20-25K LG G4 now : to buy or not to buy?

[Gauge]

Hey all,

As the title suggests, i am looking to upgrade from my LG G2 AT&T version. The phone has served me well and is still going good.

I am getting an Imported LG G4 Dual Sim Leather Back Variant at ebay.in for 22k after using coupons. Is it wise to buy it now? Any cons?
How is the battery life on this one since it only has a 3000mah one?
I have also read about some bootloop bug on the LG4. Is it still there on the Dual Sim variant?
Another negative is absence of the fingerprint scanner, but i believe i can live without that.
Liked the design and premium factor the LG phones carry. Also have trust in LG as a brand. But still cant convince myself to ahead and buy the G4.

Another options i have been considering are Lenovo Vibe X3 or the Xiaomi Mi5 (Will have to extend my budget for it) . NOt a big fan of either of the two but since i have no other options in the said budget range, cant look anywhere else.

Also if possible, a phone with a good Dev support. I use my phones for a year or two and only the developers come to the rescue when manufacturers ditch their phones without any software or performance updates.

Suggest me please. What to buy? Range is 20k - 22k. Ready to shell out a bit more if anything good or better is available.

Things i am looking for : Awesome audio Quality (both through speakers and earphones), good display, a reasonable but good camera, and a good battery life. Rest are the things i can easily live without.

Ebay link : http://www.ebay.in/itm/New-Imported...472141?hash=item1eaba0f84d:g:k2YAAOSwDuJWwcZb

As per the seller, The above item is Brand New Original & comes in a sealed pack With all the accessories included.
One or two buyers in their feedback have said that the seller indeed sends out the phones in sealed state.

 

[chetansha]

Why did you go with the P variant, it does not support 2300Mhz or band 40 like the N does.

To get 4G you will have to wait for Band 3 or 1800Mhz to come out.

There is a thread on xda on how to add bands to your phone.
I could add band 40 to my htc one m9 sprint version

 

[Gauge]

There is a thread on xda on how to add bands to your phone.
I could add band 40 to my htc one m9 sprint version

Chetan Sir, can you please link me to the same? TIA.

 

[chetansha]

Chetan Sir, can you please link me to the same? TIA.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s5/general/how-to-add-rf-lte-frequency-bands-to-t2886059

Oops You need a phone with a Qualcomm processor that has been rooted.

 

[blr_p]

The serial number starts with 602. The came with 5.1 v10a out of the box.

Feb 2016 build so recent.

v10A is curious. Mine bought in nov came with v10F and the last L build is v10L which is what i'm on currently. Fixed stagefright so that's good.

Never really cared about the SOT on the G2 and i dont care about it on the G4 either. On the G2, the battery used to last me easily for the day with Wifi turned on almost 90% of the time and browsing constituting around 70% of the total usage with brightness at 50% all the time. While on G4 i can see the battery dropping 1% almost every 4-5 minutes with browsing over wifi and screen brightness always set at 50%. The battery on the G2 was slightly of higher capacity than on the G4 and i believe qHD display is the main culprit here for the drain. The phone gets warm usually while downloading apps but not that much.

It must be building up cache with the new OS. You've had it less than a day. Give it a week. The drain is very low even on L. So much so that i don't know what advantages MM brings. Apps permission. yeah. Doze. yeah. Encryption. meh. No more root. Boo!

Did a drain test a while back. phone sitting there, 2g (for voice not data) & wifi enabled. brightness 20%. Very light use. Few phone calls some sms. 100-8%. SOT 1h total.

Guess how long it took to reach 8%. 6 days and 4 hours !!!

With your use i don't see run time being less than 16h. Could very well be more.

Edit: the thing to do when you upgrade the OS is a factory reset. Then install your apps. Few at a time. Not one hundred in a go. This reset has fixed quite a few inexplicable problems. If your run times don't improve then that is the last resort.

Nuke and repave (!)

 

[Gauge]

Feb 2016 build so recent.

v10A is curious. Mine bought in nov came with v10F and the last L build is v10L which is what i'm on currently. Fixed stagefright so that's good.


It must be building up cache with the new OS. You've had it less than a day. Give it a week. The drain is very low even on L. So much so that i don't know what advantages MM brings. Apps permission. yeah. Doze. yeah. Encryption. meh. No more root. Boo!

Did a drain test a while back. phone sitting there, 2g (for voice not data) & wifi enabled. brightness 20%. Very light use. Few phone calls some sms. 100-8%. SOT 1h total.

Guess how long it took to reach 8%. 6 days and 4 hours !!!

