LG K7 LTE review
The K7 LTE smartphone is more affordable than the K10 LTE but its effect is visible in the features and specifications. Priced at Rs 9,500, the K7 LTE competes with the base models of Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus (Review), Coolpad Note 3 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Review). Know what shortcomings and advantages we saw in the K7 LTE review.
Design and look
The K7 LTE is designed in pebble finish just like the K10 LTE. It is very difficult to differentiate between the two phones. The display has curved edges which make the phone beautiful. The rear cover of the phone is textured but the K7 LTE has a good grip. The phone has a 5 megapixel front camera with proximity sensor. Don’t know why, but LG has removed the ambient light sensor from this phone which means you will have to adjust the screen brightness manually. As per plastic phone, the design of the phone cannot be called bad.
One of the biggest drawbacks of the K7 LTE is its 5-inch in-cell touch display with only 480×854 pixel resolution. The screen density is 195 ppi which makes text and images look rough. The viewing angle is still great and the phone can be used even in sunlight. The charging port and headphone socket are given at the bottom while the rest of the buttons are given on the rear.
When you purchase the K7 LTE, you will get a charger, data cable, headset and instruction manual. Unlike the K10 LTE, you will not get a flip cover with this phone. The quality of the accessories that come with the K7 LTE is good. But the K7 LTE doesn’t quite have the same feel as the K10 LTE, but it also costs less. The phone is compromised with a low resolution display which is not at all good for a phone of this screen size. Despite the price being around Rs 10,000, we did not understand the reason for the company removing the light ambient sensor. Like K10 LTE, notification LED is not provided in K7 LTE also.
Software and Specifications
The LG K7 LTE is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 quad-core processor and 1.5GB of RAM. In the benchmarking test, we got the same figures as the recently launched InFocus Bingo 10 priced under Rs 5,000. The general performance of the phone can be called decent.
Talking about other specifications, the 8 GB inbuilt storage can be expanded up to 32 GB via microSD card. The phone supports Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi B/G/N, FM radio and GPS. NFC or OSB OTG support is not provided in LG K7 LTE. The K7 LTE has two Nano SIM card slots. The phone supports 3G on both SIMs. Apart from this, VoLTE and VoY-Fi support is also present but only in the first SIM. The phone has a removable battery of 2125 mAh.
The software of the phone is almost the same as K10 LTE. LG has given a customized version of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop in K7 LTE. Apart from LG Backup and Smartworld, there are no other apps in the phone. Themes, fonts, ringtones etc. can be downloaded to customize the phone. The notification shade can be toggled along the navigation bar at the bottom. Apart from changing the lock screen effect, quick launch shortcuts for apps can also be edited.
performance
Despite the low-end processor, the K7 LTE allows multitasking and running apps smoothly. However, there is one attention-grabbing problem in the phone but due to this the phone cannot be called completely bad. Heavy apps, especially games, take some time to load and the performance is also not very good. Photos and text are also not as sharp as we expected. The phone does not get very hot during normal use but during gaming and charging, the phone becomes very hot. 4G works well and we did not see any problem in call quality.
Full-HD videos play easily in the phone. But some audio codecs like AC3 are not supported. Music player supports flac audio files. The audio quality of the phone can be said to be good with the headset that comes with K7 LTE. Out of 8 GB storage, only 3.4 GB is available for use, so the user will need a microSD card.
The 5 megapixel rear camera takes decent pictures in daylight. Landscape photos do not come with much detail and colors are a bit subdued. We also captured some amazingly sharp photos in motion. There is a lot of problem with the camera shutter which increases in low light. The camera does not take good pictures in low light. Close up shots from the phone are quite good but once again good colors are not available. The camera can record 720 pixels from both rear and front cameras. The video quality is okay but if you don’t keep your hands steady there can be a lot of jittering in the video.
The camera app has very few features. Like K10 LTE, you will not get features like HDR, panorama, filter in this phone too.
battery life
Due to the low-resolution display and low-powered processor, this phone is able to provide good battery life. Good battery life is the most special feature of this phone. In our video loop test, we were able to get 11 hours and 37 minutes of playback with the LG K7 LTE. During normal use, we were able to use the phone for the whole day without charging. The phone does not support quick charge.
our decision
LG K7 LTE has not found its place anywhere in the budget smartphone segment with great features in the market today. Apart from good battery life and design, the phone looks backward everywhere. The phone is very expensive with a price tag of Rs 9,500. There are phones like Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus, Coolpad Note 3 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 available in the market with lower price and better performance.
Like the K10 LTE, LG needs to improve the pricing of the K7 LTE. According to the features provided in the phone, it fits in the category of phones priced below Rs 5,000 in India. LG needs to take the right steps.
