LG Q6 preview: A closer look

Software

The LG Q6 runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat with LG UI 5.0 on top. The software on the Q6 is essentially the same as that on the G6, minus a few hardware specific features.

Homescreen

The software on LG phones has evolved considerably over the last couple of years. Visually, it has improved dramatically and although it won't be winning any awards any time soon, the software looks clean and functional without any dramatic flair or over the top animations that really serve no purpose and only slow things down.

Settings

In terms of features, LG has found a good balance between the useful and the superfluous. In fact, we hardly found any feature that we thought was entirely useless. Admittedly, this does have a lot to do with the budget nature of the device, as the more premium LG phones do have way more fluff.

Face Unlock

One of the key new feature with this device is Face Unlock. While the name makes it sound like the now defunct feature of stock Android of recognizing your face, the LG implementation is a lot better. Once you scan your face the phone lets you pick it up and unlock it without any further input.

The phone automatically detects when it gets picked up and scans for your face. We had our doubts going into this feature but to our surprise it worked well most of the time. It is a bit slow though, as the phone takes a second or two to detect when it is picked up and then couple of more seconds at best to have your face detected. A fingerprint sensor would still be faster but since this phone doesn't have one, this could be your best bet.

Of course, it's not super reliable and won't work at all if you're in a dark place. There were times when the phone's screen didn't even light up when picked up so this might not be the feature for you if you are impatient or get easily annoyed.

The Q6 does have LG's Knock On feature, that lets you double tap the screen to wake it up. However, LG has left out its excellent Knock Code that lets you create a pattern of taps to unlock the phone. This would have been a more useful option instead of Face Unlock in the absence of a fingerprint sensor as it is both quick and reasonably secure.

Another feature LG left out is the always-on display found on the more expensive LG devices. It is a handy feature to have and without it you have to manually wake up the phone every time to check the time or notifications.

In terms of apps, the Q6 did come with some bloatware installed in the form of Google Docs apps that cannot be uninstalled and also some Facebook apps. Fortunately, even though you cannot uninstall these, the launcher does have a handy option to hide them away from sight.

LG Keyboard

LG is one of the few companies left that still includes its own keyboard. Unfortunately, the autocorrect on the keyboard is very slow and you have to type and wait after every word for the keyboard to catch up with you as it simply cannot keep up. The stock keyboard actually had very low latency, which made us want to use it more but the poor speed of autocorrect meant we had to switch to using Gboard even at the cost of increased latency.

Other than that, there isn't much to talk about the software. LG has left it intentionally lean to separate it from its more expensive phones. While we don't lament the loss of all the features, we could have loved to have some of the aforementioned ones. Still, the software experience here is largely good and as long as LG keeps the phone updated regularly we don't think users would have a lot to complain about.

Performance

The LG Q6 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 435. It is by far the weakest link in the chain and the biggest reason for complaint with this phone.

The software performance on the Q6 is rather disappointing. The chipset inside is simply too slow and outdated at this point to keep up with modern applications and the experience of using them is really abysmal. Scrolling through Twitter is incredibly choppy, even after disabling image previews on timeline, which normally helps with performance on slower phones. Other apps aren't much better and scrolling performance in general is sub-par. Neither the CPU nor the GPU seem capable at fetching and processing new information and rendering it on the screen fast enough during scrolling.

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Moto G5S Plus
  4193
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  3779
• Sony Xperia XA1
  3611
• Nokia 5
  2851
• Moto G5
  2580
• LG Q6
  2011

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia XA1
  887
• Moto G5S Plus
  843
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  734
• Nokia 5
  672
• Moto G5
  618
• LG Q6
  584

The weak GPU performance shows up in games as well, where only older titles and simpler modern titles work well. Heavier 3D titles will have to be run at lower settings to be playable otherwise the frame dropping and input lag makes them unplayable. It's worth remembering that the Q6 has a higher resolution display than most phones and the Adreno 505, which normally struggles on 1080p displays, struggles even harder when tasked with additional pixels to render.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  9.5
• Moto G5S Plus
  6.4
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  6.2
• Sony Xperia XA1
  6.2
• Moto G5
  4.6
• Nokia 5
  4.6
• LG Q6
  3.8
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  3.3

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia XA1
  15
• Nokia 5
  10
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  9.4
• Moto G5S Plus
  6.8
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  6.2
• Moto G5
  4.6
• LG Q6
  3.5
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  3.3

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  5.4
• Sony Xperia XA1
  3.7
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  3.4
• Moto G5S Plus
  3.4
• Moto G5
  2.5
• Nokia 5
  2.5
• LG Q6
  2.1
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  1.9

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia XA1
  7.9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  5.4
• Nokia 5
  5.2
• Moto G5S Plus
  3.8
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  3.4
• Moto G5
  2.5
• LG Q6
  1.9
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  1.9

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  13666
• Moto G5S Plus
  10488
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  10446
• Sony Xperia XA1
  9714
• Moto G5
  7475
• Nokia 5
  7316
• LG Q6
  6179
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  5489

The multimedia performance is average. The headphone output audio quality is good but it doesn't get particularly loud. The bundled earphones are some of the worst we have seen over the years and we would have preferred if LG had left them out entirely and shave a few extra bucks off the price.

The loudspeaker is awkwardly placed on the back and is all too easy to cover with your hand and you are constantly checking your hand to see if you aren't covering it. The speaker does get decently loud but sounds thin and hollow and gets quite sibilant at high volume. The display, however, is quite good if you watch a lot of ultrawide aspect ratio content such as movies and some TV shows.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  85162
• Moto G5S Plus
  64554
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  61616
• Sony Xperia XA1
  60707
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  46822
• Moto G5
  43755
• Nokia 5
  43392
• LG Q6
  37276

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  1728
• Sony Xperia XA1
  1351
• Moto G5S Plus
  1176
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (S625)
  1050
• Nokia 5
  982
• Moto G5
  795
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  349
• LG Q6
  275

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (Helio X20)
  287
• Sony Xperia XA1
  191
• Moto G5S Plus
  137
• Moto G5
  100
• Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017)
  93
• LG Q6
  82