With your use i don't see run time being less than 16h. Could very well be more.

Yes right. My bad, It came with v10L.
The battery is 5% now with total run time of 11 hrs and 44 min, while the SOT is 3hrs 35 min.
I hope this improves after some days of use.

 

[blr_p]

Yes right. My bad, It came with v10L.
The battery is 5% now with total run time of 11 hrs and 44 min, while the SOT is 3hrs 35 min.
I hope this improves after some days of use.

See the edit in my last post. That is way too short a run time for your use.

unless you've been gaming heavily. New phone can't stop touching it might explain shorter runtimes. But i think better is possible.

 

[Gauge]

See the edit in my last post. That is way too short a run time for your use.

unless you've been gaming heavily. New phone can't stop touching it might explain shorter runtimes. But i think better is possible.

Nope. No gaming at all. Just installing apps and stuff. And browsing along with a few calls.

Edit : Yes. A factory reset seems like a good idea. Will do that later and report back.

 

[Gauge]

Did a factory reset last night. Charged the phone to 100% overnight. Battery is now down to 10% with wifi kept on the whole time and screen brightness averaging at 45%. Almost an hour of calls and around 2-2.5 hrs of browsing. the battery stats are as follows:
Total run time : 10 hrs 01 min
SOT : 04 hrs 08 min

I've noticed that the phone struggles to keep a stable wifi connection. Wifi drops are more frequent than on every other phone i have used. Googled it and found out that this seems to be a problem with quality of hardware LG has used.

 

[blr_p]

I've noticed that the phone struggles to keep a stable wifi connection. Wifi drops are more frequent than on every other phone i have used.

This might explain the lower than usual run time. Scanning for and setting up a wifi connection is the most energy draining part of the connection. If it has to keep doing it then your battery is going to be hit.

Googled it and found out that this seems to be a problem with quality of hardware LG has used.

Really ? its using broadcoms chips like every body else. Wifi issues on the g4 are mixed, some have issues others don't.

How crowded is your wifi spectrum ? Do you see a lot of nets if you use an app like wifi analyser.

Are you using bluetooth at the same time ?

Try a workaround. Instead of using an ip address assigned by your router use a static ip address on the phone. Go into wifi advanced and pick an address that has low chance of colliding with others on your LAN. If the router offers the option to reserve that address then better still so it does not get assigned to another device.

I do this with all my devices and do not face much issues. it's faster too as the phone does have to ask to get on, it just gets on.

it won't work on routers you don't control but i'm assuming you do have control over your router.

 

[Gauge]

This might explain the lower than usual run time. Scanning for and setting up a wifi connection is the most energy draining part of the connection. If it has to keep doing it then your battery is going to be hit.


Really ? its using broadcoms chips like every body else. Wifi issues on the g4 are mixed, some have issues others don't.

How crowded is your wifi spectrum ? Do you see a lot of nets if you use an app like wifi analyser.

Are you using bluetooth at the same time ?

Try a workaround. Instead of using an ip address assigned by your router use a static ip address on the phone. Go into wifi advanced and pick an address that has low chance of colliding with others on your LAN. If the router offers the option to reserve that address then better still so it does not get assigned to another device.

I do this with all my devices and do not face much issues. it's faster too as the phone does have to ask to get on, it just gets on.

it won't work on routers you don't control but i'm assuming you do have control over your router.

Yes. I believe wifi is the main culprit here. I am using a MTNL router at home. Can you please help and guide me how to get through the workaround?

No bluetooth at all.

Using the wifi analyzer app, i can see many wifi connections. I live in an apartment, and every house has a connection of their own.

Edit: Figured it out the static I P workaround myself. Lets see if this impacts the battery usage. Thanks for your help brother.

 

[blr_p]

Using the wifi analyzer app, i can see many wifi connections. I live in an apartment, and every house has a connection of their own.

The connections that will interfere with you are those with a signal lower than 80. So 50-60-70 and you're on the same channel as them you're thoughput is going to be reduced if they happen to use their wifi at the same time as you. If there is more than one then the wifi radio has to work harder

You want to pick a channel that has fewest other networks below 80. Once you find it set your router to use that channel only. You will have to monitor this over time as more networks can crop up and mess with your connection. Then you will have to change the channel.

The router will have interference avoidance built it so if it detects there are too many networks on a channel it will skip to something else. This happens automatically. When that happens your phone loses the connection, has to scan through all the channels, find your router and re-stablish the connection. Router jumps again, your phone has to keep up.

