I have had the G4 for about two months. I loved it as much as I did the G3 for the initial few months. However like the G3, the G4 suffers from the same audio jack bug. Where the audio is paused and the voice mate app opens up. This happens regularly and is an issue with all headphones (that I have tested; sennheiser, audiotechnica, sony, creative, skullcandy). All suffer from the issue. It didn’t happen at all for the first month. Then it started occurring the more frequent it became as time went on. So the audio jacks for LG are shit, atleast they arent as bad as Motorola ones of the past which have completely stopped functioning on multiple devices. This is mainly a software bug that has been an issue with the G3 and I appear to be one of the first to announce their findings of it on the G4. It is ridiculous, I cant send it back and If I file a normal warranty claim I am sure it will be wavered off as being user error. I walk on a regular basis, thus I listen to podacasts and music often, meaning by this day and age audio ports need to be functioning…
With the primary issue of note out of the way, the LG G4 is a decent upgrade from the G3 aswell as G2. They honestly should have improved the G2’s battery life, the display on it was 1080p and is perfectly fine at that size of a device. You wont notice a difference between 300ppi(1080p), 500ppi (2k), 800ppi at that matter (aprox 4k). This is averaged for 5 - 5.7 inch displays. Instead of packing more pixels and keeping the same battery life (the same since my first Droid back in 2009). They think people are fine charging their phones when in reality if they focused on 1080p displays and better functionality when in reality it is killing innovation. Having a small screen with a FHD, QHD, and UHD res is not noticeable. They should work on better readability outdoors, energy efficiency, contrast, screen timings/refresh rates, etc.
Back to the LG G4, it has a beautiful display (best I have seen, better than the S6 imo and note 5 devices as they are too saturated for my taste). With that said it is a slight improvement over the G3 but not a needed upgrade if you have a G3 on hand. The G2 to G3 went from a SD 800 to 801 which was a mistake being nearly a year apart and using the same gen technology for different res displays FHD vs QHD. With the G4 you find a SD 808 which beats its predecessors in just about every way imaginable. The 800 and 801 are both quadcored chips, aren’t 64 bit compatible whereas the 808 adds two additional cores making it a hexacore processor and also supports/based on a 64 bit arm architecture. 4 vs 6 isn’t noticeable in day to day tasks, side by side the G3 and G4 are near identical and perform just about the same. Apps open at relatively the same speed (front runner being the G4). There is an important thing of note and that is the earlier 800 and 801 are comprised of fairly fast chips, just not supporting x64. The other thing to this is that they offer a equal core design, meaning the cores that comprise the cpu are actually performing at the same speeds and use up the same amount of energy. The 808 on the other hand is designed (similar to tegra) with a “big little” design. Meaning 2 cores are faster and more capable than the other 4. The 4 that aren’t as high end are slower and in fact in theory would switch between all 6 preserving energy. Though I don’t notice any difference in battery life from my Note II, G3, and G4 (all needing charged every 6 to 7hrs). I am a light user, browsing the web on occasion, mostly listening to music while walking, the occasional phone call/text but not too much.
The battery life could be better, but they chose to increase the contrast ratio, support higher and lower brightness, and have the best color reproduction in mobile format to date. The next thing I bring up is the camera. It has brought an improved camera coming from 13 (G3) to 16mp (G4). It really doesn’t look any better in my opinion, but I am not being objective as I only viewed the photos on the devices they were taken with, not giving them a side by side comparison on one device… Anyways it is good, not as good as some others out there (Lumia Icon, GS6, M9, etc). It does however have a manual mode built into the camera app which gives DSLR like control over the shot.
Software on the G4 hasn’t improved really over the G3. It looks about the same with some new functionality here and there. Nothing that people are really attracted to. It does run better than many other OEM overlays of android. It has a built in exercise tracker that works fairly well. It is bloated though (Verizon as usual) with a shit ton of things (NFL Mobile, VZ navigator, Visual Voicemail (which isnt even free and cant be removed), VZ Tunes, etc) I can handle the google and amazon stuff (which I actually use; amazon, imdb, gmail, play store, chrome, etc), but VZ is just straight malware added to a device. I mean I have a 32gb device with near 12gb of used space (prior to doing anything with the device) This is ridiculous when CM is 1 - 2gb (less in some cases). Android (linux/unix ingeneral is meant to be light and bloatware free…)
One important thing of note is the verizon logo on the front of the device no longer is present. A victory imo. It didn’t looks so bad on the G3, but take a look at where it was located on the phone I had prior to the G3…
http://cdn.androidcommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/IMG_71511-540x367.jpg
Anyways, verizon has a knack of making all their phones minus the iphone look like shit because of branding. They tanked a beautifully (Samsungs first mind you) designed device back in 2012 and for some reason verizon ruined it. It probably even cost verizon a pretty penny on branding the fucking button… .I hate you vzw, but as long as my parents are paying the bill I am stuck with you… The G4 is pretty, still has a removable batter and available expansion (via micro sdcard) and offers both quickcharging and wireless charging (not out of the box), has a modern cpu, a good display and has a shitty audio port.
PS: LG if you dont replace this phone free of charge I am never buying your device again. I had a G3 and after 6 months of use the audio jack bugged out on me, less than 2 months with the G4 the same thing is happening. I am going to file an RMA some point throughout this week.