LG G4 Review: More than competent, but less than stunning [Update]

LG's newest flagship, the LG G4, almost feels like someone read a bunch of Android forums and wrote up a checklist of all the current hot-button issues. You want a non-plastic back? Check—we've got leather. Nervous about Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810? Check—we've got the 808. You want a removable battery and MicroSD card? Double check. At first glance it looks pretty good.

LG missed a few things from its checklist though. No matter which back you get, the sides of the phone are still plastic. As much as the removable battery will please those that need more battery life, there's no wireless charging or quick charging here unless you buy extra equipment. LG also neglected to support Lollipop's always-on voice commands. It's a mixed bag, and whether you like it will depend heavily on what you think is the most important in a smartphone.

Design

The back of the phone comes in leather or plastic. The back is plastic no matter what, with the leather option having the material glued on and an exposed plastic back side. The stitches down the middle are certainly unique, and are reminiscent of a leather car seat.

The leather never really looks like part of the phone though—it's more like a case, or like the phone strapped on a leather driving glove. This is driven home by the plastic pieces peeking out from behind the leather, making this less attractive than some of the non-plastic phones we've seen this year. We prefer Motorola's approach to leather, which looks better-integrated with the rest of the phone's design.

Like all leather, it's sensitive to scratches, and you can make a fairly-permanent scratch in the back with just your fingernail. We're honestly conflicted as to whether we want a leather-backed smartphone. The market is too—some people will like the way leather "ages" as it scratches and dents over time, and others don't want their phone to be so easily scuffed and scratched and stained. The leather does at least add a little character to an otherwise rather uninspired phone design. Without it, the G4 just feels generic. There is no character or uniqueness here, just a glossy plastic back that reminds us of older and cheaper phones.

LG's trademark rear buttons are plastic, and all four sides of the device are plastic too. This is a phablet, so the sides of the device are the parts you actually touch. The same goes for the buttons. It seems odd to make a move away from plastic, but not cover any of the parts a user typically comes into contact with. Samsung got this right on the Note 4, which, while it still had a plastic back, had metal sides and metal power and volume buttons. The same goes for the Moto X and Nexus 6.

LG vaguely describes the plastic back as "ceramic-infused plastic." It is a few microns thicker than one of Samsung's plastic backs, which are so thin and flexible that they "peel" off the back, but other than a slight increase in thickness we don't see any major difference over the usual low-quality plastic that has plagued Android phones for so many years. Soft touch plastic is fine, as are rock-hard, milled plastics from Nokia and Motorola, but not this material.

The plastic comes in a few colors and has a diamond pattern on the back with actual depth. The points of the diamonds are raised up, and the centers are indented, reducing the surface area of the phone. With the phone only resting on a few points, it's easy to quickly get wear marks in the back of the device—ours appears after only a day or so, and are visible in the pictures.

LG did add a nice design touch to the front—under the glass is a lovely cross-hatch pattern, which only shows up when the light hits it just right.

Displays on smartphones have just great for a few years now, but LG is pushing the envelope with what it calls an "IPS Quantum Display." The company says the new display tech has 20% better color reproduction, is 25% brighter, and has a 50% increase in contrast ratio. The screen looks great, with accurate colors and high brightness ceiling. It's been a long time since we've said "boy, we wish the display on this smartphone was better" though. Every flagship phone has a great display.

Software

There isn't much to say about the software. The skin is very similar to the G3's—an ultra-flat design with over-the-top animations where everything is made of Jell-O. There's a Google Now style panel to the left of the home screen called "Smart Bulletin," which only integrates with LG's apps. It shows tips about using the phone, calendar appointments, music controls, and not much else. You can always remove it by switching to a new home screen app, but LG also allows you to turn the panel off and use the stock one.

LG removed Google's double panel system and tried to cram all the notifications and all the power controls into a single panel, which is cramped. When you pull the panel down, only about 40 percent of the screen is used to display notifications. Usually the first Android notification is expanded, which means you'll see one notification.  The rest of the screen is spent on quick settings controls, a brightness slider, and a volume slider. Thankfully there's an option to turn all this off, just scroll the quick settings all the way over to "edit."  It's a bummer that you can only have one or the other though—Google's double panel system was designed to give quick access to power controls while not crowding out notifications.

The software has dual-window support, too, allowing you to do things like watch YouTube and browse the Web.

Overall the software is fine. LG's flat design style in the bundled apps are perfectly usable. Sometimes the neon highlight colors—like the default wallpaper and in the notification panel—combined with the new colorful and contrasty screen can seem like a little much.