The V30 comes with a great QuadDAC connected to its 3.5mm headphone jack and with some clever software to bring the most out of it. Most of the time the built-in software intelligently deciphers the kind of headphones you are using in order to deliver the best sound possible to you, but if you want to, you can manually configure the sound settings in the software yourself as well.
The 16MP primary camera offers an impressive f/1.6 aperture that on paper and somewhat in reality puts this phone's camera above most of the competition for pictures in low-lighting conditions. However, it does not provide the best results in low-light conditions, that title belongs to the S8 and Pixel phones.
Where V30's camera truly shines though, is providing the correct balance for lighting and contrast for dim shots, like for example taking pictures at dusk.
The 3300mAh battery performs excellently. Watching a 90-minute HD movie only makes the battery drop to 87% (other smartphones drop by at least 20%). By the end a typical day you can expect the phone to have 40%-50% battery left.
The 4GB of RAM paired with the Snapdragon 835 offer an excellent performance. There's virtually zero lag when switching apps or when playing games or doing any other heavy activities.
The V30 has a gorgeous 6-inch OLED with a 1440p resolution. It displays rich, lifelike colours and the overall contrast offers a great degree of depth to the images displayed on the screen.
LG have managed to increase the size of the screen by half an inch compared to the V20 without changing the overall size of the phone. They managed to do this by decreasing the size of the margins like so many other flagships nowadays.
The XZ Premium supports high-resolution audio with ALAC, DSD, FLAC, and LPCM file formats. Listening to music through headphones is a real treat with uniformly crisp highs, mids, and lows.
The rounded corners found in the XZ Premium make it easy to use this phone with one hand, even though the large bezels might make it harder for people with small hands.
The 19MP primary camera is packed with features. For starters, it has same RGB and IR sensors that improve color reproduction and focus speed respectively. There's also a CMOS sensor with phase detection autofocus that helps with low-light shooting. Finally, there's Motion Eye: a memory-embedded sensor that immediately processes images to minimize distortion.
All of this hardware packed together manages to capture some of the most detailed and high-quality photos a smartphone can take, coming extremely close to the quality of photos taken by the S8 which is considered to have the best camera for this generation of smartphones.
The Xperia XZ Premium has a 5.5inch 4K display. It roughly has around 807 pixels per inch, which is far more pixels than the competition manages to display on their phone. This results in the sharpest images ever seen on a smartphone display.
The Xperia XZ Premium has not changed much on the design department compared to the Xperia XZ. It features a design with rounded corners and a large screen surrounded by large bezels, a design choice that has been falling out of favour lately.
The UI of the G6 isn't completely stock, but unlike many like HTC and Samsung, the interface still feels a lot like stock Android. It still feels unique, and a few nice features are added, but it doesn't depart too far from the Android experience.
The LG G6 has a 5.7" QHD display, yet its overall size is smaller than the Galaxy S7 Edge, and significantly smaller than the iPhone 7 Plus, both of which have 5.5" screens. This means that you get a bigger display with a more manageable form factor which makes it easy to use even with one hand.
Like the Galaxy S8, the LG G6 has a taller display than most phones: most have a 16:9 aspect ratio, the S8 has an 18.5:9, and the G6 has an 18:9, or 2:1. This is fantastic for Android's newer multitasking features, as well as just general use. The vast majority of apps support this new display, so you should have no problems with that.
Built-in audio is a weak point of this phone; while it does have a headphone jack, the built-in speaker is mediocre so you'll definitely want some earbuds or headphones.
The Honor 9 has 4GB of RAM and a Kirin 960 octa-core processor which manage to offer performance that's a bit above the average but that's to be expected from a mid-range phone such as the Honor 9. It only shows weaknesses when doing lots of multitasking or playing resource-heavy games, otherwise there's virtually no lag or stuttering.
In order to reach the fingerprint sensor that's below the screen you have to shift the phone's position. This is a bit uncomfortable to do especially with such a slippery phone.
The back of this phone is made of glass which is beautiful to look at but unfortunately very slippery. A case is recommended unless you want your phone to slip from the table if vibration is on.
Even though the S8 has a 5.8 inch screen, the lack of bezels makes it possible to have a very low body/screen size ratio. This makes it very comfortable to hold and use with just one hand.
