Ok, to start out with i must admit I'm a refugee from the AT&T plantation. I've owned several Notes ending with the Note 5. This Stylo is patterned after those smartphones. Same basic premises. However, i got a great deal on this phone with 32 gigs. I'm going to say this....the speaker on this phone is adequate. I use my Braven speaker for video and music. This beast has DTS 3D. And an equalizer. Great stuff.
Some folks seem to expect the moon at this price point. What I'm seeing is a well built phone for the money. I immediately put it in a protective case, and then put a glass screen protector as a matter of course. This Stylo ends up being the same size as a Note 5 in an Otterbox defender. It isn't small. I would be considered a heavy smartphone user, and so we'll see how it lasts. One thing i know is this.....unlocked is the best for me. Unlimited is a great thing.
I'm happy with this smartphone. I reckon that most reasonable people will be. Fact is, i usually wear one out in 18 months or so. USB C is a feature, and quick charging is great. There are many choices, no doubt. I wanted the big screen 6.2 inch and it works well. My last smartphone sported Android 6.1. 8.1 is nice, no doubt.
Fact is, there were compromises made. The camera is basic, but it shoots a great picture. So, that's my opinion. I've spent a great deal of money on smartphones since they've come out. This one compares in some ways to the Note series. But it isn't a thousand bucks either. Here's the way I see it.....this Stylo 4 is well equipped for the price. A working stylus, with some decent software, for 250.00 dollars? True, Amazon is sponsoring this offer, but it's a great deal. I believe there's a similar deal with a Moto G6. As far as I'm concerned, I'm into Amazon Prime, and I subscribe to Kindle and the music.
Smartphone prices for cutting edge are crazy. Fewer are willing to spend that kind of money. Unlocked is the way of the future. With unlimited data. Most folks want a decent smartphone that will handle streaming video and music. That's what the Stylo 4 is. Samsung and Apple prices aren't really justifiable anymore. My last phone was a Huwei. Essentially, an Apple screen with a Android offshoot. But it had some software problems that I believe were engineered into the mix, as it were. So, I looked around.....and the Stylo 4 was right up my alley. I've owned eight or so smartphones. Apple and Android.
A functional device with decent features....LG has done their homework. The reason why I looked at LG so carefully is because I bought a Rebel when I fled the plantation. It was a bangin' phone for 49.00. I was able to survive with it for a little while.
Let's see.....850.00 for some flavor of Note....or 250.00 for a decent smartphone that has most of what you wanted the Note for in the first place. Frankly, I'm not looking to score approval for an expensive smartphone.
As I was taking a shower this morning, I had the music cranked up. My Braven BRV-X sounded great! So, in summation.....LG has hit one out of the park. I figure that market forces are going to settle in around 250-300$ or so.....in an unlocked version. Amazon will dominate this as well. Apple doesn't realize that younger folks aren't going to spend a thousand bucks.
I decided to add these comments a couple of weeks later, after using this smartphone. The Bluetooth is just great....and it doesn't drop out like the Huwei Sensa I replaced it with. The Dolby Theater Sound is magnificent. Seriously. My Braven BRV-X sounds a lot better. The screen is super for video.
All that being said, this is a phablet, no doubt. Throw on some protection, and it's sizable. As for the Amazon software, well, I prefer that to being tied into Chinese software that attacked when I visited sites critical to Chinese interests. I decided to replace the Huwei before it was taken over.
