr. With the screen on, it does seem to lose battery pretty fast, but I was still able to get about 10-13 hours of use with around 3 hours screen time. That's not much worse than most of my other phones do, actually.
I would post screenshots, but I no longer have the phone. As much as I really liked it, I just couldn't live with the camera quality. I was really hoping for better. But if camera isn't your #1 priority, this is a great all around phone. Camera is definitely better than phones like the Moto X. I was just hoping for closer to Note 4/iPhone quality.

How do the camera quality and pictures compare to Samsung S4 or S5?
Thanks.

struff said:
How do the camera quality and pictures compare to Samsung S4 or S5?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My mom has the S5 And I prefer the Eye´s camera, It´s just... sharper and more clear.

sidle said:
My mom has the S5 And I prefer the Eye´s camera, It´s just... sharper and more clear.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm going to politely however completely disagree. There's no comparison. S5 is one of the best cameras you can get.
Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using Tapatalk

robstunner said:
I'm going to politely however completely disagree. There's no comparison. S5 is one of the best cameras you can get.
Sent from my HTC Desire Eye using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And yet, I like this one more.
Front HTC Desire Eye:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143110-image/HTC-Desire-EYE.jpg
Front Galaxy S5:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143127-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5.jpg
Back HTC Desire Eye:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143113-image/HTC-Desire-EYE.jpg
Back Galaxy S5:
http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/143130-image/Samsung-Galaxy-S5.jpg
Let the photo's speak for themselves. The HTC Desire Eye clearly wins this battle, or even HTC in general. The S5 is litteraly crap in low to medium-light area's.
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Firs...-HTC-One-M8-and-the-Samsung-Galaxy-S5_id61506

Fair enough, but in better lighting the s5 proves much better and rarely overexposed the pictures.

V30 First Impressions Thread

Figured we probably needed a place to put everyone's first impressions.
I'll start with first, this thing is small and light! Coming from a V20 and a Nexus 6 before that, this thing is tiny. Last time I felt like I had a phone this size was the Galaxy Nexus. (Yeah, I know. That one was probably actually smaller than this but still, this thing feels that small in hand to me. I've been using nothing but phablets since that phone.) It feels closer in size to my work iPhone 6s than my V20. That's going to take some getting used to. It's in a case now but still feels small.
Still trying to get used to some app behaviors that seemed to have changed. For instance, Weather Channel app is having all kinds of issues. Shows as a sensitive notification on the lock screen vs my V20 where it isn't, because it isn't. The widget doesn't display information without being cut off. I still need to go log into all my apps and get them set up.
Camera. Haven't really taken any shots with it yet but I did dig through it. First, I'm not happy that it always opens in auto mode. The V20 would open in whatever mode you last had it in. I prefer manual mode and liked that I could just open it, make a quick adjustment to the settings and shoot. Now I have to dive into a menu to get to manual then make adjustments and shoot. It'll slow things down quite a bit. I am happy that Graphy can be shut off. Also, noise reduction can be shut off in manual. It was actually disabled by default. Going to do a lot of test shooting today.
Hoping to hit up the museum I used to work in and always test every camera I own there. Also hitting up an outdoor night event here as well as the jazz club. It's going to get one helluva workout today! Going to take my V20 and Nikon V3 along too. Not sure how much I'll use the V3 outside of the outdoor event. Not going to bother taking my DSLR. (I'm actually in the process of downsizing my photography to smaller cameras. DSLRs have gotten way too clean and clinical for my tastes.)

Nice! I can’t wait to see the pics it takes.

I played with this at Verizon yesterday, and I'm still on the fence. The front facing camera was HORRIBLE. I held my G5 next to it and took a selfie, and the G5 was so much better. The rear camera did seem to take awesome shots, but still slow to take and delay in swiping between front and back cameras, something I really thought they'd have a better handle on by now since I had the same issues in the G4 and G5. I loved it otherwise, I think it's a gorgeous phone, I like the looks a lot more than the Galaxy phones.
I went in wanting the phone, but two separate Verizon reps were adamant in saying I should stay away from LG, that they have nothing but problems, they only sold maybe 2 G6's, they have class action lawsuits against them, and they tell customers to go take a hike when asking for a new phone after having multiple of them die in a row from a known defect. Theyd rather keep sending you defective phones repeatedly under warranty. So idk. I'm reeeally torn between this and the S8+ which has very similar specs and is cheaper at this point, but I don't like having only one rear camera.

Initial results at the museum are looking pretty good. I'm impressed so far for the most part. As for selfie camera issues, I was disappointed at first until I figured out those stupid settings at the bottom of the screen. After you turn off the skin toning and lightning, the images are much better. Then they work well with post processing.

