Hands-on with the LG G4: Leather-bound smartphone perfection

LG has unveiled its G4 smartphone, but how does it stack up against the other handsets selling well right now, like the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the iPhone?

LG seems to be one of the few companies that is both interested in being different and understanding what it can bring to its phones that other companies can't. So, what is it that LG has done with the G4 that moves it on from the G3, and makes it unique?

Design

Well, here LG has gone for broke. Wrapping a phone in leather is an interesting idea, and one that doesn't make sense at first glance. But when LG explains it, it does make more sense.

LG says, for example, that the leather-backed G4 won't slide out of your hand like a glass phone would. No prizes for guessing which company it was having a pop at there!

The leather does actually look and feel really good. One major upset for UK users is that the yellow leather back isn't currently due to come to stores here - a shame, because the yellow looks amazing.

The plastic cases looked, and felt, a little cheaper but they have a textured back, which should help prevent the phone from slipping too much. Why consider a plastic back at all though, you might ask? Well, because it probably will cost a lot less than the phones with the real leather, and some people just won't want leather on their phone.

Camera

Here's where things get interesting. The camera on smartphones has never been more important than it is now. It's one of the points that reviewers look at in much more detail.

The S6 and iPhone 6 both have exceptional cameras, and the LG G4 (16 megapixels on the rear, and 8 on the front) looks like it could match up to them.

The problem with the 13-megapixel G3 camera was that it just didn't quite produce results as inspiring as those from its peers. This time, LG has done a lot more. The camera looks at what you're shooting, analysing the scene and objects within it using an IR sensor. This should mean that you get remarkably accurate colours.

LG says that the way it handles photos is similar to the way the human eye does, which means that it's easier for the phone to understand how the image should look when it comes out of the other end.

The demo at the launch event certainly suggested that the new light sensor was doing a good job, but we'll let you know when we have a review sample.

The new camera interface looks good too, and having access to the ability to shoot RAW images is something of a boon. It will have a huge impact on what you can do with a photo after. Most companies don't give RAW as an option because they use picture processing to tweak the images, and RAW photos can look worse at first glance to people who haven't dealt with them on a regular basis.

Power and performance

One important thing has been addressed now in the G4 - LG has stopped shipping high-end phones with 2GB of RAM. In the past, there were two versions of each phone.

Usually LG had a model with 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM, and then there was a 32GB model with 3GB of RAM. The problem with 2GB of RAM is that it's just not enough for the high-powered multi-tasking of a top-end smartphone, which meant that the phone felt a bit laggy at times.

The G4 has 32GB of storage and 3GB of RAM, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset driving super-fast 4G and other features of the phone, like that beautiful screen and high-quality video recording.

The good news is that the phone feels pretty snappy. We've not had long to play with it, but even so, you can usually tell if something is going to be a howler quite early on.

It does use LG's custom user interface though, which looks quite different to stock Android. Some people will love that, whereas others won't. However you look at it, though, it's actually a nicely-designed OS.

The screen

LG says the screen is a "quantum" LCD, with a 5.5-inch IPS LCD offering a brighter and more colourful image.

Like TVs, phones also have a lot more potential than most images use, so LG wants to offer the best possible brightness and contrast on its handsets. The G4 is the start of it pushing that more and more.

It's interesting that the company hasn't made much effort to boost either the resolution or the size of the screen - this is the same 5.5-inch panel size and 1440x2560 resolution we saw on the G3.

Of course, the improvements to the display are still significant, and perhaps more important than another resolution increase that adds little except battery drain.

LG's other trick is that it likes to do away with as much of the dead space around the screen as possible. So again, as with the G3, the G4 has very little plastic on the left and right of the panel. This gives the phone a unique look, and means that you get a big screen without the phone being utterly massive.

When does it arrive?

More pricing details will follow soon, but it is expected that the phone will cost about £500 unlocked for a plastic back, with the leather cases costing around £30 extra. That's actually pretty reasonable, and makes the G4 one of the cheaper high-end phones. People buying the phone with a leather back also get a plastic back included, too.

The phone is due to go on sale at the end of May, with confirmed stockists so far including Carphone Warehouse (which promises an opening-month exclusive on the black leather version), O2 (with an exclusive on the Genuine Leather Brown version), Three (boasting an exclusive White Ceramic handset until the end of June) and Vodafone.