LG Velvet Review With LG Dual Screen By TWiT Tech Podcast Network

This is twit all right, so why don't we talk about this other device, the lg velvet um. So this is one of the first times on this show where the three of us have basically received an um, a review device on the on the same device at basically the same times. We're like why don't we do like a three view of the lg velvet um. So that's what we're here to do and there 's's no easy way to do this and not have it end up being like super-duper long right, because we each have thoughts and opinions and there 's is a lot of ground to cover. But we've also had talked about this: the lg velvet on the show uh in the past, so we were talking about just kind of like breaking it down into three areas and kind of sharing a little of our thoughts in each area and then giving it a score and then averaging the score, because why the heck not I mean it's different: let's, let's just go with it and see what happens so um. So I don't know who wants to go? First, do we want to start with kind of the design and the feel of the device, because that seems like an obvious place to start? Yes Flo, you were the first person to say yes, so go first well, I would like to just point to the fact that this opens up like a little book.

Well, some might say you're you're, looking at it with you're looking at with it with the dual screen case. Yes, I am, so you have to purchase the dual screen case for an extra 100, but it's a little different this time around. It's a tiny bit, thinner, uh, it's a little more sleek. It's also got like this open-ended spot right here for the buttons on the right side. Furthermore, it's got kind of this slightly revamped window here and one very little cool thing is the always on display.

Let's see if I can get it to, I don't know if you guys can see that, but I can upload your own little like picture, and so I put a little sailor moon GIF, which is kind of NATO. I really was having fun with that. I really had fun just kind of going in trying to find an aesthetic for it, because that's kind of the first thing I do when I get a phone, and I'm I'm really feeling the silver sheen of this um and it really it feels like uh I'm. Furthermore, I might upset some people by saying this, but it really kind of feels like an older Samsung phone. Furthermore, I've put my hands on before, just in terms of like the thinness, how big it is, how much hand space it takes up um.

It feels like it feels. Like a note, a Samsung note, it really does. I completely agree, I'm happy that you said that, because I have that down uh in my notes too, it's uh definitely has a feel in a couple of areas, and we'll talk about it in performance as well. Well, no, no, sorry! No! No sorry! This is. This is firmly in the design camp from a hardware design perspective.

I do feel like it kind of feels like a Samsung phone um, as well kind of like maybe a couple of generations, older uh Samsung device, which is not a knock at all, like. I think, if there's one really strong quality about the lg velvet, it is the design of the device uh, which is just it's really well-designed, although you can see, picks up a lot of fingerprints but which phone doesn't with a glass back. So I was just about to. I was just about to say that, like I, I am very impressed by the design and the feel of it. When I first got it, and I actually handed it to my wife- and she was like.

Oh, that's light, you know, and she's like does it even have a battery, and so we went into the specs and like and actually comparing it to my OnePlus um OnePlus 7 pro like the OnePlus 7 pro feels like a brick compared to this. It's so light it feels nice, but that silver uh glass back. You know the combination of the glass plus the silver backing makes you know almost accentuates the fingerprints you know, and- and the assumption is that you get a case like in the little kit that we got we, we got the dual screen case, but we also got kind of a fashion case that goes around it with a little holder, and so, if you are throwing a case on, you won't really care about it. But if you're someone like me who doesn't like cases, you know you got a smudgy device so um I have to, I have to knock it for that, like that's, my only knock, but that all the phones are going to get that but everything else I like the placement of the buttons I like the the feel of the buttons I like that they are physical buttons that tap in, and you feel the click when you do it um, and it's a long phone. We talked about this when we first got it, I mean this: is you know comparing this right now on the video to my plus seven pro, you know you can see.

I've got a, and I've got a case on my OnePlus 7 pro, and you can see how much higher it is than that which I already thought the OnePlus 7 pro was a long phone as it was um. This aspect ratio is enormous um, but given what you can do with it, and especially if you have the dual screen case for gaming or for media consumption or productivity, it is, it becomes a very versatile device, so uh yeah. So I like it, I like the design and feel of it. I give it definitely a good score, so we should probably explain what we're doing so. We're going to be scoring everything on a one to five rating, one being the lowest five being the best, and then we'll tally it up and give it a total and give it a total score.

So um, who is going to be tallying amongst I'll? Do the tallying how's that okay, so Jason design and feel what score do you give it um? I give it a four I'd say: um, maybe would have scored it a little higher, except one thing that I didn't mention is I just don't like the lg skin and I feel, like that's kind of part of the design and feel is kind of the interaction with the skin, and I feel like it's really heavy-handed when I talked about other ways that it reminded me of Samsung. It reminded me of it reminds me of kind of like older school Samsung that I just never shared, for it's always reminding you of things. Oh, by the way, did you know that you can do this just like to shut up? I just want to use my yeah. I do agree with you. There Jason that's a very good point, um all right.

