A lot of people instantly think of huge players like Samsung and Apple when it comes time to upgrade to a new cell phone, but there are other options out there too that offer comparable performance at an often much lower price. If you can get over the need to have Samsung or Apple attached to  your phone, there’s a wide market of smaller manufacturers that produce excellent phones that have gained a lot of traction worldwide in recent years. We’re going to look at two different options today, one from LG and one from Xiaomi. This article compares and contrasts the LG v30 and the Xiaomi Mi6 and we’ll do our best to give you a sense of which phone is the better buy when it comes time to upgrade. This review will cover a number of aspects of the phone, ranging from Display and Camera to Storage and Design. We’ll start off, first, with display.

Display and Design

Display is often one of the most important aspects to consider when looking for a new phone. After all, if you’re going to spend a ton of time looking at the screen it’s important for it to look good. The display is just the front of your phone though, so it’s important for the rest of the device to feel premium, comfortable, and cool too.

The LG v30 features a 5.7 inch screen with a 2560 x 1440 pixels IPS display. One of the more unique features of the LG v30 that really sets it apart from competitors is the addition of an additional secondary 2.1 inch display. This secondary display allows users to easily multitask and do more than one thing at once on their phone, a feature with increasing demand as we begin to expect more and more from our phones.

 

The Xiaomi Mi6 ships with a 5.15 inch Full HD 1920×1080 pixel display with a four-sided curved glass display. While the Xiaomi Mi6 definitely has a beautiful and capable display, it really can’t compete with the larger screen size and dual display features of the LG v30.

We would, however, like to draw attention to the design of the four-sided curved display that we mentioned above. This unique twist of the display is detailed below, but it isn’t groundbreaking enough to make up for the smaller screen size and lower resolution than the LG v30.

The Xiaomi Mi6 is available in Black, Silver, Blue and the unique Ceramic finish we’ve included below. The ceramic finish is really neat and classes up the phone a lot, making it feel pretty high end. There’s not much information available in terms of colors for the LG v30 currently, so it’s difficult to compare the two.

It will be interesting to see how the secondary display performs on the LG v30. The screen was also present on the LG v20 and got generally good reviews. We’ll have to see if LG is reinventing the wheel with the v30 or sticking to the format it saw success with in the LG v20.

Winner – LG v30

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Camera

The cameras on the LG v30 are 21 megapixels for the main camera and 13 for the front facing camera. There are also rumors and some leaked images that suggest that there will be “dual dual cameras” meaning two lenses for both the front and the back. This inclusion follows in Apple’s footsteps by pairing a regular wide-angle lens with one of double the focal length. It’s unique, however, in that the dual cameras will be for both the front and the back. The detailed specifications for the main camera are the inclusion of 4K Video Recording, 6P lenses, and the 21MP+8MP Dual Camera we discussed above.

The Xiaomi Mi6 falls a little short in this category with a dual 19 megapixel main camera and 8 megapixel front facing camera. The detailed specifications of the main camera are f/2.0, 6 element lens,1/2.3 inch lens, with a Sony IMX400 Sensor.

Both phones will likely feature the dual camera, but the LG v30 is one of the only phones on the market that will likely include dual cameras both on the front and the back of the phone. Even if the dual camera is only featured with the main lenses, the phone still pulls ahead due to the better specifications. The LG v30 wins again.

Winner – LG v30

 

 

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Battery

This section seems simple at first look, but until we get our hands on both phones for testing it will be difficult to declare a clear winner. Going off pure numbers, the LG v30 pulls ahead with a 4400 MAH battery versus the Xiaomi Mi6’s 3200 MAH, but there’s a lot more to battery life than pure battery capacity. The efficiency of the operating system design and the way the phone actually uses the battery life it has available means just as much or more than maximum capacity.

Because we don’t have the LG v30 to test yet, it’s not prudent to declare it the front runner because we have no idea how efficient the phone will be when it comes to utilizing that big battery.

