D
Doug Demagistris
Guest
Every year LG’s flagship gets tossed around in the discussion for best phone of the year, and I’m sure the upcoming LG G5 will get the attention it deserves. Typically, the company announces its flagship early in spring, but this year LG moved the announcement up to MWC 2016.
Mobile World Congress is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, show where mobile tech companies announce their latest innovations. The conference is always held in the city of Barcelona. This year, the event is taking place between February 22 and February 25. Hundreds of companies gather from all over the world to showcase their latest tech. This year, some of the major brands being looked at are LG and Samsung, which are both planning to launch their flagships the day before the show’s official start.
LG is one among many that has been gaining attention over recent years. This is mainly because of other companies who have decided to ditch materials and features they believe aren’t necessary. LG has stuck with them. Some of these include a removable battery, storage expansion and an IR blaster. However, with pros always come cons. Many criticized last year’s G4 for its boring design that was very much like the G3. Unfortunately, the features LG wanted to keep to please its users couldn’t be included unless design cues remained similar to the G3. LG stuck to its words and kept what users wanted to only find a slump in G4 sales as the year progressed. Now LG plans to change things up to keep consumers buying. But there are certain features I want to see LG implement this year in the G5.
Premium build
If you go by popular demand, I think it’s pretty clear that the most wanted and most needed feature that ought to be added with the G5 is a metal build. We’re in 2016 and people no longer want their phone to be made out of cheap materials. The average price people pay for their phone has surged in recent years and people want something that feels premium. People want their phone to look good, last a long time, and stand out from the crowd, or in many places now, fit in with the crowd.
Although the switch has flipped, and a handful of people want their phone to be fashionable, there are still many tech savvy people like you and me who want our added capabilities. When I say added capabilities, I’m talking about storage expansion, swappable back covers and a replaceable battery. No manufacturer has been able to create a phone that accommodates all these needs, but who knows, 2016 could be the year.
LG wants to give people what they want, and the audience is split between features and a premium build. Rumor is that LG might be the first to solve this problem with the G5, combining both a metal build and a slide-out function into one. Therefore everyone gets what they want. Whether we see this new pull-out system in this year’s G5 flagship remains to be seen. But there’s still hope.
OLED technology
AMOLED screens are becoming a necessity on high-end phones nowadays for their high contrast, incredible saturation, and vivid colors. Last year, LG brought a new type of technology to the G4’s display called Quantum Dot. Quantum Dot has improved colors and can display much clearer and true to life images. But it’s still far from AMOLED. In fact, if you put the G4 next to the older G3, you’ll notice an incredible difference in color accuracy. But when you put a Quantum Dot panel side by side with OLED, Quantum Dot doesn’t fair as well. That brings us to our next big want for the G5, an OLED display.
There have been talks that LG might make the switch, but nothing has been confirmed. If the G5 is to come with OLED it will please a lot of consumers. Not only would an OLED display bring a better picture, but it would also supply a boost in brightness, which past LG iterations have lacked. If you glance at the competition, Samsung still has the superior edge when it comes to display tech. If LG wants to compete with Samsung’s Galaxy S7 in the display department, it’ll have to bring OLED or it’ll be a loss on LG’s side.
Water resistance
Water resistance isn’t a must have feature, but it would be nice to have. LG is yet to implement waterproofing in any of its phones, making the G5 a great place to start. In a few years, we believe that water resistance will be necessity on phones. Like OLED, the Samsung Galaxy S7 is also expected to bring back water resistance after ditching it on last year’s Galaxy S6. Water resistance is a feature that could definitely swing a consumer’s decision on what phone to buy, so if LG wants to stay on top, water resistance would be a nice addition to this year’s flagship.
USB Type-C
USB Type-C could be the new standard for charging in 2016. USB Type-C made its debut for the first time on Android devices with the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X. USB Type-C is reversible, so you don’t have to hassle around trying to fit the cable in the right direction when plugging it into your phone.
USB Type-C is also praised for its speed. It can transfer data at faster rates that micro-USB and can charge devices in a fraction of the time. It’s always good to have the latest, just in case some new innovative technology comes out or a must-have accessory. USB Type-C is clearly the direction that the market is moving into, so it’s important that LG takes note of it.
Improved battery life
Perhaps the most complained about feature on last year’s LG G4 was its short battery life. Battery life in general still has a long way to go before users become happy with it, but LG could surely do better.
Whether it’s a bigger size capacity, a battery-saving display technology, new power-saving modes, faster charging speeds, or some new software improvements, LG needs to prolong the battery life with its G5 flagship. Battery life on the G4 really brought the overall look of the phone down. If LG can figure out a way to improve it, even a little, it would be a step forward into the right direction.
One of the reason’s LG hasn’t taken battery life as serious as it could have is due to the replaceable battery on previous generation G flagships. The replaceable battery has allowed users to swap out a battery when empty for a brand new one by simply removing the rear cover and sliding it in. However, there’s a good chance that the removable battery won’t make a return on the G5. If this is the case, it’s important that LG came up with a solution for extending the time the battery can last. In my opinion, this is just as important, if not the most important feature that needs improvement on this list.
A simplified user interface
The last feature we would like to see in the LG G5 is a simplified user interface. The UI on the G4 is not favorable among any of us. Things are a bit disorganized and design elements aren’t as seamless as they could be. A user interface design makeover seems like a longshot at this point, but we’re hoping LG tidies up some things on the G5.
It’s a new year, and a fresh start for LG after last year’s downfall with the G4. If LG wants to make their users proud, they’ll have applied some changes to the user experience. Google’s sole purpose with Marshmallow was to eliminate unnecessary stuff, focus on what’s important, and improve the overall performance of the operating system. LG has a boatload of features, some of which don’t work exactly how they’re supposed to. Slimming down the interface a bit and focusing on keeping everything uniform would be a major step in improvement.
If we learned anything from 2015, it’s that people want a simplified experience where things are easy to operate and work as described. People including me want their phone to run smoothly, while maintaining only features that are helpful and useful. This is the route we suggest LG takes with this year’s G5.
Closing
As a result, there are many things LG could improve upon in the G5. If LG somehow includes all our suggestions, the G5 will be a helluva beast. While there are many features we would love to see debut on the G5, there are features we want to see make a return as well. These include, but are not limited to, storage expansion, a removable battery, swappable rear covers, thin bezels, and laser auto-focusing. We would also love to see an upgrade to modern hardware specs. Some of these include 4GB of RAM, Gorilla Glass 4, and the new Snapdragon 820 chipset. We also wouldn’t mind seeing LG G Pay debut alongside the G5, which has been rumored for quite some time.
The official announcement is approaching fast. At that time, we’ll find out all the details regarding LG’s new flagship G5. We’ll keep you covered on everything pre-MWC 2016 and post-MWC 2016. Let us know what you want to see most on the LG G5 down below in the comments.
Come comment on this article: 6 features I want to see in the LG G5
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