Opinions on the LG G5 and GS7

Today, two major companies in the Android smartphone market revealed their flagship devices which will stand as the company's mark on the industry for the next year. I talked about the LG G5's odd rumored changes in a previous post, but now it's official. Both devices have added "always-on" displays, which I think is a fairly nifty feature, but I can't say it's as game changing as I originally thought. I'd be interested to see some battery statistics about it.

I'll be honest, I think the LG G5 may have focused too heavily on being different and not enough on what people actually want. Sure, its new "modular" slot on the bottom is different and allows for some cool accessories, but the amount of people that will actually use it I think is minimal. There is also a dual-camera design to snap wider-angle pictures, and while that's cool, I'd rather just have a solid camera. Plus, I'm not a fan of its new design. A lot of people are comparing it to a Nexus 6P in terms of design, and I don't think that could be any more wrong. When you look at the 6P, you just see premium. You see the diamond-cut edges and the quality metal. But with the LG G5, it's so smoothed that it doesn't look premium at all. Along with this, the color choices are very odd as there's only lighter color options except for an odd grey-ish one. On the software side, LG has taken a step in the wrong direction. They chose to remove the app drawer in their default launcher because it can "confuse users", which I think it a very odd thing to do. Thinking about it more and more, the LG G5 almost seems like a copy of what many Chinese manufacturers are doing. No app drawer, smoothed surface with odd features. Is it a bad phone? No. I'm sure it's great. But I think LG has shifted their focus on being "different" instead of being good.

There's not too much to talk about with the new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. In terms of design changes, the only major difference is a slight curve in the back. Besides that, they've added better specs for both devices and they've both been waterproofed. I think the S7 is a solid upgrade to last year, but if you already have the S6, there is absolutely no use upgrading. The devices are so similar I just can't see a point in getting the S7 over the S6.

Sources: The Verge