It screams cheap plastic to me...this is what samsung was criticised for and lg kept there flagship phone plastic.
They are competing in a premium market right now and I wouldn't buy another plastic phone going forward.
I don't necessarily disagree with you here since I have loved seeing more METAL phones since the first gen iPhone and Nokia 6500 Slide from 2007 but PLASTIC isn't completely useless even in premium. I dislike GLOSSY plastic. Matte or soft touch plastic is fine.
Metal has its share of disadvantages. Dents, scrapes, generates more heat, unreplaceable and unfixable rear covers, and likely sealed batteries which would fill up the ocean once they get thrown away. LG G3 and G4 actually offered removable batteries and matte plastic isn't prone to fingerprint smudges like most glass rears from the Xperia Z-series and Galaxy S6 series. I would go to a S6 edge demo and that $850 looks like crap from the back after 1 min using it even in gold platinum. I like plastic because you can easily replace it and matte finish depending on the color hardly shows smudges at all.
HTC have provided metal phones for years and they are losing sales to all these cheaper, plastic phones. Same with Sony's overpriced glass-laden phones. Both HTC and Sony which are better designers than LG are losing because of price/value. They price higher for a Snapdragon 400 when Motorola or Xiaomi can offer it for under $200. For postpaid dominated/subsidized-reliance countries, FLAGSHIPS are a big deal. In the other 80% of the world, the flagship premium market is a only a small blip in volume sales.
I actually admire LG for doing some things better than more premium-designers like Apple, HTC, Sony, and the current Samsung.
- Removable and replaceable reae and battery
- Better screens than Sony for sure (includes TV)
- Cheaper than most of them
- Better sceeen/bezel ratio that isn't awkward like Sharp and Oppo
- Better cameras than found on HTC & Sony
- Their KnockOn (double tap to wake) is now imitated by others
- Rear power/volume isn't a bad idea esp if you can snap selfies
- Decent enough skin, (I personally like Q-Slide and selfie voice command and hand fist festures)
LG should target more of the midrange market though. That's where the growth spurt will be but it is crowded too. I think LG has what it takes to battle bargain players like Xiaomi, ASUS, Huawei, Nokia, Meizu, and Gionee/BLU. The only thing I didn't like what LG did was ignite the QHD revolution maybe 1-2 years too soon. Both the G3 and G4 battery life is now suffering from it with just a 3000 mAh battery when they should be packing 4000-5000 mAh on them while companies like Huawei and Gionee/BLU can pack that same capacity powering on a 720p HD phone like Mate 2 or Marathon 3/Studio Energy and their 11-14 hour SOT at a more affordable cost.
