A good phone for the price of a PS5 game

This story was originally published 2021/01/19
8:00 AM Pacific Standard Time19 Jan 2021 and last update 2021/01/30
07:11 PSTOn 30 Jan 2021.

LG may not sell many flagship phones in America, but the company’s budget and entry-level devices are available in nearly every prepaid carrier store. The K22 is one of LG’s latest phones and while it is available for sale in other countries It has been around for a few months, but recently arrived in the United States as a Boost Mobile exclusive.

At a time when flagship phones are easily over $ 1,000 and millions of people in the US (and elsewhere) are trying to save as much as they can, phones like the K22 will likely attract more attention than ever before. I was surprised at how capable the K22 was with the phone in my time, but it’s as cheap as a smartphone could reasonably be, so very corners were cut.

Design, hardware, what’s in the box

The LG K22 is definitely on the bigger side, with a diagonal screen size of 6.2 inches. It’s almost the same size as the Galaxy Note20 and slightly shorter than the OnePlus 8T. This will feel like a brick in your pocket, especially if you buy a case.

Most of this size will accommodate a 6.2-inch screen with a notch at the top for the 5MP front-facing camera and a rather large bezel at the bottom. The resolution of the screen is 1520×720, which will look a bit blurry compared to the 1440p AMOLED displays of most flagship phones, but looks good enough. The brightness is adequate for viewing outside, almost no light leakage (at least in my review unit). However, there is no oleophobic coating visible on the screen, which means fingerprints and smudges are easily visible. You will delete the screen quite often, unless you buy a better coated screen protector.

On the left side of the phone there is a microSD / SIM card slot and a dedicated button to open Google Assistant. LG has no way to change the function of the Assistant button or even a switch to turn it off. Thankfully, I didn’t always press it accidentally as I did with the Assistant button on it. Nokia 8 V 5G. On the right is the power button and volume keys, and at the top is the headphone jack.

There’s a microUSB port at the bottom, which is a bit disappointing – if $ 35 wireless headset Can have Type C port, LG probably Could put one on K22. Also, there is no fingerprint scanner anywhere. LG K22 seems to support Qualcomm Quick Charge 1.0 ( Specs sheet for SoC), but I could not test real-world charging speeds as my power meter requires a Type-C connector.

Galaxy S20 (left) next to LG K22 (right)

The back and sides of the LG K22 are covered in hard plastic, which is definitely better than the glossy plastic found in phones just like phones in my book. Galaxy A11 and Galaxy A21. However, the rear case can be easily scratched. I’ve been using the K22 for less than a week and although I haven’t dropped it (or did anything else that would normally damage a phone), it already has a few deep scratches.

There’s a phone, microUSB charging cable, 6W USB wall adapter and a few user manuals in the box.

Software, performance, battery life

The LG K22 comes with Android 10, and if you know anything about LG, chances are incredibly weak enough that this phone would get Android 11 (or beyond). Interestingly, the K22 looks and feels like stock Android – LG’s usual interface customizations and custom apps can’t be found anywhere. It even uses Google’s phone, messaging and contact apps by default. This is not Android Go Edition either.

I was expecting performance to be difficult with this phone. One Qualcomm 215 chipsetThis is so low quality that it doesn’t even get the usual ‘Snapdragon’ branding built on an old 28nm process (Snapdragon 888, 5 mm). The apps take a few seconds to open, but once the phone is powered on, it’s not unbearably slow. I did not wait for the keyboard to open or for Chrome to slowly load the New Tab Page, which is the problems I have encountered on other budget phones. I also didn’t experience any random slowdowns or crashes – I suspect LG’s decision to stay close to Android stock helped there.

The LG K22 has an excellent ability to watch YouTube videos, check messages and do some web browsing, which is better than I expected for under $ 70. However, all sorts of games are off the table here – even simple titles like the K22 struggled. Crossy road. My review unit on Boost Mobile came with a staggering amount of bloatware and preloaded apps, not counting the core carrier apps. I have listed what happened with my unit below and items in bold can only be disabled, not completely removed:

LG K22 9.93 inch if you are interested in comparisons Speedometer 2.0 and a 302 in 3DMark’s Sling Shot test.With a Geekbench 5, the phone scored 96 in single-core performance and 341 in multi-core (full results Request). The higher the number is better in all tests.

From left to right: Geekbench 5, Speedometer 2.0, 3DMark Sling Shot

LG K22’s battery life complies with the standards set by other budget phones. The 3,000 mAh battery is smaller than the packs seen in many other budget phones (usually pushing 4,000 or 5,000 mAh) and the large screen needs a fair amount of power, but it is slightly offset by the low-end Qualcomm chipset. I ended most days with 50-60% battery left on the LG K22 so unless you charge the phone every night (or Really If you want to play games (for whatever reason), you won’t see the low battery indicator very often.

Camera samples

The LG K22 has two rear cameras: 12 MP main lens and 5 MP macro lens. Exactly no one surprise, this $ 70 phone doesn’t take great pictures. Colors become faded, objects in motion are difficult to capture, and the sky in outdoor photos is often completely white.

The company can tell that the K22 has two rear cameras, as LG only adds the 5MP macro camera. The secondary lens is too low resolution to capture important details in photos … that’s the whole point of a macro camera.

You should buy

Buy in the following cases:

• You cannot spend more than $ 100.
• You want a phone with a stock-like Android experience.

Do not buy if:

• You want a good camera.
• You want Android 11 and beyond – this phone will likely stay on Android 10 forever.