Have you had a chance to play w Bluetooth, GPS, Wifi/Data connection? My G4 had bad bluetooth disconnections and busted gps in the G5. Just curious how the different antennae have been working for you. Good battery life?

ryanpm40 said:
Have you had a chance to play w Bluetooth, GPS, Wifi/Data connection? My G4 had bad bluetooth disconnections and busted gps in the G5. Just curious how the different antennae have been working for you. Good battery life?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haven't played with GPS yet. I can't really speak to how well or not how well it works. I used wifi during set-up. It worked but my wifi is slower than my network connection and I regretted using it. Not a knock on the wifi of this phone, it's just that my carrier network is that much faster than my home wifi. Only BT I've done so far is to connect it to my car. That went much better and smoother than my V20. It took me many attempts over an hour and a half to get my V20 and car paired. The V30 paired the first time. The next test will be to see if I have to restart my phone after a few days to keep the connection from going wonky. (Which is a ritual with my V20 that occurred at least once a week.)

I got mine this past Friday. It is slippery to hold, you will def need a case to keep it from sliding out of your hand. I'm still not sure why designers can make insanely powerful devices but can't figure out that you actually need to hold on to it to use it. I'll probably get a DBrand skin or equiv when they are available. It is super light. Kinda feels flimsy it is so lightweight even though it is not. My last phone was a Nexus 6P, before that an HTC M9, before that an HTC M7. All three of those feel like tanks by comparison. I'm not sure yet if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Camera is nice but uses a lot of noise reduction. It has endless options that will take some time getting used to. I'm not sure yet if it is as good as HTC's U11 which as an incredible camera IMO (my GF has a U11). Looks better than my Nexus 6p for sure though. Much faster too. I love the wide angle lens!
Audio from Headphone jack is insane. I'm using the BEATS headphones from my old HTC One, I can only imagine how good it would sound with high end headphones. Phone speaker is ehhh. Nowheres near as good as HTC or Google phones with front facing speakers. Or HTC U11 which seems to have crazy sound magically radiate into space.
As for speed, its as fast as any other 2017 phone I have tried, the hardware is all the same. The screen is amazing. I mean AMAZING! I can't really see a difference between 1080 and 1440 quality or speed wise. I thought at first there was but now think it is more of a placebo effect. I have been keeping it maxed mostly for the bragging rights of it being higher rez than Apple's silly Superduper mega retina display, what ever that means.
It is to early for me to tell if battery life makes a difference with resolution. I have read it is supposed to eat more power with the higher rez. It isn't as near bezelless as I thought it would be. It seems to be a marketing trend for company renders to show super edge to edge displays until you actually get it and there are good sized bezels. Not that I mind, it is just something I noticed. The screens are not any larger, the phone is just shrinking around it making the device seem small and the screen seem smaller than it is. My Nexus 6p dwarfs the V30 in the hand and the display just feels larger on the Nexus even though it is not. Kind of another odd placebo effect.
Speaking of battery, it seems to last well over a day of playing hard with it but is still to early to tell since I keep plugging it in to transfer files. After the newness wears off I think I will be able to get 2 days out of it.
The power button, or lack there of is great I think. Instead of a dedicated button, it is just the fingerprint scanner. You can click it, hold it to open restart options etc. Works great and is non intrusive by comparison to a dedicated button that I usually hit by accident all the time.
The UI is not terrible. It is fast and responsive. For the record I am a fanboy of Sense and Stock. LG's UI has a lot more options for customization over Stock but some things seem like they just changed from stock to say they did. Especially in the Settings menu where they feel extra pages of settings tabs is preferable than a simple list. The worst part is LG's apps that are mostly broken or limited.
Contacts doesn't work right and crashes sometimes when I try and edit a contact. You can not fully disable it. I'm using Google Contacts when it will let me.
Calendar is ok, about the same as Google Calendar. Again you can not fully disable it for some reason.
Camera app is good so far, or at least I like it.
Messaging app sux. It freezes sometimes and when it works you can't insert gifs. Again you can't disable it. I'm using Google's Messenger.
Keyboard is limited, I just use the Google Keyboard.
Gallery is simple and works for on device pix but doesn't allow cloud access. Since most of my pix are on GoogleDrive I just use Google Photos. And again you can't disable it.
Smart Cleaning is a cleaner app. The phone is so fast I can't see any difference after using it.
LG Health I haven't tried yet.
LG Smart World is just some LG app browsing thing. Haven't really played with it other than browsing themes.
So far I love the phone. Out of 2017 phones I have used the HTC U11 and Essential Phone I like the V30 best of those 3. My biggest complaint is I just wish you could at least disable the LG bloatware apps so they can't start up. Maybe there is a special way to do it aside from rooting the device and going that route.
Hope this helps anyone considering the V30
CHH2 said:
Figured we probably needed a place to put everyone's first impressions.
I'll start with first, this thing is small and light! Coming from a V20 and a Nexus 6 before that, this thing is tiny. Last time I felt like I had a phone this size was the Galaxy Nexus. (Yeah, I know. That one was probably actually smaller than this but still, this thing feels that small in hand to me. I've been using nothing but phablets since that phone.) It feels closer in size to my work iPhone 6s than my V20. That's going to take some getting used to. It's in a case now but still feels small.
Still trying to get used to some app behaviors that seemed to have changed. For instance, Weather Channel app is having all kinds of issues. Shows as a sensitive notification on the lock screen vs my V20 where it isn't, because it isn't. The widget doesn't display information without being cut off. I still need to go log into all my apps and get them set up.
Camera. Haven't really taken any shots with it yet but I did dig through it. First, I'm not happy that it always opens in auto mode. The V20 would open in whatever mode you last had it in. I prefer manual mode and liked that I could just open it, make a quick adjustment to the settings and shoot. Now I have to dive into a menu to get to manual then make adjustments and shoot. It'll slow things down quite a bit. I am happy that Graphy can be shut off. Also, noise reduction can be shut off in manual. It was actually disabled by default. Going to do a lot of test shooting today.
Hoping to hit up the museum I used to work in and always test every camera I own there. Also hitting up an outdoor night event here as well as the jazz club. It's going to get one helluva workout today! Going to take my V20 and Nikon V3 along too. Not sure how much I'll use the V3 outside of the outdoor event. Not going to bother taking my DSLR. (I'm actually in the process of downsizing my photography to smaller cameras. DSLRs have gotten way too clean and clinical for my tastes.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Deztroyah said:
My biggest complaint is I just wish you could at least disable the LG bloatware apps so they can't start up. Maybe there is a special way to do it aside from rooting the device and going that route.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep. This method works on G6, so it should work on V30 also, be careful on what you disable, you could potentially brick the device.
BTW any display problems? And what variant did you buy?

