LG has been one of the big players in the smartphone industry with decent devices in respect to specifications but having bit higher pricing than the competition, except for the brands that it actually gives neck-to-neck with – Samsung, Sony, and HTC. They have been innovative in bringing new stuff into smartphone industry, like the modular concept LG G5, and being the first to introduce Quad HD displays into smartphones. The higher end segment is great for LG but the budget range and mid-range devices are not that popular in the market.
The company has launched two devices under their new K series called – K7 and K10 in India. These devices will be replacing the L series by LG and come with a much-needed change in design and specifications. Both devices come with 4G LTE support and carry the back buttons placement design seen in the G series by LG. The K10 has a more premium appearance thanks to the glossy pebble finish on the front and a fabric-patterned back complimenting each other pretty well.
Let us look at both the devices in detail from all aspects to get an idea on how good they are and whether they can take on the competition.
Design and Display:
Both the LG K7 and K10 comes with a similar overall design with the K10 getting the more premium finish thanks to the fabric-patterned back which makes it more elegant in look and better to hold in hand as well. The K7 does not come with the fabric back but a glossy plastic back panel.
One the display front the LG K7 comes with a 5-inch LCD display with 480 x 854 pixels resolution with 196ppi pixel density. The LG K10 comes with a 5.3-inch HD LCD display with a resolution of 1080 x 720 pixels having a pixel density of 277ppi. The display of the K10 is bigger and better. The viewing angles in both devices are decent and good visibility under sunlight. The K7 does not have an auto brightness option which is present in LG K10.
Photo Gallery – LG K10
Photo Gallery – LG K7
Operating System and UI:
Both the LG K10 and K7 come with customized versions of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop OS with both devices having identical UI. One thing which was quite impressive is the lack huge amounts of bloatware keeping the UI simple and neat having a bit of LG apps like SmartWorld and Backup.
You get the floating notifications for an incoming call when you are using another App. In the notification bar, you get options to adjust brightness and Volume directly along with lock screen effects and quick launch shortcuts for apps. In the LG K7 we can see a bit of lag in the UI which does not make the UI quite free flowing, but in the K10 there is no such lag. On the whole the UI in K10 and K7 are quite neat and simple without much bloatware.
Performance:
Both the devices are decent in performance for day to day use, the LG K7 can be used as a regular smartphone for browsing and Instant messaging and do not expect it to support high-end games or stuff. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 SoC coupled with 1.5GB RAM and 8GB or 16GB internal storage variants. Out of the 8GB, only 3.4GB is available to the user which is pretty low and a microSD card is a must if you want to store music, photos etc.
The LG K10 comes with a Snapdragon 410 processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage out of which 1.4GB RAM is free and available for users. I could manage to use it as my primary device without much problem as there was not much lag while multitasking as compared to the LG K7 which was a bit laggy on use. The LG K7 could not manage to load and play heavy apps such as games etc. The LG K7 and K10 do not heat up much while playing games, or using 4G which is pretty good. Both devices got slightly warm while charging. Connectivity and call quality are good in both devices.
Camera:
Let us first look at the LG K10 which sports a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front-facing camera. LG has made some changes to the Camera interface which gets a minimalistic appearance which is pretty good and coming to the rear camera, the pictures taken in natural light are pretty good. Macro shots have good color reproduction and focussing pretty well, in direct sunlight landscape photos seem to be a bit over saturated. Focussing on objects seemed a bit slow and the same continued with loading to take another photo in both the K10 and K7.
Images captured in low light is grainy and even Videos show a bit of noise and grainy in the LG K10 and the same is seen in the LG K7 as well. The front cameras in both devices perform well to capture good selfies.
LG K10 Camera Samples – Check here
LG K7 Camera Samples – Check here
Battery:
The LG K10 comes with a 2300mAh battery while the K7 comes with a 2125mAh battery. Talking about the K7 first, with the low resolution display the device manages to survive a full day without needing a charge with average to heavy usage at times. The battery life is about 11 hours and 37 minutes for the LG K7.
Talking about the LG K10, even with its better resolution display and bigger display it manages to give good battery life close to 10 hours and it lasted comfortably throughout the day without the need to charge the phone with a good amount of WiFi and at times 4G connectivity.
One thing which is a let down is the lack of Quick Charging in both the devices making it very slow in charging in today’s standards where every phone is sporting the fast charging feature.
Final Verdict:
Both the LG K7 and K10 are good devices both in terms of specifications and overall design but when it comes to being value for money they do not stand a chance against the competition. With the K10 being priced around Rs. 13k there are many other much butter devices out there in the market for the same price available. If LG could have managed to get the pricing below Rs. 10k for the LG K10 it would have been competitive. The only things which are good in the K10 are good design and good battery life.
The same goes with the K7 which is priced at Rs. 9,500 with specs similar to devices half its price. It comes with good design and good battery life along with 4G VoLTE support and apart from these all other features are not up to the mark. The pricing has to be considered by LG taking into consideration the competition and their aggressive pricing.
But then, we are talking about LG and the price won’t be a real compromise from the brand, though you are getting a sturdy build quality and the performance on 4G and Wi-Fi would be better than the others in the similar price range.
