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LG V20 review: A premium phone for audiophiles and content creators

By James Lu - 3 Dec 2016
Launch SRP: S$998

Battery Life and Conclusion

Battery Life

The V20 has a marginally larger battery than its predecessor, with 3,200mAh capacity compared to 3,000 on the V10.

Our standard battery test for mobile phones has the following parameters:

  • Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
  • Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
  • Constant data streaming through email and Twitter

N.B. at the recommendation of LG, we disabled the Quad Hi-Fi DAC during this test as it's mentioned to hog more power than usual.

Despite the increase in battery size there wasn't much of an improvement in battery life, with the V20 lasting only nine minutes longer than the V10. The V20's more powerful 820 processor and brighter secondary display probably had a lot to do with this. There's no wireless charging on the V20, but it does support Quick Charge 3.0, which gets it back to around 60 percent charge in just 30 minutes.


 

 

Conclusion

The LG V20 is a premium phablet with ambitious features that set it apart from the crowd of Android competitors. LG has clearly done a lot of research and development to ensure the audio and content creation features meet the demanding needs of audiophiles, professional videographers and photographers but I do wonder how much use casual consumers will get out of these relatively niche features. 

Additionally, nearing the end of 2016, it would have been nice to see LG opt for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 821 processor, instead of the relatively old 820, which is likely to be surpassed entirely when the next-gen Snapdragon 830 starts appearing in phones sometime around MWC in February next year.

So is the V20 the phone to fill the void left by the Note7? It's certainly the best 5.7-inch phablet out there right now, but its mediocre battery life and unimpressive benchmark scores will disappoint the power user crowd that make up a large part of the Note7's user base. For power users, you're probably better off importing the more powerful Google Pixel XL (click here for our guide on how to buy the Pixel and Pixel XL locally) or waiting for the ASUS ZenFone 3 Deluxe.

Ultimately, if you can make good use of the V20's more unique features, you'll be delighted by what it is capable of - there's really nothing else like it. On the other hand, if you're not an audiophile and you're perfectly happy shooting all of your pictures in full auto mode, there's not much reason to pay a premium for it when you can get something like the OnePlus 3 or Xiaomi Mi 5 for around $300+ less.

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8.0
  • Design 8
  • Features 8.5
  • User-Friendliness 8.5
  • Performance 7.5
  • Value 8
The Good
Audiophile-grade quad Hi-Fi DAC
MIL-STD 810G durability
Removable battery
Professional-level audio and video recording controls
Excellent earphones (B&O branded) included
The Bad
Average benchmarks
Battery life could be better
Niche features
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