Thanks! As for the variant, I have the AT&T 64gig one. There are a few AT&T apps, all can be disabled. I actually use a few of them. And no display problems that I have seen. I think the display is one of the best parts of the device.

Deztroyah said:
I got mine this past Friday...
Hope this helps anyone considering the V30
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome overview :good: Although I already ordered v30 (black, 64gb) from South Korea, it was still nice to read, especially regarding the screen/size. I am not a fan of 18:9 in general since native support is still behind (cropped,zoomed videos), but I like what LG does - basically putting 18:9 screen in a more like 16:9 frame.. this makes it look much better than sausage-style s8/s8+/note8.

Here’s my V30+ first impressions. Will do a deep dive on the camera and audio soon.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/0...adphone-jack-with-quad-dac-wireless-charging/

gavinfabl said:
Here’s my V30+ first impressions. Will do a deep dive on the camera and audio soon.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/0...adphone-jack-with-quad-dac-wireless-charging/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting review. Where did you get your B&O branded V30+ in UK? I thought they only had the V30? Did you get it from Italy or elsewhere?
I watched your full YouTube review and I agree people are selling the camera on this phone short. Interesting that all your friends chose the LG V30+ pictures over the Pixel 2 XL pictures. That's one reason I'm not really going to mess with the Pixel camera port.

ChazzMatt said:
Interesting review. Where did you get your B&O branded V30+ in UK? I thought they only had the V30? Did you get it from Italy or elsewhere?
I watched your full YouTube review and I agree people are selling the camera on this phone short. Interesting that all your friends chose the LG V30+ pictures over the Pixel 2 XL pictures. That's one reason I'm not really going to mess with the Pixel camera port.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. You’re right. UK only gets standard V30. Wondamobile supplied the V30+. The Pixel 2 will take better pics , but like everything it depends on the scene. I was out this morning with my Canon & V30+ and will get a post up next week with the results.

Ok. Audio review now done on the LG V30 covering speaker, Bluetooth, wired and type c. Over a dozen headphones used too.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/1...-wired-over-12-different-headphones-compared/

I'm on my second Sprint lg v30 plus. Had to exchange the first one due to digitizer issues. On one side of the screen. It only responded to taps. My luck I guess.. Overall I like the device. It's light, fast and has a nice design. The camera sucks tho compared to my s8+ especially in low light. Not a bad camera but no where near the pixel 2 or Samsung phones. Was going to get the note 8 but I doubt that will ever get twrp. Hopefully this device gets root and twrp

Ok full review is finished now. Includes a camera showcase and 32 reasons why it's the best phone in the world, with the 32nd reason the best one.
https://gavinsgadgets.com/2018/01/28/lg-v30-review-camera-showcase-this-is-the-best-phone-in-2018/