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LG Stylo 5 with Alexa Push-to-Talk – Unlocked – 32 GB – Black (US Warranty)
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$71.27 ($14.25 / Item)
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Customer Review: Stay away from the LG Stylo 4 — worthless
J. Redding
Reviews with images
Crummy support, cheaply built, USB problems after 9 months of use
2019-06-01: Now the USB connector is starting to fail (tried several cables). Still can't send a group text (using groups defined in contacts which apparently have no purpose), just add recipients one at a time. I dread calling support. They don't know anything. They want me to return my phone for repair, whereupon they'll wipe out everything in my phone. At this price point- I will limp along until it fails completely then replace it instead of going through the hassle. No more LG phones, unfortunately. I still love the IPS screen for it's brightness, color rendition and readability in direct sunlight.2018-09-24: I received this about 7 hours ago. If I get a text message the red LED in the upper right corner of the display blinks every 12 seconds. Do I really want to stare at it that long to see if I have received a message??? This is the only phone I've seen in a long time that has a single-color LED. As an embedded systems designer, I can say with authority that this saved LG about a nickel out-the-door. (Including the LED cost differential, a bit of additional circuitry, and 30 minutes of programming and a few hours of test divided by millions of units sold.)First, the LG LCD displays are simply the best. VERY bright and crystal clear. I am coming from a Note 3 (and will miss some of the features, but not that much), with its OLED display which was all but invisible in direct sunlight. This will be visible in direct sunlight. Auto brightness is too dim, and is useless.The sound (including media and speakerphone) is better than expected based on the reviews I've read, but inadequate for use in the car (and our car is pretty quiet inside). I'd say about average for a good smartphone. In media playback, it distorted at full volume, so I just turned it down a couple notches. It stopped distorting with only the slightest drop in volume, and was much more intelligible.The camera is below average in any but fairly bright light. For example I took a picture of my office desktop under normal office lighting conditions. It was very grainy (looked a little blurry, lacking sharpness), but with the flash turned on, it was sharp. The distance between all the clutter on my desk and the lens was about 16 inches. Same results when photographing a business card. Using the flash, it's crystal clear. The camera can focus at a very small distance (an improvement over the Note 3's otherwise very good camera).WiFi (5GHz) is blazing fast. I got 174Mbps using Ookla Speedtest. Our wired gigabit Ethernet only gets about 182, so this is great! Likewise, wireless calling signal is very good (my old Note 3 doesn't have all the bands that T-Mobile is using, so sometimes it was disappointing).The included text messaging app (Android Messenger) does not allow sending group text messages. Oddly, the Contacts app allows groups to be defined and populated (and about 10 of them are predefined, though not populated with any contacts as-shipped, of course). Once you have a group, you can't do anything with it, except look at it and edit it within Contacts as far as I can tell. LG told me it's a problem with my carrier. It isn't. I confirmed that with T-Mobile, and I am able to send and receive MMS messages using "Messages", which is the required service for group messaging. LG wanted me to factory reset the device, after I spent quite a few hours moving things over to it and setting it up.The stylus is tiny and has to be pried away from the phone from a spot about 3mm wide. Good luck if you don't have the right fingernails. Replacing it can't be done unless you look at it carefully. It can only be properly inserted in one orientation and it's round along nearly its whole length. But it can easily be inserted incorrectly if you're not careful. This is poor design.The SD card interface is quite fast, and I don't think I will miss not having more EEMC (built-in) storage. I was a little leery of 3GB of RAM, but this phone is very responsive even when running lots of apps, including some that bog down other devices. So in the worst-case, I will start to see it slow a little as it ages, but not to an annoying degree I think.I am not used to the fingerprint reader, and find it to be an annoyance (like all of the others). This has face unlock, but I haven't tried it.I will update this periodically as I live with it and try new things. So far, I am impressed with what I got at this price point.2018-09-25: I deducted a star because LG support stinks. There's no way to send a group text without selecting individual contacts. You can create and populate a group in the Contacts app. After that, it's useless. I installed the factory update immediately after I got my phone and configured the WiFi. Finding I couldn't use the Groups