Some settings to avoid extra work.

advanced wifi - wifi notification set to off. Saves needless scanning when you don't need it.

keep wifi on when screen is off set to yes., Again saves needless reestablishment of wifi connection every time the screen goes off.

allow wifi scanning set to off.

MM is a little more flaky than L in the wifi & BT dept and this has been observed on other devices too. If that's the case then only an update from google & LG in turn can fix it.

 

[Gauge]

Battery life over the last three days has improved drastically. The phone lasts me a complete day with 100% charge in the morning to about 9-10% at night when i put it to charge again.
Total run time : ~ 17 hrs
SOT : 5 hrs 10 minutes
This with wifi being turned on the whole time. And browsing and whatsapp constituting the maximum usage. 30-40 min of voice calls and almost 30 min of music through speakers. And 3-4 downloads through playstore.
The last change i made was setting up a static IP for the wifi connection and brightness set to 50% constantly.

 

[Vivek_Nair786123]

Is LG G4 a good option to buy???

 

[blr_p]

Battery life over the last three days has improved drastically.

Total run time : ~ 17 hrs
SOT : 5 hrs 10 minutes
This with wifi being turned on the whole time. And browsing and whatsapp constituting the maximum usage. 30-40 min of voice calls and almost 30 min of music through speakers. And 3-4 downloads through playstore.
The last change i made was setting up a static IP for the wifi connection and brightness set to 50% constantly.

Now that sounds normal for wifi

If you can get away with 20% brightness indoors you might add an extra hour sot.

Did the static ip thing fix your wifi problems or something else.

The phone lasts me a complete day with 100% charge in the morning to about 9-10% at night when i put it to charge again.

So here is the thing. 100-10 is a deep discharge. If you continue like that the battery will give about 300-500 cycles.

You will find that within a year those figures will reduce back to 3h SOT. This is battery losing its ability to hold charge.

Fortunately its a simple replacement as the battery is replaceable. All this quick charge business isn't good for long term battery life.

To get closer to 1500 cycles. Charge to 90 and then again at 40. Now the discharge is 50%. Make this the rule instead of 100-10. If its not possible accept you have to change batteries every year. Or if you have a spare then alternate each month so you can wear them evenly.

 

[ankit360]

I m in same boat. Using atnt g2 sine last year. Main reasons i m now lookin for new mobile is 4G. Buying imported mobile @ 24 k is not recommended especially phones are not compatible with Indian 4g. Also point to note that there is big different in size between g2 and g4.

 

[blr_p]

Main reasons i m now lookin for new mobile is 4G. Buying imported mobile @ 24 k is not recommended especially phones are not compatible with Indian 4g.

That's what i thought but he said it worked with vodafone 4G. maybe vodafone is operating at 1800Mhz or Band 3.

I don't think it will work with Band 40 which airtel uses or 2300 Mhz.

 

[ankushv]

Vodafone in mumbai operates on band 3 1800 MHz if it helps . I'm using vodafone .

 

[blr_p]

I think jio will be launching on that same band as well so if you can see band 3 then you're good.

 

[Vivek_Nair786123]

Now that sounds normal for wifi

If you can get away with 20% brightness indoors you might add an extra hour sot.

Did the static ip thing fix your wifi problems or something else.


So here is the thing. 100-10 is a deep discharge. If you continue like that the battery will give about 300-500 cycles.

You will find that within a year those figures will reduce back to 3h SOT. This is battery losing its ability to hold charge.

Fortunately its a simple replacement as the battery is replaceable. All this quick charge business isn't good for long term battery life.

To get closer to 1500 cycles. Charge to 90 and then again at 40. Now the discharge is 50%. Make this the rule instead of 100-10. If its not possible accept you have to change batteries every year. Or if you have a spare then alternate each month so you can wear them evenly.

Does the battery really lasts for more than 3 days....???

 

[rkkaranrk]

Now that sounds normal for wifi

If you can get away with 20% brightness indoors you might add an extra hour sot.

Did the static ip thing fix your wifi problems or something else.


So here is the thing. 100-10 is a deep discharge. If you continue like that the battery will give about 300-500 cycles.

You will find that within a year those figures will reduce back to 3h SOT. This is battery losing its ability to hold charge.

Fortunately its a simple replacement as the battery is replaceable. All this quick charge business isn't good for long term battery life.

To get closer to 1500 cycles. Charge to 90 and then again at 40. Now the discharge is 50%. Make this the rule instead of 100-10. If its not possible accept you have to change batteries every year. Or if you have a spare then alternate each month so you can wear them evenly.

Really u sure about it.....this should apply to car batteries and invertor batteries also then.....?