Initial thoughts on first weekend with my tmo V30

Ok, so I received my T-Mobile V30 Friday afternoon and have used it quite a bit since then. here are my highlights/low-lights so far.
Overall I really LOVE this phone. I've been knowing for a while that it would have just about all I wanted in a phone from physical size to features (minus stock android and quick updates). It will be a tough decision which to keep when the Pixel XL I pre-ordered arrives.
Physically
-Look and feel is fantastic.
-Great screen to body ratio
- size is the perfect mix of size and ease of use.
-Screen looks great! Not Samsung Note 8 great, especially in bright sunlight but in the top displays I've ever used. (coming from a note 8)
Software
-Scroll speed is disappointing. I find it moves slow and when I try to scroll fast in FB or even my google news feeds it stutters and is just not fluid.
-A big annoyance (besides the scrolling speed) for me was the auto brightness. LG really needs to have something like Samsung where you can set the brightness for a setting and not just full auto. Because they ALWAYS have my screen too dim. I was forced to download Lux which I should not have to do.
Camera
-Excellent camera but not on par with Pixel line or Samsung. Don't get me wrong, it is a great camera and in the sunlight it is fantastic but low light it does not do as well as Note 8. Video or Stills. But it is very adequate for my needs and I prefer having the wide-angle lens over the zoom lens any day.
-The one thing that really bothered me was shutter lag at times. Sometimes when I snapped a photo it was almost instant and others I had to wait a second or so. Long enough to think I might not of pressed the button. Not sure if others have had this issue but it is troublesome. It was not isolated to taking multiple photos fairly quickly either. Sometimes first shot.
Battery
-Battery is very good. Last night I went to sleep with 50% left and screen on time of 3 hours and 20 minutes. That, to me, was fantastic.
-I don't see any trouble with me getting a fully heavy use day out of this phone without charging.
That is about it for now. I'll post an update if I find something else noteworthy. If you have a question feel free to ask.

keithleger said:
Ok, so I received my T-Mobile V30 Friday afternoon and have used it quite a bit since then. here are my highlights/low-lights so far.
Overall I really LOVE this phone. I've been knowing for a while that it would have just about all I wanted in a phone from physical size to features (minus stock android and quick updates). It will be a tough decision which to keep when the Pixel XL I pre-ordered arrives.
Physically
-Look and feel is fantastic.
-Great screen to body ratio
- size is the perfect mix of size and ease of use.
-Screen looks great! Not Samsung Note 8 great, especially in bright sunlight but in the top displays I've ever used. (coming from a note 8)
Software
-Scroll speed is disappointing. I find it moves slow and when I try to scroll fast in FB or even my google news feeds it stutters and is just not fluid.
-A big annoyance (besides the scrolling speed) for me was the auto brightness. LG really needs to have something like Samsung where you can set the brightness for a setting and not just full auto. Because they ALWAYS have my screen too dim. I was forced to download Lux which I should not have to do.
Camera
-Excellent camera but not on par with Pixel line or Samsung. Don't get me wrong, it is a great camera and in the sunlight it is fantastic but low light it does not do as well as Note 8. Video or Stills. But it is very adequate for my needs and I prefer having the wide-angle lens over the zoom lens any day.
-The one thing that really bothered me was shutter lag at times. Sometimes when I snapped a photo it was almost instant and others I had to wait a second or so. Long enough to think I might not of pressed the button. Not sure if others have had this issue but it is troublesome. It was not isolated to taking multiple photos fairly quickly either. Sometimes first shot.
Battery
-Battery is very good. Last night I went to sleep with 50% left and screen on time of 3 hours and 20 minutes. That, to me, was fantastic.
-I don't see any trouble with me getting a fully heavy use day out of this phone without charging.
That is about it for now. I'll post an update if I find something else noteworthy. If you have a question feel free to ask.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How is reception? On my G6 is pretty bad...
Also, any display problems on low light and low brightness conditions?
For scrolling go to developer options and enable force gpu rendering, it should scroll better

Killua96 said:
How is reception? On my G6 is pretty bad...
Also, any display problems on low light and low brightness conditions?
For scrolling go to developer options and enable force gpu rendering, it should scroll better
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, it did help the scrolling. Went from bad to acceptable. not sure what side effects that will cause elsewhere.
Reception has not been an issue this weekend but I use my phone more on weekdays so I'll see. I did get 1 or 2 fail/resend on text messages but that could be tmo also.
I use my phone before bed in the dark with it close to all the way dim. Either I don't know what to look for or it does not bother me. Either way I'm totally satisfied with it in low light.
However, I do wish it had the 1200 nits that the Note 8 has. Today at the pool it was difficult at times to take a photo and really see what I was taking a photo of at 100% brightness.

