LG announced the K7 and K10 smartphones in the K series at the CES 2016. The company launched the K7 LTE in India today for Rs. 9,500 and it is locally ‘Made in India’. The phone has a 5-inch FWVGA display and comes with some camera focused features. Let us check out in this detailed review if the phone justifies its price tag.
Unboxing
httpv://youtu.be/eCnwKmsDBys
Box Contents
- LG K7 LTE smartphone in Black color
- Wall Charger
- Micro USB cable
- Earphones
- Quick start guide and Warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The K7 LTE sports a 5.0-inch (854 x 480 pixels) FWVGA In-cell Touch display and similar to the K10, the brightness needs to be kept on the higher side for a better visibility. The sunlight visibility is average even when the brightness is kept at 100%, but indoor visibility is fine. Coming to the hardware, LG does score some points for its new glossy pebble design that has introduced with the K series. The curved smooth edges make it easy to handle the phone. The overall build quality of the phone is good for the price.
At the front, the phone has a 5MP camera along with proximity sensor, but it lacks an ambient sensor for auto brightness.
There are on screen touch buttons on the phone and you can customize upto 5 buttons according to your preferences. The LG branding and logo are present on the bezel. The touch quality on the phone is smooth and fluid which helps through out the navigation of the phone.
The phone has no buttons on either side while the microphone is present on the top. It measures 143.6 x 72.5 x 8.9mm and weighs 141grams.
The primary microphone, micro USB port and 3.5mm audio jack are present at the bottom.
The phone has a plastic back that has slight pattern on it, which does not make the phone slippery and adds a good grip. However, the back panel is prone to fingerprint smudges. There is a 5MP auto focus camera along with LED flash at the back. You also have the power/lock and volume rockers.
The loudspeaker grill is present at the bottom left corner of the phone at the back. The speaker placement could have been better as when you keep the phone flat on the table the sound gets muffled and is not clear.
Under the back cover, we can see the primary nano SIM card and micro SD slot on the right, while the secondary nano SIM card slot is on the left.
The phone comes with a 2125mAh removable battery.
Camera
The 5MP rear camera is good. Daylight shots do not bring out the best color and looked dull. On the other hand the macro shots were pretty decent and brought out good details and colors. Images with flash came out fine but low light images were grainy and blur.
The camera app UI is simple and lets you choose aspect ratio (16:9, 4:3 and 1:1). Unfortunately, it does not come with regular features like HDR, Panorama and other filters, which is really surprising as even entry-level phones these days come have them. Instead of the aforementioned features, the LG K10 LTE come with other features like option to switch between the front and the rear camera by swiping anywhere on the screen and burst mode feature that lets you take multiple photos in a row with the rear camera by simply touching and holding the camera button or any of the volume keys. These are not revolutionary features but then again add some flair to the photo capturing experience.
The 5MP front camera is goof for selfies. It comes with Gesture Shot and Gesture Interval Shot where the former allows you to take photos simply by raising an open hand in front of the lens and then clenching it into a fist. As soon as the camera recognizes the fist it will take a photo in 3 seconds. If you make a fist twice, it will take 4 photos instead of one. You can can take these 4 shots by even touching and holding the camera button. This feature is good for selfie lovers who want to take quirky and fun images. Finally, you can use your voice to take photos by saying any of the following, “Cheese”, “Smile”, “Whiskey”, “Kimchi” and “LG”.
(Check out camera samples below and click them to view full resolution sample)
Daylight
Macro
Front Camera
It can record videos at a maximum of 720p HD resolution. Video quality is average and doesn’t have much details. Check out the video sample below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1eX5kXP9TI
Software
The K7 LTE runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop with LG’s UX UI on top. The company has not announced when it plans to roll out the Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) update for the smartphone. The UX UI on the phone is over the top and it would have been great if it was a bit subtle.
The lock screen has shortcuts for apps like dialer, messages, quick notes, galley and camera. These apps can be launched from the Lock screen itself by simply swiping. You can change the quick setting preferences as per your choice. In addition, you can select either SIM cards from the two tabs that are present in the notification panel itself. Brightness and volume can be controlled right from the notification panel. You can also change font icons and font size.
Apps
The phone comes with the usual set of Google Apps and has only Evernote as a pre-loaded app which can be uninstalled. It has built-in apps like Tasks, Voice Recorder, Quick Memo which are kind of useful and it is good that the phone does not come with unnecessary bloatware.
Music Player and FM Radio
UI on the Music player is nice but lacks an equalizer. You can even choose Play Music as your main go to music app. The FM Radio, you can set more than 6 stations and it has auto tuning and recording feature too.
Dialer and Message
The dialer app simple and clean with bigger numbers. It comes with call logs, contacts, favourites and groups. The keyboard is also good and allows smooth and easy typing. The dedicated on-screen button for switching SIMs comes in handy while making call or message.
Dual SIM & Connectivity
The phone supports dual SIM and both of them support 4G LTE for TD-LTE 2300MHz (Band 40) and FDD-LTE 1800MHz (Band 3) for India. However, only one SIM can be enabled to 4G at a time, while the other runs 2G. It also has VoLTE for HD calling over LTE.
The connectivity features include Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth v4.0 and GPS.
Out of 8GB of internal storage, you get only 2.6GB storage of available storage. You get around 0.92GB of free RAM out of the 1.5GB RAM.
Performance & Benchmarks
The phone is powered by a 1.09 GHz quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor with Adreno 304 GPU and 1.5GB of RAM. We tried games like Asphalt 8 and and it performed well although a better display could have improved the gaming experience. The phone did not face any heating issues during gaming. Check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
It managed 18839 points in the AnTuTu Benchmark 5.
It scored 298 points on Geekbench Single Core.
It scored 1005 on multi-score Geekbench.
It managed to score 4950 points in the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited.
Battery Life
The phone has a 2125mAh battery that lasts just about a day with full charge. There is a battery saver mode option that reduces the brightness of the screen to save power. You can even enable the ‘Restrict apps in the background’ option to save battery. When you turn on the battery saver mode, it lets you select from three options – Immediately, at 5% battery level and at 15% battery level. We will bring you the One Charge Rating and complete set of test results of the smartphone soon.
Conclusion
To sum up, the K7 LTE is a phone that offers good build quality and performs well. However, the display is just FWVGA, which is not impressive. For a price of Rs 9,500, the display should have been at least 720p. The rear camera is also just 5MP, whereas other phones in this price range offer 8MP or 13MP rear camera. All in all, the K7 LTE does fail to justify its price tag with low specifications.
Pros
- Good Design and Build
- Good performance
Cons
- Average Display
- Average Camera
- Priced on the higher side