LG Q6 Quick Review

The LG Q6 is the first in LG’s mid-range series of smartphones, the Q series. Their aim is to provide the essential features of the LG premium phones at a lower price point. It was released in August 2017 and is said to be a great phone.

The LG Q6 has a 5.5-inch 18:9 FHD Full Vision display with a resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels which translates to a pixel density of 439 ppi. It is very similar toG6, flat and intelligent as well. The color reproduction and contrast levels are on par with LG G6. The display is crisp and vibrant with good enough brightness to read comfortably under sunlight conditions. It comes with the awesome Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection.

It comes in Astro Black and Ice Platinum. Additionally, the Q6 is available in Marine Blue, the Q6 in Mystic White and Terra Gold, and the Q6 in Terra Gold.

What is likable about this phone is its size and weight! Mostly you can’t even feel it in your pocket.

Coming to the button placements, there is an earpiece on top along with a 5MP front-facing camera, 100-degree wide-angle and the usual set of sensors. The phone also has a magnetic sensor (magnetometer) and gyroscope so you can use the phone with VR headsets but it lacks notification LED.

Below the display is the LG logo with no extra buttons.And, that’s because it has on-screen touch buttons.

The right side of the phone houses the power button and antenna cut out. On the other side the volume rockers, antenna band cut out, MicroSD card slot, and Dual SIM slot are present.

LG has offered SIM and MicroSD card slots, instead of hybrid SIM, unlike other phones.

Furthermore, a secondary microphone and antenna bands are present on the top and a 3.5mm headphone jack, micro USB port, and primary microphone are present at the bottom. One the back there is a 13MP camera with single LED flash and loudspeakers with Q6 branding is present at back.

LG Has Started Thinking!

With this device, LG has replaced the fingerprint scanner with Face recognition technology. To our surprise, it worked well most of the time, if you keep it at an optimal distance as mentioned in the company. Having said that, we prefer fingerprint scanner over this due to the time it takes to unlock the device.

Performance

The LG G6 was the last flagship phone to fly the banner of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 chipset, the Q6 slows things down a pace by instead opting for the Snapdragon 435 – a tier below the Snapdragon 625 that has proven popular this year. Thanks to the Adreno 505, the Q6 can indeed soldier through most modern games with aplomb.

Apps Are Good Too!

This means that the Q6 isn’t a heavyweight – though apps rarely lag and LG’s UI flies through most endeavors, the handset can at times become slow or unresponsive when multiple apps are running.

This is a hindrance that can effortlessly be compounded. And, all thanks to the oddities un covered in LG’s UI. In detail, the South Korean firm continues to rely on its candidly weird ‘uninstalled apps’ solution, rather than give straight access to an app drawer at first take-off.

One more area, where the Q6 falls quickly is that of the security. As the handset doesn’t carry a fingerprint sensor, which is a deviation in the marketplace. That too, in view of the growing band of some Android makers to present fingerprint scanners at the mid-range.

Security Is Not What We Expected?

On the other hand, like many top handsets that have debuted last year, the Q6 hosts facial recognition as its strategic security highlight. But, we quote this as a hit-and-miss method. The Q6 frequently tussles to analyze faces in minimal light. Which did leave us with the decision to search for a light-on feature or go manual by pressing in a PIN code. We also used the pattern mode to make it quick.

All the same, the absence of a fingerprint scanner gives you an uninterrupted rear panel. So nothing is amiss. It’s an addition, which is truly an errand for the Q6.

Referring to the back panel, the Q6 scratches very easily. If you are a neat freak, you’ll either want to show on a heavy-duty protecting case for your Q6 or duck this smartphone totally!

The facial recognition on the Q6 is particularly quick, but, there are a few defects that need to be tackled. The elimination of the fingerprint sensor leaves you with two security choices, i.e. PIN as well as facial recognition.

In turn to use the facial recognition feature, all one has to do is raise the gadget to your face and it will open the smartphone. On the other hand, there is also the topic of deceiving the software where we succeeded to unlock it by simply tapping a selfie in front of the forward-facing camera.

You can overcome this problem by enabling the ‘Advanced Face Recognition’ feature.However, that would increase the unlock time. You cannot depend on the feature in low-light environments and the facial recognition feature often fails to scan your face.

Battery

The battery capacity of Q6 is 3000 mAh, which we think is great in general, and better than most of the phones. The LG Q6 outsizes most phones in this comparison as explained earlier, except the Galaxy J7 which has 3600 mAh (20% more battery capacity). Even though the LG Q6 is a bit smaller, the J7 still packs 4% more battery capacity per cubic inch of internal space.

Battery life is one of the most important features of a smartphone as we all know. A key metric is obviously the battery capacity — especially within the same system (Android, iOS or other). Battery life can be affected by many factors.

But, the main ones are the main processor, display and wireless radios (broadband, Wi-Fi, the cell towers location and more). It is not possible to accurately predict through synthetic tests how much energy drain YOUR unique usage pattern will generate. However, two things are surely always good. A greater battery capacity and very fast charging!

The Plus & Minus With Battery

It is impossible to predict real-world battery life by running synthetic tests. Factors such as display brightness, (LTE/Wi-Fi) radio usage and distance to access points will vary too much. Also, how many apps installed and their activity cannot be estimated. Battery capacity is the most important battery-life indicator for YOUR usage.

This product does NOT have a removable battery, which is the norm for a smartphone these days. Closed batteries cannot be exchanged or easily fixed, but they do allow for tinier designs and slightly better battery size within the same product model. Gaming can cause the greatest amount of battery lag. So it is preferred to avoid playing games.

Advantages Are Sound Worthy

Compact and good-looking design

MIL-SPEC 810 certified

Large battery

Cheaper than most phones

Disadvantages Make Us Think

The camera could be better

Below-average performance

Games get stuck

Pictures get blurry in darkness

Competitors and Conclusion

With a price estimated in the $200 to $240, the LG Q6 does very well in the category of cheap and easily accessible smartphones. The Samsung J7 (2017) and the Nokia 6 could be great alternatives to consider, but in our opinion LG Q6 is better.

The HTC U Play could be one of the more powerful camera phones alternatives, but the J7 is also an excellent competitor.

In the end, the best reason to buy the LG Q6 is for its design, battery, and storage and Full-Vision wide display. LG was able to launch a very compact and precise phone that looks like a high-end phone, with excellent battery capacity in a light-weight and narrow body.

The user experience is meaningfully better because of all this. If you are more interested in technical specs, then the Samsung J7 seems like a good choice, but also larger and heavier. Note that the J7 has only 16GB of storage, so you may want to look at micro-SD cards. As a final point, if you want fewer pre-laden apps, and a leaner interface, perhaps the Nokia 6 would be a high-quality option.