keithleger said:
I use my phone before bed in the dark with it close to all the way dim. Either I don't know what to look for or it does not bother me. Either way I'm totally satisfied with it in low light.
However, I do wish it had the 1200 nits that the Note 8 has. Today at the pool it was difficult at times to take a photo and really see what I was taking a photo of at 100% brightness.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I use it in that way too before going to sleep, it's one of the moments where I can play some games, this is way that display problem brothers me so much.
Now I'll wait for Europe price and relevant date, if it'll arrive at 799 euros in Vodafone stores I'll probably buy it.
Keep me updated for the reception, on G6 I think is worse than on G5 Lol

keithleger said:
... First post.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thx you a lot for your post. But can you help me, i really need to see camera difference between V30 and Note 8. Is V30 really so bad? Wil you do some​ comparison?
And is front face camera so bad? :/

The camera is above average just not quite as good as Pixel or Note 8. For selfies, if you set the skin tone and lighting effects to 0 then it is ok.
Here is an album. The colored balls, food duplicate shots are for comparison. (I deleted most of my comparison photos. Was done for personal comparison so no reason to keep them)
Use "info" to see the model number of the camera that took the photo. Easy if you have windows 10 and default photo viewer. (click info icon at top right)
The boy in the sand photos and the selfie of me and my wife are from today on the V30 and I had already packed up the Note 8 to sell on swappa.
Low light - just had a crack in the door with very little light coming into the room. Note blew the V30 away on this one.
Photos from LG that seem close then far are regular and wide angle lens.
All photos are on "auto" setting for both phones.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vk3z0QrNqPBvrybI3

Curious, what kind of battery life were you getting with the Note 8? Were you making it through the day? Is the scroll lag worse than the Note?
Overall, are you liking the phone more than the Note? I'm very stuck deciding between the two heh

ryanpm40 said:
Curious, what kind of battery life were you getting with the Note 8? Were you making it through the day? Is the scroll lag worse than the Note?
Overall, are you liking the phone more than the Note? I'm very stuck deciding between the two heh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have u seen the videos speed between note 8 vs v30? V30 was slower but my problem was with this was, just like the s8 plus. The v30 cannot keep app in the background and are constantly reloading. Finished the second round more than 1 minute behind the note 8. Having 6gb ram o. A non stock android js a must for me.
I was just like u but after the price. And everything um m get for just $130 more, spen, larger better screen, more ram. And hold its value better. I bought the note 8 2 days ago. Prettg happy so far.

My phone comes tomorrow and after reading several posts about it, I am considering a return. I went to the VZW store today to see it and everything about the look I like. I went into the camera to take some pics and I noticed right away that the shutter took way too long to take the shot. The odd thing about the camera is I had the G6 and it took great low light pics, even better than my S8+. One of the main reasons I wanted the V30. I'm worried now I will be giving my S8 back for a phone that isn't "better". I'm so tempted now to just buy the Pixel or wait and get the iPhone X. This sucks so bad. I was looking forward to the V30 and have no desire to get the Note 8.
Oh, nice pics and your wife is hot.

eduardmc said:
Have u seen the videos speed between note 8 vs v30? V30 was slower but my problem was with this was, just like the s8 plus. The v30 cannot keep app in the background and are constantly reloading. Finished the second round more than 1 minute behind the note 8. Having 6gb ram o. A non stock android js a must for me.
I was just like u but after the price. And everything um m get for just $130 more, spen, larger better screen, more ram. And hold its value better. I bought the note 8 2 days ago. Prettg happy so far.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ooh so the S8 Plus isn't any better? Was considering that as well to save a little bit.. They have a $300 trade-in deal on all phones on Samsung's site, even goes towards 24 month financing.

keithleger said:
-A big annoyance (besides the scrolling speed) for me was the auto brightness. LG really needs to have something like Samsung where you can set the brightness for a setting and not just full auto. Because they ALWAYS have my screen too dim. I was forced to download Lux which I should not have to do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can't just turn off auto-brightness? I've done that in every LG phone, from G2 to G4 because yes, they make it too dim.
Have they disable manual brightness setting or something?