So what do you flow? What do you give it one through five um? I would also give it a four. I agree with Jason about the UI. It's just I'm I'm disappointed that it's such a's a chore to get. First, it's such a chore to set up the phone. I, if you set it up kind of blankly without bringing over your things, and even if you do bring over your things from another phone, you have to go in and do a little of configuration change the home screen so that you have an app drawer, and then you got to hide some apps, and you know the first five minutes after I had set up.

My Google account the phone is, is yelling at me to set up Facebook. Your friends are probably on Facebook. Guess what buddy I left Facebook like almost three years ago. What are you doing? Leave me alone. I don't like that, but it is an important reminder, just kind of where we are at with regard like this is what we get for this kind of carrier exclusive like this is what we have to deal with um and to add to that the 18t bloat I mean.

I appreciate that HBO Max was already installed on there. Furthermore, I am paying for it through YouTube TV, but it didn't need to be on their kind of thing. You know there's a lot of stuff that doesn't need to be well there's too much bloat, but I also I chalked that up to the 18 t the f, the phone I got, you know in partnership with 18 t and there's a lot of you know like I joke, because the DC universe app is on there because DC is owned by 18t. Now, because 18t owns Warner brothers same reason: right. Why? Why HBO Max is on there? So it's kind of back.

It falls in the same carrier, bloatware category that I got away from going to OnePlus that I forgot exists. That is just as bad on Verizon. So you know, bloat is a thing um you know, so we got to ding it, but to move on. I also give it a four for design. Um yeah, you know really close, really strong, but uh yeah, but all the bloatware, the UI stuff and the smudgy background.

So all right, so that leads us into performance, uh Jason. How did this head of this phone perform for you? I have to say like okay, realizing that the OnePlus word was the first device that I had used with the 765g. The lg velvet also has the 765g on the word I felt like that processor was screaming fast, like I felt like it was as fast as I needed it to be. Very rarely did I run up against issues where I've, where I felt like it was not a top of the line premium uh processor on the velvet. I feel differently like it, and it's, and it's probably impossible right now.

As I'm doing you know this, this show to kind of show it. You can kind of see it in scrolling through some things and everything, but there were just times when I'm using this thing, and I'm getting this like this, like banking, buttery, sort of thing. That is just really apparent to my eyes and um, and I didn't get that on the word and I do get it here, and I guess the only thing you know that I can kind of chalk that up to is probably the heavy-handed uh, the more anyways heavy-handed, uh lg skin approach. There's just so much customization going on here that I think maybe it handles the processor. Oh, I have to, apparently plug in my camera um there's just more for the processor to manage.

That's my guess, but I wasn't too happy with that. So I gave it a three. I would also echo your sentiments that I did find it, and it's funny because we talk about the bloatware and the stuff in there. So there's like a Game of Thrones game in there and Final Fantasy and like all this sort of stuff. So I was thinking tinkering around with it and, as I was popping from app to app- and I you know, play a little of the game and then pop over to Pluto TV and watch a little video and then pop over to a browser and do stuff the more I used it.

The more I saw it kind of dragging its feet a little um and I chalked it up to doing things that, were you know, kind of heavy on the data connection and heavy on the processor stuff and that sort of thing. But then you know as I continue to use it. I would see that kind of jittering that you mentioned Jason and that sort of thing, so it really kind of bugged me in that regard um. But that said, I did not find it unusable, so I would go a little higher and give it a four. So hmm, I think I might have to agree with Ron there, because I didn't get.

I didn't get time with this phone to really like to put it through its paces, but I did use it kind of for some things that I usually use a phone for which is um kind of going through. I used it to like to write, you know, write some text and I used it to take photos and I used it to kind of play some little like mobile games that I like to play, and I even used it with like infinite painter, because I wanted to try out the stylus support and those things I mean they worked in the app when it was running very smoothly, but it definitely like compared to the v60. Thank you. There was a little of a's like this slight noticeable delay. If that makes sense, the kind of thing that you feel with like a mid-range phone, and it was especially apparent with the notifications because it would ping and then the notification would come in if that makes sense.

It was like you know it. Wasn't this instantaneous sort of feature, so I'm gonna stick with the four as well, because I think it's, I think it's fine for an average user, but maybe power users aren't gonna, really find what they want here. So all right, okay, so moving on to the camera. Oh, so, oh we're going to tabulate. At the end.

