LG G Stylo Review

Introduction

Ah the stylus. As much as people want to proclaim it to be dead entirely, it continues to live on most profoundly in Samsung’s line of Galaxy Note devices. To be fair, though, it’s still something that’s alive and well in other devices too – like in some of LG’s models to be exact. The latest one in the company’s portfolio to feature a stylus, the LG G Stylo, is aiming to popularize the aged tool once again by giving us creative control at a moment’s notice. Will it reinvigorate interest in the stylus? Let’s find out.

The package contains:

• LG G Stylo
• microUSB cable
• Wall charger
• Stylus
• Get start guide
• Important information

Design

Following LG’s design philosophy, it looks similar to the G4, but there’s an inferior quality to its construction and materials.

Undeniably employing LG’s current design philosophy, the G Stylo doesn’t deviate from the aesthetics we’ve seen. One can argue it looks exactly like the company’s flagship, the G4, due in part to its size and subtly arched plastic casing. What’s different, though, is that it flaunts a plastic rear casing with a dimpled pattern – giving it a slightly grippier feel in the hand.

While it bears a style that’s reminiscent of the G4, it clearly doesn’t achieve the same level of premium craftsmanship. Frankly speaking, it’s a few notches down below it, but that’s all within the scope of it being an affordably priced mid-ranger – so its subdued design qualities are practical for this particular phone.

Following in suit, its volume controls and power button are all placed on its backside, which has become a signature design principle for LG’s smartphones of late. Above all, the phone is arguably most notable for the stylus that’s tucked away into the upper right corner of the phone. Don’t expect anything extraordinary with this, seeing that it’s just your plain, ordinary, and simple stylus. It’s just there as an alternative to touch interaction with your finger, and nothing more!

Display

Ouch. There are too many unfavorable qualities at play here.

Phones with gigantic displays are tougher to interact with, so that’s possibly part of the reason why the LG G Stylo is accompanied with a stylus. The requirement of a stylus is made more apparent when we look at its 5.7-inch 720 x 1280 IPS display, which is undoubtedly generous with the real estate, but it’s hardly the sharpest looking around the block. That’s because of its 258 ppi pixel density, which makes fine text a bit tough to decipher.

Looking into the screen’s other parameters, it simply reveals that we’re dealing with a very ho-hum panel that’s content with being less than average. From its color temperature of ~7200K, to the inaccuracies with its color reproduction, the entire things just looks blah. Visible distortion at wide angles doesn’t help either, but it’s just the subdued appearance that makes the screen a turn off.

Interface and Functionality

While it employs most of the same experiences found in the G4, there’s nothing too great that makes exceptional use out of the stylus.

On the specs front, there’s a considerable disparity between the LG G4 and this, but it’s really swell that the LG G Stylo is running the same software experience as its highly esteemed sibling. That’s fantastic, as it blends the same flat styled interface with a comprehensive set of useful software tools to make it incredibly powerful. The tools in its arsenal that are at its disposal include Knock On, Glance View, Knock Code, Dual Window, and EasyHome. Best of all, it’s running all on top on a very up-to-date build of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. Noticeably absent, though, are the set of QSlide apps meant for mini multi-tasking.

You’d think there would be some kind of additional enhancement to make use of its stylus, but there’s not. Rather, the smartphone comes with LG’s QuickMemo+ app, which is something that’s been a common staple app amongst LG’s phones. At its core, it’s a note taking tool that we can use to quickly jot down notes, or even use it as a canvas to draw something – albeit, the stylus here lacks the precision and sensitivity of Sammy’s S Pen stylus.

Processor and Memory

Benign tasks are handled well, but not much for everything else.

The LG G Stylo’s classification as a mid-ranger is made more poignant by the quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 SoC that’s powering things behind the scenes. Accompanied with 1GB of RAM and the Adreno 306 GPU, the entire package is decent at handling most benign tasks, but it’s hardly the kind of thing equipped for gaming and intensive operations. For example, there are some delays when heavily using Dual Window – and some skipped frames with gaming.

A miniscule tally by today’s standards, the 8GB of storage available with the LG G Stylo can fill up quickly, but it’s comforting that LG has been consistent with offer microSD card slots with its devices; this one included.