keithleger said:
The camera is above average just not quite as good as Pixel or Note 8.
For selfies, if you set the skin tone and lighting effects to 0 then it is ok.
Here is an album. The colored balls, food duplicate shots are for comparison.
Use "info" to see the model number of the camera that took the photo. Easy if you have windows 10 and default photo viewer. (click info icon at top right)
The boy in the sand photos and the selfie of me and my wife are from today on the V30 and I had already packed up the Note 8 to sell on swappa.
Low light - just had a crack in the door with very little light coming into the room. Note blew the V30 away on this one.
Photos from LG that seem close then far are regular and wide angle lens.
All photos are on "auto" setting for both phones.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vk3z0QrNqPBvrybI3
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually quite impressive pictures -- and I'm glad you chose "auto" for these tests. Most of the time we take pictures, I'm really not going to mess with the settings. My wife especially will not. She went hiking with a friend last weekend through a forest with a waterfall, and while the pictures were nice I wish she had THIS camera. One shot was taken by a stranger to whom she handed her phone -- with her and the friend standing amidst the foliage, with the waterfall visible behind them. Adjusting settings just isn't going to be done in that situation, and she wouldn't know how.
Yes, it's nice to have settings you can adjust for long setup time, I appreciate LG adding that capability -- but let's be honest. 90% of the time it's about taking the picture quickly.
On the close-up colored balls comparison, I might give the Note the win, but barely. The V30 is very, very close.
On the french fries/granite counter wide shot, I prefer the V30 over the Note. The V30 wins on that one, to me.
Low light shots of the PC on the floor, yeah, the Note was cleaner, clearer. The Note had great focus and color of the baseboard and wall, as well as the PC.
But the outdoors shots of the V30 you have are great. Thank you for sharing.

ryanpm40 said:
Curious, what kind of battery life were you getting with the Note 8? Were you making it through the day? Is the scroll lag worse than the Note?
Overall, are you liking the phone more than the Note? I'm very stuck deciding between the two heh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. I did not notice any scrolling lag on the Note 8 at all. It was pretty smooth. There was the lag after pressing home button or switching between apps like all galaxy devices but the Note is the most responsive phone Samsung has ever created.
2. Battery seems to be better on the V30. I could make it through the day on the note but I tried killing the battery yesterday on the v30 and I had almost 6 hrs of SoT and 18 hrs on...still almost 40% very impressive. For me at that point the Note would have been dead.
What made me decide to keep the V30 and sell the note was the following.
1. I much prefer a wide angle lens over a zoom lens. So many times I need to capture more int he scene yet can't back up. I'll sacrifice a little quality to get that.
2. Size. Note was just too tall. It bothered me and it was the first phone I did could not adjust to it "feeling big". The V30 just feels like the perfect phone in my hand size wise. I'm 6'3" and don't have small hands but just could not get used to the note. It would stick out of my jean pockets..sad when a phone can't fit in your pocket. LOL
3. I really don't like the curved edges. too many accidental touches. I know it makes the bezels "look" smaller but I prefer the "almost" flat screen of the v30.
4. I did not use the pen much at all. Maybe to show people what it could do or my son played with it drawing. But I won't miss it. I'm sure others use it a ton and can't do without it. I just don't.

ChazzMatt said:
You can't just turn off auto-brightness? I've done that in every LG phone, from G2 to G4 because yes, they make it too dim.
Have they disable manual brightness setting or something?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course you can. But that is not the ideal solution. On an $800 flagship I should not have to do that. Lux is a better option than that. This is something LG should fix. It was/is an issue on the G6 as well.

found a few more photos, added. The last few of the lowpro bag were with morning light (overcast day) coming through a window about 8 feet from the storage table. No interior light on in the room.
closeup of PC card - taken from about 10 inches away with both cameras, focused on heat sync on the card. Light from window 5 ft away and room light on. So a good amount of indoor lighting.
Also, a note on all the photos I took. I did press my finger on the same focus point and let the camera focus just to make sure I compared the same results. I do this most of the time when taking photos anyway. So, this was not a test on the auto focusing abilities of each camera. on the last one I pressed on the DVD stack on all 3 photos. I also sat with my elbow on my knee in the same exact spot/distance for all 3. Which shows how much more of the scene you can actually get with the LG wide angle lens. The reason I love having that.

Interesting. Thanks for the images. I would be using auto mode mostly for family shots etc. I would be happy with those results.
Is there any delay in pressing shoot and the capture? Read in another post it was a bit laggy

EggZenBeanz said:
Interesting. Thanks for the images. I would be using auto mode mostly for family shots etc. I would be happy with those results.
Is there any delay in pressing shoot and the capture? Read in another post it was a bit laggy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, as I stated in initial comment. I noticed inconsistency with camera. Sometimes it is instant and other times there is a noticeable lag. I have not done enough testing to know if the lag is based on setting/light or if it is just truly random but I have experienced it. Note 8 had no lag whatsoever as I'm sure the Pixel 2 will not if it is anything like the Pixel. My reason for keeping the V30 was that the wide angle lens and size was far more attractive to me vs the negatives. It will be a hard decision when my Pixel 2 XL comes in though. I just like how responsive the Pixel phones are. This v30 is laggier than the Note 8 for sure but bearable. Hopefully there will be a firmware update to fix some of these issues soon.