Sorry, sorry yeah we're going to tabulate the end. Yeah, keep track of this um and also to give a little background. You know like you, can go to all the blogs and sites that we talk about here. We often have a lot of writers from come on the show they put it through the paces. They do all those crazy benchmarks and all this sort of stuff- I I I don't have time for that, and I also don't care about that stuff.

I just you know so like when we were talking about what matters to us. It's you know. We said it's the design and feel of the phone. How is using it performance and then the last category, which is the camera um, and so looking at the camera um, I well. I feel I had mixed results with the camera um.

I love the crazy wide um large wide, a large aspect range. You can set the camera to do um four. You know four by three, sixteen nine one by one or full, which takes the full aspect ratio. I took all my photos in full because I think that's crazy and awesome um, and it also offers you know four by three and 48 megapixel um and there's a bunch of different options within the camera, similar to how you know um. You know the Google camera offers where there's a portrait mode and of course you can take video and all that sort of stuff.

Um I took some you're if you're watching the video Burke is showing some of the photos that I took in my on my patio and in the apartment with it um. I thought that it picked up uh light really well, I thought it picked up. Colors I took some of my kids toys pictures to see how colors would pop and try to do some. You know kind of focus out of focus, kind of effects and all that sort of stuff um, but in looking at it, I just felt the pictures were just lacking a little and I don't know if that's my inability to actually be a good photographer or not, but um, even under a portrait mode. There was a bunch of different kinds of novelty modes that I played with.

You know this 3d photo effect and cartoon background and sketch background. I did the 3d photo effect and I found like the little 3d motion. There was all this digital noise on the photo and there was a lot of artifacts and things like that. That were happening and, as I zoomed in and looked closer, I saw that was happening on more and more photos, so I did have mixed results with the camera personally, um Flo did you have similar results or yeah it? The thing about lg phones, or at least the last batch that have come out- is that the photos are just like good enough, but when you try and do anything specialized like a portrait mode, you start to really understand that there's so much work that goes into the camera, app to kind of get the desired effect that you would on like a Google Pixel right um. This is not shooting photos akin to what I have seen of the Pixel 4a, but it's good enough, there's fun stuff on it.

Um I had uploaded a little video that I had taken of my always on display by the way, just because I'm very pleased with the sailor. Moon logo um, but as far as like photos go they're fine for social media they're fine for like general archiving, but it's not you know it's not the best camera that you have is the camera. In your pocket kind of phone, if that makes sense, yeah yep Jason, how did you that was your experience? Go well um. So this is weird uh I'll. Do my review through the camera app um? I agree.

I agree. Cameras are okay right, like the parameter. The primary camera, I would say, was good enough for I like how you put it flow like pretty good for social media. Let's say um if you're going to really be, you know getting in there and analyzing the pixels and everything is probably not the right camera system. For you, the primary camera is okay.

The wide is a bit fuzzy when you, when you do pictures with the wide angle, um the camera interface again like. I think this goes back to kind of lg's approach, just not really working for me, but there's just certain things about it. I find it that in some ways it's similar to what I'm used to on the pixel, but then in other ways I would have to tap a couple of times just to like to get things to register and um. Furthermore, I'm not a huge fan of some of these other portrait mode things. Furthermore, I don't know it was rather unimpressive, especially because it's really hard to compare in this price range, and this is actually more expensive than the 4a or the 3a, and you know from that.

You know it's 5.99 for this phone and uh still the camera system is nowhere near what you get out of the lesser expensive, 3a and 4a. So it's fine, but I don't know if I had to give it a number it'd be a three: it might even be a two and a half, but I'll give it a three I'll go ahead. My score was my score. Was a three as well flow. Where do you come out number one yeah same thing, three squarely in the three much better than lg used to do, though, so I will say I will, I will say, and then I'll throw it to flow before we wrap up, and I have to tabulate these numbers? I did put it in the dual screen case, and first I showed my wife and that the little thing pot the little display popped up, and she went whoa, and then I showed her the dual screen and it, and it literally blew her mind and basically- and I showed her all the different ways he can work and the game pad and all that sort of stuff, and she's like well.

That's basically like a laptop- and I was you know so that then spurred a discussion about how we use phones and what is the use case for this phone but flow what it what you went deeper with the dual screen: uh kind of aspect of it. What more can you tell us about that? Well, what I really like about the dual screen is it. It brings me what I really want, which is the surface Surface Duo um I've been eagerly awaiting this device to come out, and so this idea right here, just like the thinness of the phone, coupled with the way that I had mentioned, they had re-done this dual screen. It's not as thick as it was with the v60. Thank you.

