LG X Venture - Review 2022 - Cilley Ladon1973

Rugged phones are often pricier, bulkier, and lacking in the specs section compared with their more than fragile counterparts. The LG Ten Venture on AT&T is dissimilar. Information technology'southward a rugged Android phone with a slim, light build, and a relatively affordable $329.99 price tag. It'south not quite as feature-packed every bit the Kyocera DuraForce Pro, which remains our Editors' Pick, merely it's a solid alternative if you're looking to save $100 or desire something more pocket-friendly.

Blueprint, Durability, and Display

You won't mistake the X Venture for a Galaxy S8. It has a black or brown textured rubber dorsum panel, a strip of metallic on either side, and physical navigation buttons. Measuring 6.0 by 3.0 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and 5.eight ounces, the X Venture is significantly thinner and lighter than the DuraForce Pro (5.8 by two.nine by 0.5 inches, viii.1 ounces). It doesn't feel quite as sturdy, only it's easier to employ with one hand and won't weigh downward your pocket.

left

In that location's a power push button on the right, while the left has a volume rocker and a SIM/microSD menu slot that worked fine with a 256GB card. There's besides a Quick Button in a higher place. Past default, a single printing launches Outdoor Essentials, an app that gives you admission to tools like a barometer, digital compass, flashlight, activity tracker, and LG Health. A double press enables Glove mode, increasing screen sensitivity and then you can use information technology while wearing gloves, while pressing and holding the button opens the Settings card. Information technology'south fully programmable, so you can have all three of the gestures launch a different app of your selection. The bottom of the phone has a three.5mm headphone jack and a micro USB charging port.

The phone is rated IP68 for water and grit resistance, significant it tin withstand being submerged in up to five anxiety of water for 30 minutes. We had no problem keeping it fully immersed for that period of time. It too withstood several drops against the difficult, rubberized flooring in PCMag'due south test lab, though we didn't drop it on physical, since, different the DuraForce Pro, the screen is only Gorilla Glass instead of shatter-resistant sapphire.

Front end and center is a crisp 5.two-inch, 1,920-by-one,080 IPS LCD console. The resolution works out to 423 pixels per inch. It'southward precipitous for the size, coming shut in pixel density to the 5-inch DuraForce Pro (441pp) and meliorate than the 4.seven-inch Cat S60 (312ppi). Screen effulgence is fantabulous, and you should take no trouble seeing information technology outdoors when set to maximum. Physical navigation buttons are located below the brandish. The home button doubles as a fairly responsive fingerprint sensor.

display

Network Operation and Connectivity

The X Venture is sectional to AT&T and supports GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz), UMTS (850/900/1800/1900MHz), and LTE bands (1/2/3/4/five/7/12/20/29/30). Information technology showed solid network connectivity in midtown Manhattan, registering 9.5Mbps down and eight.8Mbps up. This is in line with other AT&T phones nosotros've tested in the expanse and our findings in the Fastest Mobile Networks 2022.

Boosted connectivity features include Bluetooth 4.1 and dual-band Wi-Fi (ii.4GHz and 5GHz). In that location's also NFC, which is rare to find at this price.

Call quality is fantabulous. Transmissions are articulate, without whatever garbling. Voices tin can audio a bit harsh, simply the combination of clarity and a loud earpiece volume makes the 10 Venture piece of cake to hear in a noisy surroundings. Dissonance cancellation effectively blots out most all groundwork noise and minimizes current of air. The one slight letdown is the back-facing speaker. It'due south reasonably loud, but easy to accidentally conceal. The telephone also supports Hd Voice and Wi-Fi calling.

Processor, Battery, and Camera

The X Venture has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor clocked at 1.4GHz. It scored 43,639 on AnTuTu, which measures overall system operation, coming close to the Snapdragon 617-powered Cat S60 (45,466) and DuraForce Pro (46,540). It's no competition for the Snapdragon 820-powered Samsung Galaxy S7 Agile (123,933), but it only costs half the cost.

Existent-world functioning is fairly smooth. The phone has 2GB of RAM, so it tin can exercise a decent amount of multitasking. That said, you'll still come across the occasional stutter when launching new apps or switching between ones running in the background. It also crashed repeatedly when trying to run high-end games like GTA: San Andreas, but didn't have trouble with less-enervating titles.

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Battery life is strong. The X Venture clocked 7 hours, 36 minutes in our rundown test, in which nosotros set screen brightness to maximum and stream full-screen video over LTE, significantly outlasting the DuraForce Pro (v hours, 39 minutes) and True cat S60 (5 hours). It's nevertheless several hours shy of the Galaxy S7 Active, however, which accomplished the longest runtime we've tested on a rugged device (10 hours, 30 minutes). Android'due south default Battery Saver can help save you some juice, but the battery is sealed in, and then yous can't swap information technology out for a new cell.

LG X Venture

The X Venture's 16-megapixel rear sensor takes decent pictures in good light, but poor shots in whatever other weather. Outdoors yous'll go a nice level of color reproduction, with responsive autofocus and autoexposure, but fine details simply aren't there. Objects like the branches of trees, railings of balconies, and bricks of buildings are all noisy. In low lite image quality degrades farther, and pictures are grainy and out of focus. The camera records 1080p video at 30fps. It can be jerky when panning around and there'southward a notable lack of stabilization, but otherwise footage is fairly articulate. The v-megapixel front-facing camera has a wide bending lens similar to the LG G6 and takes solid snaps with proper lighting.

Software

The phone comes running Android 7.0 Nougat, putting it well ahead of nigh other rugged phones that usually ship with outdated software. Past default the phone comes with LG's custom home screen enabled, with the app drawer removed and all your apps splashed across the screen. That'south easy to change in the Settings menu, but y'all'll withal detect significant changes take been made from stock Android to the notification shade and app icons.

Heavy UI layer aside, there'southward also quite a lot of bloatware. You'll find twenty pre-installed apps from AT&T, LG, and others, none of which can be removed. The hefty load eats upwardly half the storage, leaving yous with 15.57GB bachelor out of a total of 32GB. Fortunately, yous do have the pick of using a microSD carte du jour if y'all demand more space.

Conclusions

For $330, the LG 10 Venture gives you a good combination of immovability, performance, and size. Compared with the brick-similar Sonim XP6 and True cat S60, the X Venture is a graceful device that won't counterbalance down your pocket, just nevertheless offers solid protection. The Galaxy S7 Active is a more powerful phone all effectually, simply it's too a lot more than expensive. The Kyocera DuraForce Pro is our Editors' Selection in this price range thank you to its superior immovability and more powerful hardware, but information technology even so costs nearly $100 more, making the X Venture an attractive alternative if you're looking to spend less.