Internet and Connectivity

The web surfing experience, whether it’s with Chrome or LG’s own, is typical of most anything nowadays. It’s good in the way that pages load quickly and navigating is smooth, but its low screen resolution makes full views somewhat tough to distinguish. As for the stylus, we find it most useful in making precise selections – such as trying to click on a link or something.

Our particular review unit is the CDMA version meant to play nicely with Sprint’s network domestically, but there’s a GSM variant as well that’s sold by T-Mobile as well. Donning respective LTE radios, it’s accompanied with the usual suspect of connectivity features – they consist of S-GPS for enhanced location accuracy, Bluetooth 4.1, and 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. Sorry folks, there’s no NFC here!

Camera

Muddy details and its poor low light performance makes this camera forgettable.

A step down from the G4’s arsenal, the LG G Stylo is fashioned with an 8-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash. Indeed, it’s not as imposing as the G4’s camera, but it still receives the same laser auto focus assist. Meanwhile, the front-facing camera packs a 5-megapixel snapper.

Running the camera app, there are no surprises to find us exposed to a very familiar looking interface. While it appears to be the same superficially to the G4’s interface, it actually is far more elementary in what it offers. Essentially, we’re given only a small fraction of features and shooting modes, such as panoramic, HDR, and gesture shots – while missing out on a manual mode of some kind.


After relishing on so many phones that take incredible photos, there’s no denying that the bar is now set higher when it comes to quality. Unfortunately, the LG G Stylo completely misses it and falls way behind the pack with its dull overall results. While it’s decent for situations when lighting is ample, details become significantly muddier under low light – not to mention, its HDR shots appear a bit more over-exposed at times. Just look at how some of the background elements in the shot with the statue in the front become overexposed!



In addition, there’s nothing astounding with its 1080p video recording quality as well, which fails to capture even a smidgen of our interest with its lackluster results. In particular, its slow auto focus adjustment, jittery exposure, and light details just don’t do justice in making us believe we’re looking at high-definition footage.

Multimedia

It gets the job done, but video watching multi-tasking can only be achieved via Dual Window.

Even though the screen is rather dull looking in our opinion, the phone is still more than capable of running all sorts of videos with no fluff at all. Since it lacks the QSlide functionality, we can only achieve multi-tasking by using its Dual Window feature – so there’s no floating window for playing video here.

LG’s music player is on board as an alternative to Google Play Music. Of course, there’s nothing new at play here because it’s the same music player we’ve seen before. As we’re playing music, the audio quality favors a flatter quality, despite the 74 dB of audio power coming from its rear speaker.

Call Quality

Thin sounding voices through the earpiece and the muffled tone of its speakerphone makes it tough having conversations.

Having phone conversations is challenging at times, despite its good handling of noise-cancellation. Through the earpiece, voices sound extremely thin toned, which doesn’t help either when the volume output isn’t as strong as we’d like. Switching to the speakerphone, there’s nothing better either because it tends to muffle voices. Its saving grace, however, is experienced on the other end of the line, as our callers mention being greeted with tones that have a lot of emphasis.

Battery

It’s good, but nothing really extraordinary.

Giving life to this phone is a 3000 mAh battery cell, which undeniably seems like a small capacity for a big phone like this, but a removable one at the very least – enabling us to swap it. In our experience, the phone has some serious longevity, powering us through an easy one-day of normal usage. However, our custom battery benchmark test reveals it’s nothing more than an average performer with its tally of 7 hours and 43 minutes. Regardless, it only take 137 minutes to get it back to 100% capacity.

Conclusion

After living with the LG G Stylo for some time, it merely reveals that the stylus here adds nothing new or refreshing to the overall experience. It’s just your simple, ordinary stylus – and nothing more. To that degree, it reaffirms Samsung’s position of being the innovator in the stylus arena because its S Pen technology is unmatched.

Currently, the LG G Stylo can be fetched for $49.99 on-contract through Sprint – or $288 off contract. Needless to say, its affordable cost is enough to attract those who are tight on a budget and looking for a big phone, but its included stylus hardly achieves anything unique that we can’t do with our own physical digits. The savings is the most promising thing with the LG G Stylo. Besides that, it’s just an underperforming phone that attempts to draw people in with its pointy, outdated tool.

Software version of the review unit:
Android Version: 5.1.1
Build Number: LMY47V
Kernel Version: 3.10.49