The LG G2 is the beastly smartphone and it was LG's answer to 2013's Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One. It's a large, yet not unwieldy, smartphone brimming with specs that would make the most discerning geeks drool.
LG has been a distant cry from where Samsung and HTC have found themselves in terms of popularity and smartphone ownership, although with the Nexus 4, Nexus 5 and LG G2 now under its belt the Korean firm has got itself back on the smartphone map.
While it's now been succeeded by the LG G3 and its stunning QHD display, the G2 is still available and at a cracking price making it a really great option if you're on a bit more of a budget.
In fact, with a SIM-free price of around £330 it's at least £150 cheaper than the 2014 flagship brigade, and while it may not sport Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 801 chip it still has the strong 800 version, a full HD display and Android 4.4.2 KitKat.
If you don't fancy parting with £400 up front you can now pick the LG G2 for free on contracts starting at £25 per month.
With the G2, it seemed that LG took a lot of cues from its Korean counterpart and built what many called a Galaxy S4 clone. It's large, made of lots of plastic, shaped similarly and is jam-packed with more features than a single person can handle.
During its New York City presentation, I was a little baffled at what LG decided to highlight as the G2's key features. The first and most evident is the placement of the power button and volume control keys.
LG went to great lengths to explain how it was listening to customers and observing their usage patterns. Somehow it all led to the awkward placement of those buttons, along with a few other things the phone can do.
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Diving right into what powers the LG G2 and makes it purr, you'll first notice a 5.2-inch 1920 x 1080 display, which gives us a 424ppi density and means it still keeps pace with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z2.
The chipset inside is a 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 and as far as processing power, it seems that the G2 is in no short supply.
It comes in 16GB and 32GB variants, with 2GB RAM backing up that meaty processor, while connectivity includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, an IR blaster on the top of the G2 and 4G LTE.
The camera on back is a 13MP shooter with a small LED flash. Like other high-end Android smartphones, it has a few tricks up its sleeves, too, but we'll get into that in our camera section.
LG also made a big deal out of the battery in this thing, which is a 3000mAh Li-Po ( Lithium Polymer) battery - that's larger than the HTC One M8 ( 2600mAh) and Galaxy S5 ( 2800mAh) , while the G3 sports the same size power pack as its predecessor.
Despite being a 5.2-inch display device, the LG G2 is very manageable in the hand. It still takes a reach to get your thumb diagonally across the screen, but it's not so huge that it becomes cumbersome.
While it has the same size screen at 2014's Xperia Z2, the G2 is smaller in terms of height and width measuring in at 128.5 x 70.9mm. That also makes its smaller than the Galaxy S5 and One M8 which boast 5.1-inch and 5-inch displays respectively.
To undiscerning eyes, it can be quite hard to tell the difference between the G2 and the Galaxy S4. One can argue that there is only so much you can do with the modern-day smartphone form factor, but then again HTC and Sony have very distinct designs.
The edges of the device are clean, free of volume controls and a power button. The bottom edge of the phone has a 3.5mm headset jack, micro-USB port and a speaker and microphone.
The G2's backside is the business end of the phone. LG decided to put the volume buttons and power button just underneath the camera module.
LG says its the reason the volume and power keys were placed on the back is because that's where your finger naturally wants to rest when you're talking on your phone, which I generally found to be true.
It can become awkward feeling around for the bu