EVOme said:
My phone comes tomorrow and after reading several posts about it, I am considering a return. I went to the VZW store today to see it and everything about the look I like. I went into the camera to take some pics and I noticed right away that the shutter took way too long to take the shot. The odd thing about the camera is I had the G6 and it took great low light pics, even better than my S8+. One of the main reasons I wanted the V30. I'm worried now I will be giving my S8 back for a phone that isn't "better". I'm so tempted now to just buy the Pixel or wait and get the iPhone X. This sucks so bad. I was looking forward to the V30 and have no desire to get the Note 8.
Oh, nice pics and your wife is hot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had the G6 as well. I assure you the photos are better in all areas over the G6. Especially the wide angle lens.
haha, thanks.

The only photo taken by the note that I preferred was the kitchen island photo lol. Aaaaaand I have a million photo adjustment options to bring down the cool tint to the photo. Thanks for sharing OP
Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

keithleger said:
Of course you can. But that is not the ideal solution. On an $800 flagship I should not have to do that. Lux is a better option than that. This is something LG should fix. It was/is an issue on the G6 as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I read that some carriers actually disabled the brightness feature you're looking for on the V20. I know that t-mo was one of the carriers that disabled this feature. I have the V20 currently and on AT&T I can increase the brightness if it's too dim and the phone will still auto adjust the brightness if lighting conditions change, but it will remember that in a certain lighting condition, I changed the brightness and it will use the value that I previously set instead of the default value. I'm thinking t-mo also disabled it on the V30 also.
This thread will probably explain it better than I did haha:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/v20/help/auto-brightness-t3490880/

My opinion - V30+ vs S8+...

So, after using this V30+ a while, I have a few thoughts on using it verses the S8+.
Storage - V30+ (128gb vs 64gb)
Screen - V30+ (better form factor. The S8+ is too tall.)
Fingerprint - V30+ (better location. More comfortable to use/natural.)
Headphone jack V30+ (I actually like it on the top. It's out of the way when I hold the phone. And when in my pocket, it's faced down and doesn't get in the way when I grab my phone. I carry my phone upside down. I also use earbuds with a longer cable than normal, so it had enough to justify the extra length.)
Sound - V30+ (quad DAC. The bottom firing speakers are pretty much even on both phones.)
Screen - undecided (I've had issues with previous S8+'s and think both have issues.)
Camera - undecided (S8+ has a really good auto camera and I use that most. But the V30+ has wide view. S8+ had a better selfie camera, but I don't take selfies.)
OS V30+ (I like multiple do not disturb options. More options for navigation buttons. It integrates better with Google backups on certain things like quick memo. I like simple things like how the notification icons are located correctly - when using a VPN, it puts the icon on the right with the rest that sit there constantly. I like that I don't have to confirm the volume adjust after the first initial time. 3rd party music apps sync info on LG as Samsung would only sync Google play music and Samsung music. Auto rotate works instantly with LG as opposed too Samsung. I also like knock code and double tap to wake. Brightness slider - while you can drag the one on the S8+ on auto, you can just tap the icon next to the slider on the V30+ and it jumps from "0" to 50 to 90. Mostly what I use.)
Security - S8+ (I miss the app lock mostly, as I could lock apps and they wouldn't show on the launcher or as being installed. Fingerprint is the same on both and I couldn't care less about Knox. But Samsung still wins imo because app lock.)
Gaming V30+ (the phone barely gets warm. The S8+ use to get pretty warm. The blacks on this look better during gaming to me. It may just be me, but it does. The V30+ has more memory for storing more games, so that's a plus. The headphone jack plays a role here too. It's on the top left in landscape mode - it's out of the way when I grip the phone.)
Buttons - V30+ (Bixby..... Nuff said.)
Battery - V30+ (hands down. I had 7+hrs sot yesterday alone. I'm at 4.5hrs right now with 45% battery left. S8+ I got 4-5 depending on the day.) I mainly use Bluetooth streaming, headphones, web browsing, XDA, Reddit, news apps, YouTube and some gaming.)
Notifications - S8+ (led notification light and the camera flash only flashes briefly. The V30+ flashes too long on the camera flash with the setting turned on.)
Usability - V30+ (it's not as tall, therefore it's easier to use/hold imo. No Bixby button so I don't hit that on this phone and throw off my intended task. The location of the power button - I use to hit that when adjusting the volume on the S8+ with one hand. The weight is better on the V30+. It's not top heavy. I couldn't care less about having a heavy phone to make it "feel more premium". I'd rather have a lighter phone as I hold it and don't need that awkward top heavy form factor for it to "feel premium".)
Looks V30+ (come on now. Look at it - LOOK AT IT!. Seriously. The black back has a pattern to it and that looks cool to me. Even if it's covered by a case. At the end of the day, LG put more thought in the final design appearance than Samsung. And that speaks for itself. The fingerprint button also seems like it'll take less scratches over time as it's matte and not shiny. Again - Bixby. No edged screen - I dealt with it on the S8+, but I never liked it.)
And that's what I've come up with on my opinion on the V30+ vs the S8+. If my opinion seems fanboy based, trust me, it's not. I own a lot of phones and favor none because of who makes them. I judge a phone on how it performs for my daily needs. I may point out flaws with phones, but if people don't, the manufactures will never take notice and fix those flaws with future releases.
Thanks for reading. Remember, at the end of the day, these are just objects and mean nothing in the end. ?
TLDR; to bad, read it anyways.