I had setup in Contacts, I called LG (4 times, actually). The tech said she had the identical phone in front of her. This wasn't true, because she tried to deflect every time I asked her to describe the screen she saw as she walked me through the steps. I asked her what version of the "Messages" app she has, and told her how to find out. She told me it's version 5.3. The latest one, according to Google Play is 3.5.053 (which I had told her a minute before her disingenuous response is the one installed on my phone). She transposed the numbers after pretending to go through the steps (while I heard her typing on her PC keyboard). This explains why she couldn't tell me how to do it using the current UI in the current app. She kept telling me to start the group text by hitting "+" in the app. They changed that to "Start Chat" in the latest version. There were numerous other discrepancies in her descriptions, indication that she did not actually have the device in front of her. Last night with the same issue, the person hung up on me. The ultimate answer is "Factory Reset", which, of course ends you up with the same problem, after you update your phone. Then you get to start setting your brand-new phone up from scratch.The popup memo feature lets you select pen color, size and eraser size. But the Phone-off memo that appears when the stylus is removed while the phone is on standby, doesn't allow this. The resulting text has thick strokes, making it barely legible. The eraser, though, is tiny, and so requires lots of time and effort to be used. Why not use the same widths as chosen in the app? LG was hasty to release this "feature" and hasn't improved it with their latest update.2018-09-26: Called LG support to find out whether there's actually a way to scan QR codes (without installing another app). Product info says yes, the User Manual says it's built-into the camera app. I spent the first five minutes trying to explain to tech support what a QR Code is (finally I said it's a barcode like they scan when you go to the store). Ugggh, another headache. That's three days in a row now with an LG headache. I still like this phone, except for some quirks like this. I still hate LG "support" (not). I installed third-party app to scan codes (I found that "QR Code Reader - No Ads" by Sustainable App Developer works well, doesn't use lots of unnecessary permissions, doesn't have Ads, and is free).I LOVE that you can configure the phone's memory to appear to Windows (Mac too, probably) as a filesystem instead of as a media device. This means that you can copy to and from this just as you would a thumb drive.2018-10-05: After an almost unbearable number of chats with Amazon involving something like 11 different reps (two of them involved three transfers, for four reps each, so that's eight (I have the transcripts but am simply worn out)- I am getting a replacement. I will say that of that of the six chats I've had in the last few days, only one rep actually delivered what was promised (the last one, who did not transfer me). I ordered the replacement myself, after being assured it was already ordered by the fourth rep on one of the chats. I need to be able to text a group I have defined in Contacts, which I have to do once a week. I have received outstanding support from T-Mobile (and I mean outstanding). They are baffled as to why this doesn't work, and have tried contacting LG support for me. T-Mobile gave me a credit to replace my SIM card, and will likely do the same for the replacement I ordered. Based on years of software/firmware/hardware development, I doubt this bug only affects my phone, but probably all of them. I will post the results I get with the replacement.2018-10-08: I really like this device. I replaced it with an identical one. Still can't send a text to a group I have populated in Contacts- it's a bug that evidently affects all of these. LG can't wrap their minds around it. I absolutely LOVE the screen, it's easy to view in direct sunlight on a cloudless day!!! Can't do that with an OLED! I miss the user-defined text templates offered by Samsung. There's a certain message I send to a certain group with minor changes every week. That's become a pain. Earlier I took a couple of photos to attach to an MMS. They didn't show up in the Messages app until I exited the text I was composing, then returned to the draft to attach. Another small annoyance. I also miss NFC (but that's manageable). I don't miss the additional $800 I'd have to spend for a new Note, though. I just hope that LG fixes the bugs.2018-10-25: I have reached out to both Amazon (who has now thrice told me that someone in their technical department would contact me), and LG. Both appear not to acknowledge the issue of not being able to text a group or groups defined in Contacts. I've wasted quite a few hours trying to work with them with zero results other than confirming that this issue affects all phones of this model through my own tenacious efforts and testing.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2018
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2018
long battery life, not a bad camera either.
