The LG V60 and VELVET Review: A Classic & A Design Restart
by Andrei Frumusanu on July 15, 2020 9:00 AM ESTBattery Life - Outstanding
Battery life has been an aspect where LG has had tons of issue in past generation devices. The root cause here was the company’s usage of LG Display manufactured displays, which all shared the same common issue of having extraordinarily bad base power consumption. This had always handicapped phones from achieving better results, more accurately tracking the SoC’s efficiency and the battery capacity.
The V60’s downgrade from 1440p to 1080p screen might help in that regard, and the manufacturer also opted to include a large 5000mAh battery. The Velvet’s 4300mAh battery should also fare adequately – here’s more of a question on whether the Snapdragon 765 is as efficient as its bigger brother.
In our web-browsing test, we see the LG V60 do outstandingly good, coming in at 14.75H runtime. This vastly exceeds the results of any LG phone we’ve come to test in the past, and competes amongst the longest lasting devices in the market right now. LG still seems to have not quite as an efficient display panel as Samsung, as the S20 Ultra’s 1440p unit is only margins behind the V60, but the gap has considerably narrowed.
The LG Velvet surprised us with equally impressive results. At 12.73 hours runtime, it’s also a great result given the phone’s battery capacity, and nearly scales in line with the 700mAh difference to the V60. This bodes well for the Snapdragon 765 overall, although we’ve seen that the CPU cores themselves aren’t as efficient as on the Snapdragon 865.
In PCMark, the V60 even manages to get the top spot in our charts by a few minutes against the 6000mAh ROG Phone II, and the Velvet also fares extremely well against the competition.
Overall, battery life of both the V60 and Velvet is outstandingly good. In a year where most other competitors have opted for higher refresh-rate displays, LG’s decision to keep things simple is rewarded by being able to take advantage of the new silicon’s power efficiency in order to notably increase battery life.
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rocketman122 - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link
"The Snapdragon 765"nope youre out. I had the g4. bootloop. now im using a v20. only because the battery swapping is awesome. shame they didnt continue with that. the rear camera glass is crap and cracks nonstop. this one reviewed will is also looking like it will break.
shame. next phone....ta da asus rog 2. im done with LG.
Xex360 - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link
They made really interesting phones like the V20, now it's all garbage they look all like copies of cheap Chinese phones, to be fair it's the case of almost all phones now, less features and ugly screens, what we used to call dead pixels is now acceptable, people seem to be blind sheep now...flyingpants265 - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link
It's just like the netbook phenomenon, they're making low-spec versions that LOOK like flagship phones, but selling them for full price!....and in this case "at zero dollars" when you purchase with a contract. So you're on the hook for $500 for a brand new crappy budget LG/Samsung phone with 3GB RAM specifically created for suckers like you.Yes consumers are really dumb, but review sites are the real guilty party.
Nobody should have stood for $999-1400 phones, as consumers we make the economy turn, demand cheap $140 phones like the Realme X which isn't sold in the west, instead Oppo pushes their Reno/OnePlus for $500-1000 even though it's literally almost the exact same thing.
Or $299 like the Nexus 5 or OnePlus 1.
If the phone is $999+ it better be amazing and have a 5 year warranty at minimum.
Quantumz0d - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link
Exactly. Apple dictates everything now, whatever they do gets free pass. A dead pixel zone for 3 years+ people are fine with that bullshit. And removal of I/O is also great, in computers like Macs, Soldered trash, Surface Book whatever that abomination is again lacking 3.5mm jack.Apple's democracy ruined the tech market, $200 earphones which are throwable after 1-2 years max same like a smartphone. What a bunch of bullshit.
Dave_S - Sunday, August 2, 2020 - link
I still have the V10 and use the V20. Love both phones, hate the company that made em. Both those phones have a feature set that you cannot find in any other mobile except maybe the Chinese brands (that no one in the west wants a part of). QAD DAC, Removable batteries, 3.5mm Jack, IR Blaster, 2nd always-on-display, FM Radio, True Dual-sim+SD, rugged non-glass back, easily repairable. All great features that if a phone manufacturer reproduced today with upgrades to Processor, RAM, cooling, and display would be a Samsung killer for sure. But LG being such a dysfunctional company would find it impossible to pull off.flyingpants265 - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link
Just hijacking this comment to laugh at LG.HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
SNAPDRAGON 765 FOR $599 or whatever insane price... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Try like $149!
Fulljack - Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - link
cheapest SD765 is Redmi K30 5G at $220how you come up with arbitrary $149 baffles me
AdhesiveTeflon - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link
Yep I suffered 2 G4s with the boot loop, and my current G6's camera lens is broken (although it was -20F outside and in my pocket. I'm on the "never again" train too.hanselltc - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link
Just from the spec sheet alone, this already looks kinda disappointing. Good to see the battery gets better, but it took a 1080p60hz panel and a 5000Mah battery. V60 will remain one of the top choices for those wanting a headphone jack, but otherwise I don't see any reason to buy this over say an Oneplus. They *really* need to ditch LG displays.TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, July 15, 2020 - link
So other then great battery life and a headphone jack, you cant think why someone would want one of these over a oneplus.Seems like you have found two great reasons right there. And honestly, 1080p isnt enough on a sub 7" screen? I can barely tell the difference between 720p and 1080p at this size, let alone 1440p or higher. Just a ton of useless pixels you wont see 99% of the time draining the battery, which you WILL notice 99% of the time.