2015 saw various interesting smartphone releases, and the LG G4 was without doubt one of the more eagerly anticipated ones. The device had a lot to offer at a first glance, both in terms of hardware as well as software, and it’s no wonder that it got so much attention. And yet, the 5.5-inch phone with its amazing camera still has some issues that have been bothering its users ever since its release. Users have been getting more and more vocal online about some of these problems lately, and it’s not hard for anyone interested in buying the phone to come across these discussions.
Some of the issues were rooted in the software, and LG have been hard at work to release a patch addressing many of the phone’s current problems. However, the company executed the update’s release in a very controversial way, forcing it on all of their users without any confirmation from owners of the device.
That is, the update was immediately pushed out to all owners of the LG G4 and it was installed automatically without any user intervention. While on one hand it did manage to fix various issues and made the operating system a bit more stable overall, it also annoyed many users as it reportedly closed some security loopholes that rooters were relying on. Now, the device is slightly more difficult to root, but of course we would expect the rooting community to come up with a workaround soon enough.
Hardware issues remain unresolved however, and it’s likely that they will remain like that, unless LG decide to start a program for screen replacements. Touchscreen problems have been among the most prominent complaints about the phone, along with reports of poor Bluetooth performance. The screen itself is fantastic in terms of picture quality, as it offers a great 2560×1440 resolution with crystal clear images, but at the same time its touch responsiveness has been reported as very bad.
The phone regularly misses various inputs from the user, even simple taps and swipes, and the overall performance of the touch input keeps getting criticized by many owners of the device. A recent poll by XDA Developers put the number of affected users at around 60%, and those are just the people who have actually bothered to report their problems.
The issue is so serious that some users have been unable to unlock their devices as they’re not recognizing the gestures required by the locking application, and general daily use appears to be quite bad as well.