Its high resolution AMOLED screen has incredible colors, sharp details and great brightness levels. The screen is HDR certified and covers 255% of the sRGB gamut which outperforms the Google Pixel’s 191% coverage. In other words, the screen is the brightest, sharpest, and the most colourful screen a smartphone has to offer.
This phone looks very futuristic and luxurious. It phone features a bezel-free curved screen that covers nearly the entire front screen. It also has a wider aspect ratio than any other mobile device. The front physical buttons have been replaced with virtual buttons with haptic feedback. The back of the phone is covered in a glass panel.
The 12MP camera can produce some of the best smartphone-taken pictures. Not only does it give very consistent results, it has auto features that work fantastically as well. The included optical image stabilization helps substantially in low light conditions. The pro mode also lets you take manual control of the settings and save photos in RAW format so you can tweak them later on. Finally, the camera can shoot 4K video or slow-mo video up to 240fps at 720p.
This phone uses the latest Snapdragon 835 chipset in combination with 4GB of RAM and an Adreno 540 GPU for the US version. Its processing power puts it in the same league with the rest of the premium phones.
The glass back panel scratches easily, so it’s better to use a case in order to avoid this. The lack of bezels also makes the screen prone to breaking in case it falls to the ground if there's no case to protect it.
Samsung has implemented its own Google Now and Siri competitor, which they have called Bixby and have tried to make an important part of the new Galaxy S8. So much that they have added a dedicated Bixby button to the side of the phone. Unfortunately, Bixby fails to impress, the voice recognition is average at best and it can't support many third-party apps.
This shouldn't be a big deal for most people, but it's strange how Samsung had to place the fingerprint scanner in an awkward place because of space constraints and still found the space for a physical button that 90% of the people won't use.
The facial recognition system (which is the default security system) fails on the first try most of the time. You have to position your face perfectly and the lighting conditions must be optimal for it to work.
The fingerprint sensor is placed right next to the camera lens, which it makes it hard to reach location and means you'll get the camera dirty with fingerprints often.
The phone’s 3000mAh battery capacity is smaller than other flagship phones. For casual use, it should able to last a day but anything that can use up a lot of power like games, videos and turning up the screen brightness will drain it quickly and might not even last a half a day.
This phone uses the latest Snapdragon 835 chipset in combination with 4GB of RAM and an Adreno 540 GPU for the US version. Its processing power puts it in the same league with the rest of the premium phones.
The 12MP camera can produce some of the best smartphone-taken pictures. Not only does it give very consistent results, it has auto features that work fantastically as well. The included optical image stabilization helps substantially in low light conditions. The pro mode also lets you take manual control of the settings and save photos in RAW format so you can tweak them later on. Finally, the camera can shoot 4K video or slow-mo video up to 240fps at 720p.
Its high resolution AMOLED screen has incredible colors, sharp details and great brightness levels. The screen is HDR certified and covers 255% of the sRGB gamut which outperforms the Google Pixel’s 191% coverage. In other words, the screen is the brightest, sharpest, and the most colourful screen a smartphone has to offer.
This phone looks very futuristic and luxurious. It phone features a bezel-free curved screen that covers nearly the entire front screen. It also has a wider aspect ratio than any other mobile device. The front physical buttons have been replaced with virtual buttons with haptic feedback. The back of the phone is covered in a glass panel.
Samsung has implemented its own Google Now and Siri competitor, which they have called Bixby and have tried to make an important part of the new Galaxy S8. So much that they have added a dedicated Bixby button to the side of the phone. Unfortunately, Bixby fails to impress, the voice recognition is average at best and it can't support many third-party apps.
This shouldn't be a big deal for most people, but it's strange how Samsung had to place the fingerprint scanner in an awkward place because of space constraints and still found the space for a physical button that 90% of the people won't use.
The facial recognition system (which is the default security system) fails on the first try most of the time. You have to position your face perfectly and the lighting conditions must be optimal for it to work.
The glass back panel scratches easily, so it’s better to use a case in order to avoid this. The lack of bezels also makes the screen prone to breaking in case it falls to the ground if there's no case to protect it.
The fingerprint sensor is placed right next to the camera lens, which it makes it hard to reach location and means you'll get the camera dirty with fingerprints often.