The EJ Tech Show: LG K42 Review By HT Tech

Hey guys, what's up, welcome to the ex tech show, and today we're going to be checking out the new lg k42 smartphone, that's priced at 10 990, rupees uh for the 3gb ram, 64, GB storage, variant uh. Now this phone was launched in India in late January, but lg have just very recently sent us a review unit to take a look at. We know that lg does make some very premium smartphones, like the lg wing and also, of course, the lg velvet, but the company still hasn't found a very strong footing in the budget smartphone market in India, which is of course largely dominated by Chinese smartphone makers like Realme and Xiaomi, and also, of course, uh lg's own South Korean cousin Samson. To a large extent, the k-42 also comes at a time when the company is considering to exit the smartphone market altogether as well. Now, of course, this is according to multiple reports, and it's not verified. So don't quote me on it, but if it is true, then there is a lot at stake over here for lg.

But of course that's a discussion for another time right now. Uh, the more important question is: how does this phone perform in day-to-day scenarios, and I've been using this phone for about 10 days and with most affordable smartphones at this price point? They will of course be a lot of positives and then there'll also be a lot of compromises to attain that uh lower price point now. The biggest highlight for me is the design, slash, durability and the lgk42 does come in this gray, color variant, but there's also a green color option if you're looking for something flashier, but I do like this gray color, it is subtle. It is nice, and I really like this unique wave patterns that you see running across the phone. Not only does it look nice, but it also has a more practical purpose.

It does offer you a much more comfortable grip, plus you've got this UV coating that keeps fingerprints and scratches at bay. But if you are concerned about those things, you can always slap on a protective case that comes in the box. Overall, when I feel this phone in my hand, it doesn't feel like it's priced under 11, 000 rupees. It actually feels like it's priced upwards of 35 000 rupees, so it has some very solid aesthetics now, on top of that, you're also getting a military-grade certified build, which means that this phone can be used in various extreme conditions and environments, so environments that are very hot or very cold, or even very humid, like India, for example. In fact, this phone has specifically been designed for a market like India, where it is very hardware.

It does get very humid plus on top of that, it is also fallen shock resistant. It is also shock resistant and generally, it's been designed for people who are a little clumsy by nature, who do accidentally beg apart and accidentally drop their phones more than they'd like to so trust me. This phone can handle a lot of abuse, a lot of stress, I've dropped it a few times and no scratches no damage whatsoever. But yes, if you do want that extra peace of mind, you can always snap on that CPU case that I spoke about and additionally talking about extra peace of mind. This phone does get two years of free warranty cover.

Now most smartphone makers offer you one-year free warranty cover, but over here complementing that extra durability, you do get two years of a free warranty cover, so this phone definitely gets two thumbs up for me in that regard, also, this phone feels very light in the hand, doesn't feel heavy at all, so it is really nicely built. I am very happy with the design, I'm very happy with aesthetics, I'm very happy with the durability and on the top over there you can see that uh there is a quad camera set up. So you've got four cameras in that camera island over there. So you've got a 13 megapixel uh primary sensor. You've got a five megapixel wide lens.

You've got a two megapixel depth sensor and two megapixel macro sensor available as well. Now it is debatable uh how important those two megapixel modules actually are, but most of the heavy lifting over here is done by that 13 megapixel primary camera and by that 5 megapixel, wide angle lens, in fact, to give you guys a better idea about what I'm talking about. Let me just show you some camera samples. As well now, and as you can see nice amount of depth now, that's without the depth sensor, that's the AI, doing its magic behind the scenes, and, yes that does bring the argument uh into light again. Do you actually need the depth sensor when the AI is sufficient to give you that nice, both effect plus you've got decent colors? These are pretty true to life uh.

