[G2 General] GlassForest:
This phone is amazing. I was a little apprehensive returning to LG after being somewhat disappointed with their devices/support years ago. I always research like crazy before I buy something, I probably watched every G2 video review and comparison video I could find. I paid close to full retail to keep my unlimited data on Verizon and I don't regret it one bit.

Some of the video reviews had me feeling really uncertain about how messy LG's UI would turn out. In some strange way that I can't explain, a lot of the videos did make it look like a cheap and overdone skin that LG slapped on top of Android, but owning the phone for a few weeks now, I find absolutely nothing annoying or disappointing about their UI. I'd been using AOSP ROMs on my Bionic and I never thought I would like anything non-stock-Google again. There is nothing wrong with the LG UI. I love it.

I have never felt less of an urge to install a custom ROM. To answer your question, the dev support does seem pretty strong, much better than I thought it might be initially. It didn't seem like too many big names were excited to start supporting the G2, but go look in the Verizon development forum, there is a ton. I bought my phone lightly used and didn't even realize at first that the person had already installed Clean ROM which is just a de-bloated version of stock with not much else added to it. So I can't say that I've ever used the fully stock LG ROM, but Clean ROM is as close as it gets, and I have yet to really find enough reason to try flashing Carbon ROM or Malladus for their added features, although I am checking the dev forum every day just to see what's going on. But this stock ROM is not missing any functionality that I need. I'm really not sure when I'm going to get around to even trying a fully custom ROM.

I'm actually very surprised, and kind of eating my words, when it comes to the fact that nobody has managed a 4.4 ROM yet. I kept telling everyone who was going to leave Verizon just for the Nexus 5 that surely the G2 would get 4.4 ROMs figured out almost immediately because of how similar the device is. I don't understand how so many other unrelated devices have started to see 4.4 ROMs meanwhile a carbon copy LG branded Snapdragon 800 phone still doesn't have one. Yet, again, this really doesn't matter. Aside from the general desire to always have the newest version of Android, I don't really find myself caring that I don't have 4.4 yet. And the rumors going around say that we might actually get an official update before the end of this year, which is really surprising, because I knew going in that it was going to be a calculated risk choosing to own an LG device again and possibly NEVER seeing any official updates based on their prior reputation for not supporting devices. I guess I had it backwards, I doubted LG and thought the devs would get 4.4 ported within a few weeks, but at this rate it's looking like we might get official 4.4 before anything else. (None of what I said here is meant to be a jab at the dev community, I literally have no understanding of what it would take to get 4.4 working on the G2 or why we don't have it yet - but I'm not saying it in a negative way, just surprised that I was wrong about how quick we would get 4.4 ROMs).

The battery is great yet sometimes I am surprised how quickly I can drain it. Basically it kicks butt at standby time. If you have a busy couple of days where you aren't using the phone much, it'll be alive and kicking 40+ hours later and still not totally dead. But I guess because of the beautiful display the powerful internals, if you have a day where you're really using it a lot, you can still kill it in 10 hours.

The camera is a mixed bag. People have cooked up improved camera files that you can flash but I have yet to try it yet, so my opinions are based totally on the stock camera. The low light capability is amazing compared to my last phone, it's actually possible to get a decent picture in a dimly lit interior room, BUT when you zoom in on it, the post-processing does some weird stuff to the photo to make it clear enough to see while trying to keep noise levels down, so upon close inspections the pictures almost end up looking like blotchy paintings instead of true-to-live. The pictures look GREAT on the 5 inch screen if you plan to just view them on there, but if you were to actually want to take a 10mp picture from your phone (10mp is the largest resolution that gives you 16:9 widescreen pics, full 13mp is more square) and try to use it as a desktop wallpaper or view the photo on the TV, it's not going to look great. So the G2 hasn't totally convinced me to sell my full size Sony camera yet. But for a phone camera, it really is great, and compared to my Bionic, there are countless low-light or other situations where the G2 can still grab me a decent image whereas with my old phone I was used to sometimes wanting a picture of something and simply having to accept that I wasn't going to be able to get one. If you let the G2 use the flash in low light then the blotchy post-processing is not an issue and the picture will look great, but in a lot of cases I at least personally try not to use flash and want to get images in their original natural lighting. So you can choose true low light and accept the less than perfect quality, or turn on the flash (super bright and useful compared to the lame flash on other phones I've had) and get a clear picture.

I wondered as I researched the G2 if I should take the full plunge and get something even larger like the Note 3 - so glad I didn't. I have fairly large hands but the top corner of the G2 is already getting to the point where you feel like you might drop the phone while you're reaching your thumb across. LG was right in saying they felt 5.2in was the largest practical size unless you want to have to 2-hand your phone all day long.

In fairness I should mention my phone came with an Incipio Dual Pro case that I have kept on since day 1, so I don't have a lot of direct experience handling the phone by itself or dealing with the fingerprint-magnet texture. I would never want to use such a great phone without a case to protect it from a fall anyway. The Incipio dual pro is the best case I have ever had on a device. This goes for the rear buttons as well, it probably is true that if using the phone without a case, the Verizon button design would probably be very hard to distinguish which button you're about to press without looking at it. The Dual Pro case covers the buttons with its own raised section of rubber making it very easy to tell which button you're about to press by touch alone.

The screen is beautiful if not a shade too warm color wise compared to what I am used to. For a few days I installed a screen adjuster app to kick down the slightly warm tint of the colors and make it a colder-bluish hue, but this may just be personal preference, and the screen is not "off" enough to really be an issue, so much so that I generally haven't bothered to turn on the screen adjuster app most days if I happen to notice that it isn't currently running. When I used to own a Nexus 7 I thought the colors seemed warm too, so it may just be that the Bionic I used for the past two years had a colder color tint to it so now I'm biased to thinking every other screen has whites that are too yellowish.

Knock on/off is a great feature but I'd be totally fine having to use the buttons all day if I had to. Again the Incipio case really makes the rear buttons fun to use.

Alright I've ranted enough. I was worried that maybe I too would be disappointed that I didn't leave Verizon and get the Nexus 5, but not true at all. Just yesterday on Twitter someone posted a G2 and an N5 side by side and I thought the G2 looked so much better and you do notice the slightly increase screen real estate.

Also - using LMT pie controls so that way the ugly nav bar doesn't always have to be taking up space at the bottom of the screen is AWESOME. Sometimes using Apex launcher I even hide the top status bar as well so I can just have a 5.2 inch screen of beautiful wallpaper and nothing else. I don't even keep app icons on my home screen, I have the top 5 apps that I use programmed into Pie controls along with the home-back-search-recents navigation controls.

My phone search began with wanting an HTC One, as well as considering the Droid Maxx, Note 3, Galaxy S4, Nexus 5, or waiting until next year to see if Android is going to go 64-bit to keep up with the iPhone. I have zero regrets with getting the G2, it is so beautiful and fun to use. There's always room for personal opinions and likes/dislikes so your experience may vary, but I would say if you like what you've seen of the G2 so far, you'll have no reason not to be happy getting it.