LG's flagship arrives with <checks script> ... G7 what now? It's a sign of the times that of the big four UK operators, only O2 will stock LG's flagship, which launches this week: the "G7 ThinQ". (That's how we shall write it: LG wants everyone to write the second word in superscript, which is a non-starter.) Huawei's big budget marketing steamroller is muscling former Tier One …
Hmm, an interesting one. Firstly, kudos to LG for keeping the headphone jack and SD card slot, these are starting to become stand-out features given how many companies are dropping them lately.
As it is, I still love my old G4 - it's been a very good phone, so I do hope the G7 is a success for LG.
The LG G2 was the first Android phone to be able to play back 24bit 192Khz audio files natively (handy if you can't be bothered to transcode your music library). Some subsequent G and V models have boasted some very good ECC Sabre DACs and amps, but not always in the European versions of those models.
This G7 is said to have a big internal resonance chamber for its loudspeaker, and will sound even bassier if placed on a flat surface.
Now, I hate music being played from phones in pubs. However, I do like to potter around the house listening to podcasts (without carrying an external speaker from room to roim), and I've found my Galaxy to be loud enough to hear spoken-word content over a boiling kettle, or even in the shower. My Nexus wasn't loud enough for these use-cases. It's a small thing, but very welcome.
Instead of leaving your phone in one place & turning up the volume to be heard far away, may I suggest slipping it on to your shoulder beneath your shirt, so it doesn't fall off when you move & thus can be at a much lower volume yet still be heard?
I have a phone case with a belt clip & clip it to my shirt upon my shoulder, that way I don't have to turn the volume to max yet can still hear it no matter how loud my environment. I call it my "electronic shoulder parrot" because I've made the ring tone to sound like a parrot sqwaking "ACK! RingyRingyRingy! *Whistle*". I have an audio book player that I put on the other shoulder in the same fashion, making it easy to listen to audio books as I'm wandering around the house cleaning stuff. It makes it much easier to hear than if I leave it somewhere & try to blow out it's tiny tinny speakers so I can maybe hear it from another room.
It saves on battery power, makes it so I don't miss anything if some other audio source tries to get my attention (reach up & hit pause), & means I don't lose either device in my meandering.
Just a suggestion. Take it or leave it as you like. Cheers! =-)
Cheers Shadow Systems, I often did perch my Nexus 5 on my shoulder, especially when walking the dog across the fields! I find the Galaxy S8 to be louder, so now I can get away with a shirt or jacket pocket. In the kitchen, for example, I can pop Galaxy on the table and make tea and toast without missing any words in a podcast. When I leave s room I'll take my phone with me - easier than picking up the phone *and* an external speaker.
I do have some actually quite decent earbuds for the phone, but the cables can get caught in things.
Again, I only do this in situations away from other people.
The battery use of a phone's loudspeaker is an interesting one - I have recently noticed it draining faster than I expected it for a new phone, but I hadn't yet chased down other battery draining variables such as a marginal 4G signal. I suspect you're right that the pokey little speaker is consuming a fair bit of juice.
" I do like to potter around the house listening to podcasts (without carrying an external speaker from room to roim)"
Get yerself a Marley Bag O Riddim 2. I can turn it up to the point I get noise complaints from Belgium.
And I'm in Australia.
*DISCLAIMER. As I live the traditional Aussie lifestyle (stupidly big house, loads of space around it), there's not normally anyone close enough to hear, let alone complain, however loud I play it. If you live in a 3rd floor flat in Plaistow, YMMV.
Really. What with the f**kin notch LG? WHAT'S WITH THE F**KIN NOTCH! Apple release a stupidly expensive phone with a stupid notch that everyone laughed at, now other vendors are copying it. That is just so dumb, and they don't need to do this. It's makes other vendors look like they have no ideas left, but hey - Apple are doing it and can sell £1000 phones to their plainly gullible/mad/rich customers, so let's do it as well. Stupid. Just stupid.