It doesn't over saturate the pictures either. So I do like that and again, if you take a look at this nice amount of depth over here as well, so another nice picture clicked by this. Of course, if lighting conditions are good, this phone is more than capable of taking some good clicks. On the other side, though, let's take a look at the low light pictures, and this is where the phone doesn't have the best camera capabilities right. So there's no dedicated night mode either to help things with and as you can see, it's very dark.

You can hardly see what's going on in the frame you really have to zoom in to get a better idea and there will obviously be noise and grain in the background, as well so low light photography, isn't this phone strength for sure, and that is a curse of most budget smartphones, but I think a dedicated night mode would definitely have helped things out and the competition is offering that to you- and I think lg could have introduced that over here, but let's hope, maybe with a software upgrade, they will bring that in. Let's also take a look at the ultra-wide clicks. There is a little of distortion with the five megapixel wide angle lens, but you do get a lot more subject in the frame. If that's what you're after, and I do like how it's nicely got out the sky colors, it's looking pretty nice over here also the selfie camera, the 8 megapixel selfie camera. That's housed over there in the hole punch setup.

It does take some nice portrait pictures as well. So let's take a look at that. Actually, this is a really, really good portrait picture, not because I'm in it, but just because there's a nice amount of bouquet. In the background, the colors are nice that green mask I'm wearing over there. That is pretty natural.

That is true to life color as well, so I'm really liking the portrait pictures that you can take with the front camera over here now. Let's also take a look at what we have on the front, so you've got decent sized bezels over here, it's okay by 2021 standards. These aren't the thickest. These aren't the slimmest they're just right, they're, okay, they'll do the job just fine and, like I said you do get that hole punch set up over there. In fact, this phone, both on the back and the front, actually reminds me of a Samsung phone, a typical Samsung m series or a series phone, that's priced at the low end and honestly, that's a good thing.

Samsung do make some really nice phones that are really well-built that have nice design and if lg is replicating that, I think that's not a bad thing at all now other than that, let's also take a look at what we get in terms of essentials right so at the bottom you do get an audio jack, a 3.5 millimeter audio jack, which is always good. You also get an USB type-c charging port and there's also a single loudspeaker over there, which also gets software support in the form of lg's 3ds sound. That will help you to optimize the overall audio experience and the speaker is pretty good. It gets loud enough, especially for media consumption, so I don't have too many problems over there. Then, on the right side, as you can see over here, you do get a power button that doubles up as a side mounted fingerprint scanner, and that is always good to see at this price point, because most smartphone makers will try to give you a rear, fingerprint scanner, but over here you are getting that side mounted one and for the most part it works just fine.

Initially, it was giving me some trouble uh, it was giving me false readings, but all of a sudden by itself it works just fine now- and I didn't have too many problems with that. Then, on the left side, you do get a dedicated Google Assistant button which will activate when I press it, and you also get those volume rockers right there and on top of the volume rocker, you do have a slot for putting your sims and a micro SD card. So you can put up to two sim cards: NATO sim cards and a micro SD card all at the same time, which is really handy and a practical feature to have. Now. Let's talk about that display, it's a 6.6 HD plus LCD panel- and this is pretty much expected at this price point. The competition does offer you similar displays, uh, I'm not going to give it too much of a hard time for not being in FHD plus resolution, because even recently, the galaxy a12 and the Nokia 5.4, which smartphones are actually priced higher than this, are also giving you HD plus resolution screen. So I'm okay with it uh, and it's not a bad screen at all.

It is absolutely fine for watching content, and it is also fairly it gets fairly bright both indoors and outdoors, and I had no trouble using it under direct sunlight either. I watched a lot of content on this and yeah. It does the job just fine. Yes, it's not eye searing and because it is an LCD panel, you will notice some color shifting from time to time, but for your day-to-day media consumption, it's a perfectly good display. Okay, so just a quick recap: good durability, good design, decent camera performance, low light photography is pretty much a miss, but overall, not bad, and also the display does the job.

