LG W30 hands-on review

Design

In terms of design, LG has decided to opt for a relatively safe notched design that is found on practically every smartphone in this price range. Placed next to some of the other phones in this segment, it would be hard to pick the LG W30 over the others as they all basically look the same at this point.

The notch on the LG W30 comes with a rather interesting software design. The actual hardware has a U-shaped notch but by default the software on the phone is set to make the notch look like a tear-drop notch. LG basically adds black space next to the notch to make it a different shape and, in practice, even larger. The logic behind this eludes us so we won't get into it. You can also make the whole top portion black so it looks like you just have a giant bezel instead of a notch.

Notch settings

The bottom of the phone does have a sizable chin but we don't particularly mind it so much. It gives you some place to rest your thumb when you are watching videos on your phone.

The sides of the phone have a glossy, metallic-looking plastic that is extremely slippery. LG has even gone ahead and etched black lines near the top and bottom edge to make them look like antenna lines, which obviously aren't necessary on plastic phones.

On the right side are the power and volume buttons. The buttons sit a bit too flush with the body and are hard to press. They are also mushy and generally unpleasant to use. On the top is a microphone and a headphone jack. On the left side is the SIM tray that can hold two SIM cards or one SIM and one microSD. At the bottom is another microphone, a loudspeaker and the microUSB connector.

The microUSB connector continues to be the sore thumb that sticks out of most of these budget Android smartphones. Even though we have technologies like ultra-wide-angle camera, notched displays and several other features percolating down to budget devices somehow the more modern and more convenient USB-C port continues to be elusive. USB-C is only found on a handful of budget smartphones, many of which are on the higher end of what would even qualify. When we still see manufacturers insisting on using microUSB to shave a few pennies off the production costs, it just comes across as anti-consumer at this point - they really need to do better.

The back of the W30 has nothing remarkable going on, at least if you have the Platinum Gray model like we did, which, apart from being extremely gray also had a fine striped pattern. The Thunder Blue model has a much more interesting two-tone appearance. Found on the back are the fingerprint sensor and the triple camera setup with the LED flash.

Like the sides, the back is made out of plastic and this time is mimicking glass. At just a glance, the deception is fairly successful and it did look like real glass. It's only when you knock it a few times can you tell it's actually plastic. Unfortunately, the back is extremely smudge and fingerprint prone as there doesn't seem to be any oleophobic coating of any kind. It doesn't look that bad on our gray unit but will likely show up more on the lighter colored models.

The general build quality of the device is fine for the price. It's made out of plastic and it does feel that way but it's not poorly built or finished in any way. Of course, there are devices with real metal and glass in the same price range so LG could have done better here and that just makes it fall further behind in the spec race. But in terms of how it feels in the hand the LG W30 does fine.

Display

The LG W30 has a 6.26-inch, 1520x720 resolution IPS LCD. As discussed before, the phone has a U-shaped notch at the top.

In terms of panel quality, LG clearly hasn't reached for the top-drawer stuff here. Even with a cursory glance it's obvious that the display is incapable of reproducing the entire sRGB color space, which gives the colors a faded look. A solitary display setting is available in the form of white balance control, which lets you correct the default cool blue tint by turning it up all the way.

Display settings

The display is by no means bad but it definitely lacks the visual appeal of other displays in this price range. Some, however, may prefer the muted colors of the W30 and over a period of time we too tended to appreciate the closer to natural colors than the oversaturated tones that are generally found on most phones. However, we can see how others may not find that appealing.