Yeah, it does make the phone look like a slavish copy of the Apple Galaxy X. Methinks LG should have not have listened to the supplier saying "this is what Apple's new flagship will be using" and stuck to their guns. Being able to disable it is good but does make you ask the question: why have it in the first place?
Copying Apple? The LG V20 had status bar information in line with its front-facing camera in September 2016, though it used a second display rather than a notched main panel. Rubin's Essential phone had a notch before the iPhobe X, and other solutions to maximising screen pixels come with compromises (e.g, the Mi Mix from October 2016 had a front facing camera on the bottom bezel).
> why have it in the first place?
Very simply, it comes from the observation that most people have unused pixels in the middle of the status bar - notifications sit left, signal and battery status sit right. By happy chance, this often unused space is roughly the same size as that required for front facing apertures for earpiece, camera and other sensors. By shifting the status bar up, more space is left for actual content without increasing the length of the phone. It's a sensible enough solution (especially since creating the notch doesn't really add much to the cutting path of the laser already used for cutting out phone panels of this size), but I appreciate some people don't like the appearance of it. It's fine at the same time as phone panels have moved away from 16:9 displays to 2:1 displays, since the smaller dimension is limited by the size of people's hands and ergonomics. Making the phone taller allows more text to be read with less scrolling. This is generally a good thing. I use the extra vertical pixels to have my virtual keyboard always display numbers and yet still be able to read what I've typed. YMMV.
Very simply, it comes from the observation that most people have unused pixels in the middle of the status bar - notifications sit left, signal and battery status sit right. By happy chance, this often unused space is roughly the same size as that required for front facing apertures for earpiece, camera and other sensors.
Fair observation, but not so good when seen from a practical view. When you use any app that shifts to full screen mode, the notification bar hide itself away and the notch now became a minor distraction in portrait mode and horrible asymmetric in landscape mode.
Where as before the notch when the earpiece, camera and other sensors just take whatever is at the top of the screen, the notifications bar hide away and there's no problem with unused notification space.
LG didn't copy, they led: their V20 phone from 2016 placed the status bar info (notifications, battery and signal levels etc) at the the same level as the front facing camera and earpiece. LG did this by means of a small secondary display, but in terms of concept and purpose it was the same as a notch - it was just implemented by different means.
"The G7 incorporates the Quad DAC from the V30 – which didn't get a UK release at all."
Shit I must have been visiting an alternate universe when I bought my V30 from Carphone Warehouse. And is currently still on sale, a mighty fine phone it is too. Come on El Reg get your facts right instead on writing bollocks.
"Other manufacturers reason that with so much background noise on the move, there's no point building in high quality audio support. LG begs to differ."
Though I hate LG phones in almost every conceivable way, on this point they are absolutely right.
I've been using the LG G3 for two years, and just this week I switched to a Galaxy S5. Though both claim to output 24-bit audio, it's obvious that LG implemented it properly, whereas the Galaxy fell short in this department.
When listening to music at very quiet levels in a very quiet environment with high quality, low impedance, noise isolating headphones, the LG sounds as it's supposed to sound. You can hear everything, serenely and clearly, and nothing seems to be lost. You can spend hours listening at incredibly quiet levels, during which time the brain seems to adapt and make the experience seem louder and richer. In addition to comfort, it contributes to great ear health in the long run.
The Galaxy, on the other hand, absolutely crushes detail at low volumes. Bass is distorted and blown out, resolution has been utterly thrown away, and it feels like you need to crank the volume up to fatiguing levels just to get back to where you can no longer hear the limitations of the DAC. And the more time you spend listening to the crushed audio signal at low levels, the more your brain seems to amplify the background sound which is not dissimilar to someone constantly making crumpling sounds with handfuls of newspaper and bubble wrap.
There seems to be this mentality of "cell phone users are mostly shiteating teenagers anyway, so we'll give them what we want and they'll like it", and frankly it needs to stop.
"the obvious choice for audiophiles. "
"The body of the device..... is used as an audio chamber."
So something akin to the Apple Fanbois approach of putting a tiny speaker in a drinking glass to make it louder then?
I think I'll pass, thanks.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