Just fine. Now, where this phone has a pretty big weakness, is in the hardware department uh. This one is coming with a hello p22 chip, which is let's face it. It's outdated right, other Chinese, smartphone makers or even other smartphone makers at this price point are giving you better processors, and I'm not looking for a groundbreaking chipset over here, but even a hello g35 would have been a better option and clearly this is where lg has made. A compromise has cut corners, I'm being a little hard on it.

But honestly the software does feel a little sluggish when you're using it. It does take time to open up apps. It takes a few seconds longer to open up high intensive gaming is out of the question: it's okay for your normal, simple tap to tap games. Furthermore, it's okay for light usage like opening uh, your mails or light web browsing, it's okay for that sort of stuff, but for your high intensive stuff, it's not the best smartphone, and it doesn't help things that you've only got 3gb of ram. I would like to have seen at least 4 GB included over here, but sadly that's not the case, and you're also only getting 64 GB of storage uh, but luckily that is expandable by a micro SD card.

So there is some respite over there, but overall I feel that hello p22 in 2021 just isn't cutting it. But that being said, there is one advantage of having a lower end processor, like the hello p22. It doesn't eat into the battery life. It doesn't add that extra stress on the battery life, because the chipset itself isn't demanding so much power. Now you're only getting a 4000 my battery over here, but that's not a bad thing.

Yes, it doesn't have the 5000 my behemoths or the 6000mah behemoths that you've seen on other smartphones in this price range. But that's okay, because that chip will not trouble the battery too much, and this will easily last you about a day with medium to heavy usage. It lasted me a full entire day. The downside, again is the charging speed does take a long time to top up the phone from zero to 100. So you do need to be aware of that and yes, fast charging would have been a very, very welcome addition over here.

Okay. Finally, let's talk about software and this does run on android 10 and not the latest android 11. With lg's UX running on top uh for the most part, this is one of the cleaner user interfaces out there, especially when you compare it with the likes of realm or Xiaomi. But yes, it still does come with some third-party apps. So I can quickly show that to you, of course you do get Facebook Instagram.

You also got a couple of racing games uh. So there is a little of bloatware over here. You got asphalt. Nitro uh you've got a little big city too empires the love board. Don't want to know what that is, but yeah you've got all this sort of apps over here, but fortunately most of them can be uninstalled.

And yes, I would like to have seen android 11 over here, because now it's like march 2021, so the latest iteration of android is very much needed, and we know that the developer's preview for android 12 has already started rolling out so yeah they do need to definitely lg has to up their game in the software department, and I don't have a time frame when uh android 11 will be rolling out to this phone, but I'm hoping it will be very soon. Okay. So let's now address the most important question: whether you should buy the lgk42 or not, and if you're someone who's looking for hardcore performance. If you're looking for high intensive gaming a lot of multitasking, then the lgk42 isn't really for you. There are other options that you can check out, but look I actually enjoyed using this phone and the reason I enjoyed using this phone is that I knew what I was getting into right.

I knew that this didn't have the best processor. That ram was at a minimum. So what I'm trying to say is if you do buy this phone, you need to manage your expectations accordingly right, because, if you're looking for a very durable phone, a very well-designed phone, then the lg k42 definitely offers you that right. So I would say: if you already have a smartphone, then the lg k42 would make a good secondary smartphone in addition to your primary phone. So you can use this as your secondary phone in cases of emergencies or, if you just want a phone that you know, you're not too worried about accidentally, dropping and thinking.

Oh, that will stop working, because the lgk42, like I said, can take a lot of abuse, and it has. It does have that military-grade durability as well. So that gives you that added peace of mind. So you can be rest assured that this is a phone that will last you a very, very long time, at least in terms of durability. Okay, so that's it for my review of the lgk42.

Let me know what you think about it: whether you're planning to buy this foolproof well near foolproof phone uh hit us up in the comment section and if you like, content like this, do hit, that sub button do hit that, like button I'll, be back with more gadget reviews. But for now I'm signing out take care.

Source : HT Tech