I thought that was a little too like dense. This is a little lighter to it, and it feels like you know. It really feels you guys remember those uh Casio like digital diaries. They had back in the day um oh yeah, I had one, it was, you know: um aqua, themed, colored and has a little virtual pet on it, but it feels like that in terms of like this is something that I would just throw in my bag and have as a dual screen device and things I used it for, as I mentioned earlier, I tried using the lg keyboard app to do the whole dual screen typing thing where you have like the keyboard on the bottom. Uh display the heavier kind of end, and then you have the screen on top.

I try to do that with this markdown app that I like to use um, and it just was not it just wasn't working out the way that it would on one of those casinos back in the day with physical qwerty keyboard. I kind of ended up like tap typing or touch yeah tap typing like having just one finger at a time to tap out, and I was like this- is I'm not getting anything done with this, but if I could, if I wanted to, I could just flip it backwards. Have it stood up like this um so the way I have it for those listening to the audio? Is its uh, the flip case bends backwards so that you can actually kind of prop it up, and what I would do is I would just pair it with a wireless keyboard and get work done that way. But it's still just it's still missing some things that I think, would really help make use of that dual screen. It's got the same little widget as the v60.

Thank you which you tap, and then it gives you a couple of like different modes that you can use, which is great. You have Google apps that you can use with the dual screen kind of have it expand. I did that with chrome, which is great, there's a couple other browsers in the play store that do this, but because the ecosystem is so small and limited in terms of what I can do, and I know that companies like Microsoft, which are putting out a device in due time they are working on their own development to kind of make the device have apps that work with it. That way, it's its hard to see the true value of a dual screen outside of well. This is neat, so it's that's just kind of where it is it's like.

I still think it's super neat um, I'm probably still going to toss this into my purse when I go and like we've been doing this thing, where we'll take like a quick little drive, and then I'll hang out in the car with the kid while my husband goes and like gets something or whatever just to get out of the house. This be a great little thing to carry around have a have my little e-reader on there. I have, you know other little bits and bobs. So it's again, it's not a required part of the phone, but it certainly adds little value to it. Just a little.

I will s. I will say that the way it sits in the device it does it in the um dual screen. It doesn't it's not easily popped out. So if you're going with this you're committing to this- and it's not the kind of thing where I'm like- oh I don't want to- I don't want to carry because it does add a significant amount of bulk and weight to the phone which we previously said was light and smooth and very you know, kind of handy um. So if you're, if you want to kind of go between the two you're going to find yourself wrestling with it, a lot more than like to the point where I'm like, am I breaking it right? Um because it snaps in their pretty hard uh, but that said, Flo you're, absolutely right, it's an it's a cool little novelty and, if like, if we commuted ever again but like, if I had an hour-long commute, this would be a great commuting device.

This would be like sitting on the train reading, watching something actually getting some work done like I could see it being a neat device for uh for commuting, so um cool all right well to wrap this up um. We gave we overall, the three of us, give the design and feel of four. We net it out on performance at 3.6, with a line over it uh, and we all gave the camera a three, and so the dual screen isn't something that we'll rate, that's just a little kind of note about this, so that gives the phone and overall, the first official, all about android. Three view review gives the lg velvet a 3.5, which I feel is uh appropriate, because it's very much totally yeah 3.5. I feel, like that's, a pretty fair, fair rating for this device.

So if, if this connected with you Flo, how much would this phone plus the dual screen cost? It would cost around 700 to get the whole package it's 5.99, just for the phone itself, which is already kind of like yeah. I was pulling my caller for those listening to the audio um and then the extra screen would be an extra 100 or so I'm sure they'll have a deal at t or something it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of fun! Yeah! I'm also seeing that um the dual screen attachment. Is it 199 or is it 99? Maybe it's 199.

That's a deal. Breaker yeah there's no way it's 199 because it does not of. You know yeah right. Is it worth two hundred dollars like I'm looking on a verge article, and it's saying it's 199 dollars, but maybe, if you're buying this through a carrier, they might have deals uh to get that price left. You can get like two computer monitors for 200.

More, so that's why I'm very like yeah. You know that's if yeah, if you want one of these with the dual screen, and it's going to cost you eight hundred dollars, that's uh, you're thinking twice on that yeah interesting all right, but for the device itself, 3.5 is what we came up with right and I think that's super fair yeah and I think lg had is on to something with this dual screen situation, but I really feel like if they want to make any sort of moves in the android sphere if they want to be kind of regarded the way they were mere years ago. They really need to focus on that interface focus on buttoning down that camera hardware. I think one of their biggest things was always to have that raw mode and the manual mode- and that is kind of you know, awesome for people to tinker with. I feel like just focusing on that and making the dual screen a little more of a permanent part make it feel, like more of a permanent part of the phone, would kind of really help down the line so yeah.

Source : TWiT Tech Podcast Network