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2018
I didn't have to charge it for a week. Okay not what is really important to me. First off, I'm a forced up grade from a GS3 that was no longer supported by Samsung nor Verizon(meaning i had a phone that I took care of for over 5 years and is in pristine shape and does NOTHING but make calls, meanwhile I shelled out 142 and change a month for a Verizon contract on a phone that slowly did nothing as it completed Company and Contract planned obsolete death). In short, I was hopping mad. Not something you want an American to be that works nights. So I decided to ditch my contract phone, and my coworker in charge of Electronics and Cellphones at our store told me to get myself an unlocked phone rather then buy at work and get 10% off my phone. So onwards to the internet! And research on phones that came out THIS year so I can enjoy another phone that will eventually head towards planned obsolete death.(If I'm dropping cold hard cash my phone's gonna last me till doomsday and still look pristine, my S3 still looks like it just came outta the box). Enter LG Stylo 4. Its like the over priced flagship phones that I was feeling I was gonna be stuck with thanks to work required apps, and then this lil gem showed up. Now I could have paid 50 bucks more on straighttalk for the same(yet throttled phone, read the specs on ram and memory) or saved myself 80 dollars and bought it at work(for the same throttled phone on straighttalk's website itself). Instead by paying the mid price and getting a unlocked phone, I'm getting 16gb more internal memory, 1gb more RAM. That may not seem like much but it does make my phone just a bit faster and more useful then the "throttled phones". In short I have a better phone(the adage you get what you pay for, is in play here). The good, fingerprint unlock. The bad, I haven't figured out how to not have a lock screen at all. (it just annoys me) Internal speaker, could be better, its certainly loud enough, I use my phone as my super tiny boombox, and the internal speaker is almost as loud as my Sony blue-tooth speaker. Best feature, you can hit the "home" circle and NOT exit out of what you were just in, you can hit the "square" button and see everything open(browser/app tabs for the busy person). Also being able to jot a note with out having my phone on the main screen is super convenient, the stylus pen means less random letters I hit while typing on a touch keyboard.(I'm gonna mourn a Blackberry keyboard till the end of my cellphone using existence, and probably my blackberry phones till then as well). In short less "autocor-wrecks", no longer will I be fast typing a txt to a friend and have BBC pop up for "the" and "ghost" for "through" with the predict and insert a word option on the GS3. I'm sure my friends will miss being told they need more news in their life, and ghosts. Camera, isn't bad, not great, but not bad. So the images are taken from the exact same spot, I'm 170 yards out from tree with Bald Eagle. Cellhone is at max zoom. And its not bad for a cellphone picture. Compared with my Nikon D5300 with Tamaron 300-600mm lens, it sucks. (I don't own photoshop nor any other photo manipulation, what you see is what you get with the Nikon, shot in RAW, in manual, speed is 1/4000 F5.6 and no tripod. Those are taken by me standing out in 23 degree weather with no gloves and I'm not even near my car to brace on that. I parked a distance up the road to not spook the raptor nor make the cattle think I was going to feed them) So I'd say that's not bad for a phone, not bad at all. Now comparing with my friend and bosses Samsung G9plus, we've got similar size screens, mine seems to have better image quality, she has no stylus, and her phone is just a smidge thicker so it feels sturdier. This lil stylo is so thin it feels completely fragile like it won't survive a 2 inch drop to a table, and I've dropped that GS3 from 6 ft to the concrete floor at work I don't know how many times and it just had a plastic case on the back no screen protector at all. Never cracked or chipped. This thing is in a gel case with tempered screen protector and I still don't think it would survive if I dropped it. But that thinness makes the phone lightweight and comfortable to hold, I know I stuck my dad's GS3 in a otterbox and it was a misery to hold, bulky and heavy and clumsy feeling in that type of case.(on the other hand he ran that phone over with a tractor and it survived, course so did his old motorola flip phone his GS3 replaced which was taken out by tractor, baler and haywagon, only the outer screen cracked the inner one was fine and still worked) I've sent blackberries to bottoms of horse tanks, and run over with lawnmower tires and they held up fine...Samsung bit the gravel a few times too and held its own. This has a scuff on it already from pulling the gel case on. So...will it be pristine in 5 years, no. I just hope it lasts as long. Life's Good after all. Oh, and my flag ship phone owning friend and boss that paid out when brand new just released(and she went from a Iphone8 to the G9plus) likes my phone better, they still like theirs, but they like mine better. I like the features on mine, it does what I need and while a bit flimsy feeling, its just how smartphones are now, which is okay. In short if you want a GS9, GS9plus or a Note 9, you CAN save yourself some money and go with this, unless you're more concerned with keeping up with the jones' and appearance's sake.
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2018
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