LG G5 vs LG G6: first look

Well, LG's new flagship is here in all of its fullscreen glory. Well, to be fair, we haven't reached that futuristic point in time where all we will be holding is a display just yet, but the G6's bezels are impressively thin. But does that mean that you should be throwing the G5 out the window? And how well does the new handset perform next to the rather snappy 2016 flagship? Let's take a closer look!

Design

Another year, another change in concepts for LG. The modular idea that was introduced with the LG G5 wasn't exactly a success and has quickly been dropped for features, which the market has proved are more desirable.

With the G6, the company decided to get back to the big-screen-in-small-body concept, and did extensive tests to make sure that their new device will be the proper form-factor to be comfortable for use with one hand, despite its 5.7-inch display. It also added water-resistance and wireless charging (US only) in the mix, which resulted in a narrow, solid-body metal phone, with a glass back. Additionally, LG worked to remove the camera hump on the back, which got a very harsh reception when the phone was first announced last year.

The G5 is just about the right size as the G6, even just a tad taller and wider, despite actually having a noticeably smaller, 5.3-inch screen. It, too, is all made of metal, though, its "chin" is removable to reveal a user-replaceable battery. The dual camera module on the back looks similar to the one on the new G6, though, it's slightly protruding, creating its very own "camera hill". If we are to interject here, we'd say it absolutely doesn't look as bad in real life as it does if one has only experienced the G5 through promo images, which many users may have already had the chance to confirm for themselves.

In any case, both handsets look great, but, of course, the G6 rocks that futuristic look.

Display

So, the G6 has the much larger screen, sure, but it's worth noting that its aspect ratio is changed, too. Instead of the good-ol' 16:9, the new phone rocks a ratio of 18:9 (2:1), allowing LG to do some cool stuff with the phone's interface, by splitting the screen in two or utilizing every part of the long, long screen. But that's the catch – the display is so large because it was elongated. When it comes to watching 16:9 videos from, say, YouTube, you will be greeted by two black bars, letterboxing the clip, effectively losing out on that 5.7-inch size. Games and apps, however, seem to have less of a trouble adapting to the full screen of the G6, and that's pretty cool.

The panel is of the IPS LCD variety. In terms of resolution, we've got 1440 x 2880 pixels, making for a pixel density of 565 ppi — that's insanely crisp. The new display also supports Dolby Vision for insane contrast and punchy colors. It also covers HDR10, in case you were wondering.

The LG G5 doesn't have thunderous features to toot its horn with — it's just a solid, 5.3-inch, IPS LCD panel, with a QHD (1440 x 2560) resolution (554 ppi). Its orthodox ratio of 16:9 means that you get to use the screen to its fullest at all times.

In case you are wondering, both displays support the always-on mode, which LG first introduced last year — a small, dimmed clock and basic notifications are visible on the display at all times when this is on.

Interface and software

As we previously touched upon, the G6 makes use of the rather unusual 2:1 display ratio by incorporating it into its interface and its features. We can preview pictures right next to the viewfinder, when in the camera app, we've got a couple of new shooting modes that play with the aspect ratio, the whole split-screen ordeal looks a bit better when both halves of the screen are 1:1, and some of the native apps make use of the long screen when in landscape mode. Obviously, those are features that one can't expect they'd get on the LG G5 via a software update, but we wouldn't say they are absolute gamechangers — just nice to have.

What's really cool is that the LG G6 is the first non-Google-made phone to get the Google assistant. And that's a feature that we don't really expect to be passed down to the G5. Currently, it looks like it's going to be an exclusive club affair. And yes, the LG G6 comes with Android 7.1 Nougat out of the box.

Both the G5 and G6 rock LG's UX plastered over the Android operating system. It's a pretty straightforward interface, which is flexible in terms of customizability — you can choose whether you want to have an app drawer or not, you've got a theme store, the settings menu can either be in a list or separated by tabs, and so on. In reality, the differences between the two phones' UIs come from the new features, which make use of the G6's display, and the slight cosmetic changes to match the G6's appearance.