Winner – Unclear, though numbers point to the LG v30.

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Performance, Processing, and Storage

One of the most important things to consider when looking for a new phone is how fast the phone will run. I mentioned above the importance of a good display on your phone of choice, but the display really doesn’t mean much at all if your phone isn’t speedy and responsive.

Both phones ship with 6 GB of RAM, which is a decent amount and should allow the phone to run without any issues.

Another influence on the performance of the phone is its processor, and the Xiaomi Mi6 comes

out on top in that respect. The phone feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Quad Core Processor at 2.45 GHz. The LG v30 falls behind, disappointingly, with a rumored Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 821 Quad Core Processor at 2.30 GHz.

It’s interesting that the LG v30 would ship with a processor that’s already outdated, and rather disappointing considering how far ahead the phone is compared to the Xiaomi Mi6 in other categories. At the end of the day, your phone’s performance is king. The LG v30 loses major points in this category.

In terms of battery, there’s virtually no difference. Both phones ship with a 128 GB higher-end model, expandable up to 256 GB with external storage.

Winner – Xiaomi Mi6

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Extra Perks and Features

There’s a lot of things that can make a phone unique and put it above its competitors, and the LG v30 has no shortage of these extra perks that make the phone really fantastic.

First off, there’s the secondary screen feature that we discussed above. This is something pretty unique to LG’s v20 and v30 and may even be enough to warrant a purchase on its own if you’re really into multitasking and, say, using your phone for video while browsing the web. With how rare it is to fully devote your attention to one form of media, the LG v30 really caters to the modern consumer with this new and interesting feature.

Also present in the LG v30 (and absent in the Xiaomi mi6) is the technology for wireless charging. While wireless charging technology is still in its infancy and at this state isn’t much better than just plugging your phone in, it’s nice to see some support for a cool quirk (which will undoubtedly become a huge industry changer as technology advances).

LG’s phone will also be waterproof, a feature that is really great both for convenience and for making the most out of your phone’s life. While the waterproofing of the phone is nice if you for some reason want to browse Reddit or Facebook while in the shower, the feature is nice more for the fact that dropping your phone in a puddle or a pool won’t completely wreck the system. The Xiaomi Mi6 features a splashproof design, but not waterproofing.

The Xiaomi Mi6 is a great phone, but it isn’t exactly innovative or packing tons of extra features. The LG v30 wins this category with the inclusion of a lot of “extras” that set it apart from the rest of the crowd.

Winner – LG v30

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Price

This is where the Xiaomi really pulls ahead. The Xiaomi Mi6 is available for $360 for the 64 GB storage model and $420 for the 128 GB model. The 128 GB model with the ceramic finish is available for just a bit more at $435.

While there’s not enough information on the LG v30 yet to know a completely accurate price, estimates based on released and rumored specifications put it at close to, or even over, the $1000 mark.

It may be easy to quickly look through the categories and determine that the LG v30 is hands-down the winner, but these phones are difficult to compare because they set out to accomplish different things.

With the Xiaomi Mi6 you’ve got a great and affordable phone that’s still more powerful in some ways than the LG v30. The LG v30 is a flagship intended to compete with high-end offerings from Apple and Samsung and has the specifications and features to play with the big boys.

At the end of the day, even if the LG v30 is declared the winner, it’s price point will price out a lot of consumers. If you can get a phone that’s almost as good for less than half the price, why wouldn’t you? Still, for those consumers looking for luxury the LG v30 will be there and offering a smartphone that’s dressed to impress.

Winner – Xiaomi Mi6

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Final Verdict

After going through the categories we discussed above, GeekReply is confident to declare the LG v30 the more powerful and fully-featured phone. Those features come at a price, though, and consumers who can settle for a little bit less will be well served with the choice of the Xiaomi Mi6.

At the end of the day, however, the LG v30 is shaping up to be a better phone overall and we feel good about giving it the victory in this battle of the underdogs.

Top Phone – LG v30