20degrees said:
Memory - V30+ (128gb vs 64gb)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No phone has 128gb or 64gb of, "MEMORY."
Storage, yes. Memory, no.
Sent from my LG-H932 using XDA Labs

brossovitch said:
No phone has 128gb or 64gb of, "MEMORY."
Storage, yes. Memory, no.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My fault, you know what I meant.

20degrees said:
And that's what I've come up with on my opinion on the V30+ vs the S8+. If my opinion seems fanboy based, trust me, it's not. I own a lot of phones and favor none because of who makes them. I judge a phone on how it performs for my daily needs. I may point out flaws with phones, but if people don't, the manufactures will never take notice and fix those flaws with future releases.
Thanks for reading. Remember, at the end of the day, these are just objects and mean nothing in the end.
TLDR; to bad, read it anyways.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh, it's you, lg's hater. now you know that V30 in almost in every real life aspect not worse or even better than S8.
How's screen unevenness? How's black crush? What about real PWM in V30?

20degrees said:
My fault, you know what I meant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL.
Trolllolololololol.
Sent from my LG-H932 using XDA Labs

surprised to see this post from you, with how much you complained about the brightness issues. Glad you're happy with it. I'm guessing you got a good display that doesn't exhibit banding.

S8+ beats lgv30 and 30+ hands down
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app

Billy Madison said:
Oh, it's you, lg's hater. now you know that V30 in almost in every real life aspect not worse or even better than S8.
How's screen unevenness? How's black crush? What about real PWM in V30?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's backing issues. I'm on number 6. ?
I'm not an "LG hater". I'm just straight up with things and refuse to let any companies flaws slip under the cracks. PWM?
Hisma said:
surprised to see this post from you, with how much you complained about the brightness issues. Glad you're happy with it. I'm guessing you got a good display that doesn't exhibit banding.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has banding. I posted in the screen thread. I'm started to think though, that this is more of a software issue rather than a screen issue. The banding had a lot to do with the screen settings. I can get the banding to disappear at times by adjusting the resolution, blue light filter and auto brightness. It's very odd. Last night I had auto brightness on and the screen would flash from dark black to red just sitting there with the screen on and no change in ambient light. ?

meathammer386 said:
S8+ beats lgv30 and 30+ hands down
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can understand your opinion. ?

But i like the v30
Sent from my [device_name] using XDA-Developers Legacy app

20degrees said:
PWM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's about those annoying flickering

Thanks.
Very interested in the design aspect of it... It looks so bland in the reviews but everyone, EVERYONE, says it actually is a pretty device.
For me that makes a difference.

kolembo said:
Thanks.
Very interested in the design aspect of it... It looks so bland in the reviews but everyone, EVERYONE, says it actually is a pretty device.
For me that makes a difference.
Click to expand...
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Oh, it looks way better to me than the s8+.

I used V10 for 9 months, and then S8+ Exynos for 5 months. I just got V30+ for 2 days. And my experience is same with you. V30+ is pretty good. Missed the led notification light, the "heavy" (V30+ is too light, IMO) & Samsung Services (Galaxy Elite, Galaxy Gift, Samsung Pay,...)

Ive got s8+ now and my experience:
V30:
+ Lighter
+ I like the flat screen more because less reflections
+ I feel that LG skin is less bloat then Samsung
+ Vibrator - feels more like apple haptic device on newer iPhones
+/- Quad DAC i dont use high impedance headphones only in ear so dont need that much power. Apart from that SQ is good on both
- Screen white balance is just bad and yes i tried playing with settings
- General screen issues that people where having poor QA from LG
- Camera especially the front one
S8+:
+ Dual Sim
+ I was able to get it for £550 new sealed and yes i know you can get V30+ Dual Sim cheap but bootloader is locked
+ More Imersive screen
+ Better calibrated screen and mode vivid colours in Adaptive mode
- There is slight more banding on gradient in Adaptive mode but when its RGB its way more
- Finger reader bad position