Finally listened to last week 's AAA and I strongly disagree with Chad 's review of the LG G2

[G+_Eric Boyle]

Finally listened to last week's AAA and I strongly disagree with Chad 's review of the LG G2.

 

To refute his criticisms. First, I've never felt like I had to put my thumb on the screen to use the back buttons. They are perfectly located and easy to press. On large phones side buttons are a liability (never realized this until I got my G2). I've dropped my GNex several times just by trying to adjust my grip to reach the side buttons. The G2 buttons take a little getting used to since it is a departure from what we're all used to, but it's sweet once you make the adjustment.

 

Second, I believe his opinion on the software is way off. Yes, QSlide is horrible and painfully useless but you can turn it off. With that gone the notification shade is no more cluttered than my GNex running CM10.2 was.

I suppose you could call the toggles on top in the notification shade "outdated" compared to Google's quick tiles, but I never thought toggles were a bad design in the first place. In fact I think the quick tiles take up a lot of space (so your limited to how many you can fit on a screen) AND you have switch to a new screen to even get to them. The LG G2's tiles are useful, customizable, and quick to get to.

The launcher on the G2 is very customizable. Way more than any stock launcher I've ever seen. It almost has the feel of a custom ROM launcher. It's quite nice.

Then you have the keyboard. I've been a die hard Swiftkey user since I can remember but I'm still using the stock keyboard on the G2! It's great. Swipe style typing, predictive, quick number input, emoticons... I like it and don't see myself switching.

 

Add all this to wicked fast hardware, insanely awesome screen, fantastic camera, and battery life I just can't believe (especially coming from the GNex) as well as some other slick software features like KnockOn, guest mode, wireless storage, do not disturb, etc, and you have a GREAT phone. Oh, and the Verizon version has wireless charging.

 

It's a definite DO buy in my book.

 

[Proudly sent from my #LGG2]

[G+_Brad Bernard]

One criticism I forgot to mention though, the G2's auto brightness is odd, confusing, and useless. I use Lux Lite instead. Works great.

[G+_John Mink]

Brad Bernard interesting to hear another PoV, but i do love Lux!

[G+_Brad Bernard]

In fact, here's a screenshot of the pull down notification shade on my G2. I think it looks pretty clean.

https://db.tt/pZTf2ImD

[G+_John Mink]

Certainly different than what Chad showed, do you think he just didn't have enough time to mess with every option/feature?

 

Maybe you need to list out everything you did for future G2 people?

[G+_Brad Bernard]

The biggest thing I did to clean up the interface was to ditch QSlide. It isn't terribly obvious how to do this so I'd be glad to post it.

 

1. Pull down the notification bar

2. Slide the toggles to get to the far right side of the toggle bar

3. Touch edit

4. Turn on the QSlide toggle (check next to it)

5. Back out of the toggle edit page

6. Tap the QSlide toggle in the toggle bar to turn QSlide off

7. Go back to toggle edit page and uncheck the QSlide toggle

8. Back out again and enjoy your G2 without the invasive QSlide "feature"

 

Outside of the above and turning off the phone's built in auto brightness and installing Lux Lite (like I mentioned in a previous post), the rest of my setup is really personal preferences. These two things really take care of the only two shortcomings I found on the phone.

[G+_Dave Bach]

I couldn't agree with you more. I actually think Leo should pull the review or at least have Jason Howell re-review the G2.

[G+_Robert Marshall]

Dave Bach With the thousands of reviews out there on the Web there are bound to be those that some people disagree with. I think pulling it is a bit harsh. But, would certainly welcome a different take on the phone IF Jason Howell's review was radically different.

[G+_Brad Bernard]

I agree with Robert Marshall with regards to their being plenty of opinions, and not all will see things the way I do. However, when a show is dedicated solely to Android I expect more than a 30 sec review on a manufacturer's flagship device. Furthermore, I find it somewhat insulting when that review appears to not have been thoroughly researched yet providing a recommendation. If you're going to do a review in which you recommend to your audience to NOT BUY, but haven't really done your homework, you lose credibility. I like Chad, but I think he blew it on this one. He clearly didn't put in the time to exercise the options and features of the phone.

 

One more thing, the tutorials that were scoffed at...I didn't need them, the AAA crew and audience may not need them, but my mom would, my wife would, my sister would, and the majority of users out there who aren't phone geeks probably find them quite useful. I think LG catered to the majority of the market with the tutorials. I understand that so I looked past it and dismissed them.

[G+_Robert Marshall]

The thing is, while they took about a minute or two to do the mini-review on AAA, they did a 20 minute review of the G2 for Before You Buy, and they did mention that fuller review more than a couple of times during the AAA segment.

 

He didn't mention the Tutorials during that one, and I think that his over exuberance was probably because he'd spent so much time with the device already, and the tutorials only came back because he'd did a factory reset. Plus, it didn't help having Ron Richards sort of egging him on during the review.

 

Here's a link to the full review in case people hadn't seen it:

 

[G+_Brad Bernard]

After watching the video I take back what I said about Chad not doing his homework (sorry Chad).

 

I still disagree with some of what he said but in pretty much all cases they fall into the category of personal preference and my personal experience, not lack of review on his part.

 

I still wish they had done a more thorough review on AAA. It is the TWiT Android show after all.

 

And full disclosure, I switched to Nova as well, but that's not because I didn't like the stock launcher, It's because I freaking love Nova so much.?

[G+_Robert Marshall]

I'm going to have to check out this Nova Launcher everyone talks about. I just pulled the trigger on an HTC One over on Swappa, and am not sure I want BlinkFeed running, even if I switch it to a launcher page that's not the default.

[G+_Brad Bernard]

You should definitely check it out. A friend of mine has the One and installed Nova per my recommendation and he loves it. He even liked and wanted to keep BlinkFeed, but he pretty much gave it up and hasn't looked back. He doesn't even care to do the launcher page trick now.

 

He was really pumped to install screen off and lock and create a Nova double tap gesture activity shortcut to the screen off activity. This way he could get the double tap screen off feature of the G2's KnockOn. He still can't double tap the screen on though ?