LG’s G4 Stylus never made it to the UK, but its successor, simply called the Stylus 2, will be the first Stylus in years to finally make an appearance on our shop shelves. LG told me that it probably won’t be called the Stylus 2 when it launches later this year, but if you’re hankering after a large phablet phone with a stylus that doesn’t cost even half as much as the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, then the Stylus 2 is definitely one to keep an eye on.
Part of the reason why it won’t cost the earth is that its massive 5.7in screen only has a resolution of 1,280x720. That might not seem like a lot for such a big display, but its pixel density of 258ppi is nowhere near as bad as you might think. The screen didn’t look overly pixellated when I went hands on with the device at MWC, and text and app icons were all still reasonably sharp. The quality of the screen was pretty good, too, as colours really seemed to jump off LG’s In-cell LCD panel.
It’s surprisingly light and thin for such a big phone, as even with a metal frame it only weighs 145g, and it’s a surprisingly svelte 7.4mm thick. However, this was rather spoiled by its spun-hairline finish on the back of the phone, which feels very plasticky to the touch and very slippery when you’re trying to hold it one-handed. This was even more pronounced on the Stylus 2’s grip case, which was also on display on the show floor.
That said, I do quite like the clear plastic panel on the edge of the grip case, as it can show the time, date, and your phone’s battery status along the side of the display when you snap it shut. Quite how useful this will be in practice, however, remains to be seen, as the information itself isn’t particularly handy when you’ve just been using the phone, and it doesn’t stay illuminated for very long either. Instead, an always-on strip like the V10 would have arguably been more useful here instead of this side-display which disappears almost instantly, but it’s a small complaint overall as it only appears when it’s attached to the case.
The stylus slots in at the top of the phone, and LG’s made a number of improvements this time to make it even easier and simpler to use. For instance, when you first take the stylus out, the Stylus 2 will recognise that it’s been removed and automatically open up its pen menu to present you a list of stylus-friendly apps. These include Pop Memo, LG’s note-taking app, Capture+, which lets you capture what’s onscreen to annotate, Pop Scanner, which lets you draw on pictures, and QuickMemo+. Evernote Premium will also come pre-installed on the device, and you can add additional shortcuts as well.
The stylus itself works very well. There’s a very tiny delay on when your pen strokes appear onscreen, but it’s so small that you barely notice it when you’re jotting something down very quickly. The Stylus itself is also rather slim, but the rounded, soft pen tip glides across the screen easily, and it’s just about long enough to hold comfortably.
Even better, the phone will vibrate with a notification if you forget to slot the stylus back into the phone and start walking away from it, so hopefully it should be easy to keep track of despite its rather slimline profile. The Stylus 2 also provides some haptic feedback when you’ve inserted the stylus correctly, and the pen menu icon, which can be moved to appear anywhere on the screen, will automatically disappear when the stylus is reattached.
The LG Stylus 2 also comes with a large removable 3,000mAh battery and a microSD card slot to expand its default 16GB of internal storage. This can be found underneath its rear back panel. It’s powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz processor and 2GB of RAM, and has a 13-megapixel rear camera.
LG currently have no information about when the LG Stylus 2 will launch, or how much it will cost in the UK, but it did say we should hear more about this in the next month or two. We’ll keep you updated as soon as we hear more, but for now, LG’s Stylus 2 could well be enough to steal Samsung’s thunder as we continue to languish in a Note-shaped hole in its upcoming release schedule.
