Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

It took me quite some time, for the last 3 months I have been contemplating what type of phone I was going to pickup. I had an interesting road leading up to the last couple of months, I had an LG G4 that boot looped at the end of January 2016, causing me to sell the phone for parts. Since it was a factory unlocked device (H815 bought on Amazon) LG would not fix it because of this. After that device went out, I decided to pick up a mid ranged phone to use for a couple of months to put me over, that choice was the Google LG Nexus 5X which was a great phone in it's own right, though the build quality and camera of that device left something to be desired. So now was the time, I had to decide between the Galaxy S7 Edge, HTC 10, or LG G5, and ultimately I went with this LG G5 (RS988). Why did I make this decision? Here's a couple of reasons: Dual-Camera (Which is incredible), Removable Battery/SD Card, USB Type-C, US Warranty (S7 Edge Unlocked had no warranty), Infrared Port, and LG's new UI which is greatly improved over my previous LG G4. So first impressions, the device feels really nice in the hand. I don't know how to explain it but the size and weight just feel perfect. The Always-on display I originally thought was gimmicky but after using it, it is something that I can see being very useful in months to come. First let me start with the UI, I use the default UI that the LG G5 comes with, which is just known as "Home". I like it, there were tons of controversy over this when it was announced as it doesn't have an app drawer, however, there is a check box in the settings that allows you to bring it back, but I decided to leave it default as I wanted to see it LG's way and you know what? It isn't that bad. I've owned 4 Android phones prior to this phone (Galaxy Nexus, LG G3, LG G4, Nexus 5X) so losing the app drawer felt weird, but only for a half day. According to LG Market research that they have done, it shows people rarely go into the app drawer and I can kind of see it that way. I feel like now I'm accessing apps a lot faster and that's because I've logically placed everything on the home screen in the order I want it to be in. You can still create folders and drop apps inside so you can still keep everything organized. I leave the Settings and Google Play store on the main screen as those are the two most important things I use and I can get to it right away. I put my other most used apps on the second and third screen and on the fourth screen I put my folders and least used apps. But I applaud LG for heading in a different direction the UI feels close to stock, it looks a little different visually but what I like is LG didn't put a lot of bloatware on this device, they went the safe route and I like it. Day to day performance has been very snappy, it feels literally 3 times faster than my LG Google Nexus 5X and ironically, benchmarks show that the processor is around 3 times faster so it feels like a 2 or 3 generation leap over a phone that is less than a year old, very impressive. The battery life so far has been really good, better than my previous LG G4, and LG Nexus 5X. It's simple to remove the battery, just push a button that is in the bottom left hand corner of the phone and pull the module out and you can switch out the battery within 5 seconds. This phone has a lot of questions over the 2800MAH battery size, I'm not sure what LG does, but this thing feels super efficient. This might be associated with the somewhat aggressive auto brightness display, which always seems to dim the phone, just enough in the right lighting environments. The Camera UI is very clean it's very easy for beginners to go in and use it as everything is logically placed with just a handful of buttons. So we must talk about the start of the show: The dual camera. I cannot in words sum up how incredible the wide angled camera on this phone is (I've posted some sample shots). It captures so much more area, it feels like you're doing a panorama shot with one click, one of my sample pictures caught a part of my finger as you can see, but the phone shoots so wide you would never expect that it could grab that much area, LG deserved a hats off for going this route and not trying to just make a great camera, but rather make an evolution of current camera phones. Next, I want to talk about the speakers on this device, this has got to be near the top of the class. The speakers are just super loud, crisp, and it feels like the range of the sound is very wide. My co-worker has a Galaxy S7 Edge and when we compared them, the speakers of the Galaxy S7 Edge is just tinny in comparison and definitely not as loud. Impressive considering that the speakers on the LG G5 are part of the detachable part of the phone or the module part of the phone. The LG G5 I am using is with AT&T in Orlando, FL and I am getting full 4G LTE Coverage here and the speeds are great. Better than both of my previous devices. As always as great as a device can be there are always some cons. The first con is that the Always-On display while fantastic is very Dim in bright sunlight. You can barely see it, it seems like a Always-On display does not adjust to the suns brightness and that it stays at one brightness level, or the brightness does go up but it's not enough to beat Florida's sunlight. This could also be associated with he fact that the Always-ON display is only in white. The second issue with this device, is this device suffers from some build quality issues. On the back of this phone, where the detachable battery area is, there's this weird type of bent metal look. I can't explain it, but the bottom part of the phone (Right before where the module connects) there is a weird bent look on the metal in three different areas(Maybe connectors for the module?). I know for sure this is from factory as the phone wasn't visibly damaged when I received it, but I'm not going to return it as it doesn't bother me that much and I've read about this issue at other places as well. Overall, I'm very happy with this phone. I always update my reviews, so when new updates/changes occur I'll be back to update and improve my review until than, I think this is a great device that has some minor issues that if you can look past, this is still one of the best phones out there you can buy - at any price. EDIT: 9-10 It's been over 3 months and I'm here to report that I have absolutely no regrets. The only complaint I can give is that it gets really hot sometimes when the GPS is being used, but this might be associated however with me using this case which I have no regrets buying: https://www.amazon.com/Design-Crystal-Bumper-Steel-Silver/dp/B01BCU8CQK/ref=cm_cr-mr-title There have been a couple of firmware updates since I bought the device, but nothing major. The last update improved the Battery Life a little more but the biggest difference was how smooth going through the screens are now, they've done a good job with the touch/sensitivity tuning for the G5. I'm also using Evo Launcher now, I really liked LG's Home Launcher but I feel like if I'm going to have an Android Device regardless of what device it is, I'm going to make it my own. Stay tuned for the next update in December when Nougat Drops for this device, I can't wait.