LG announced the Q61 mid-range smartphone in late May 2020. This is the latest handset in the Q series since the launch of the LG Q60 in February 2019. This series also includes the LG Q6, LG Q7, LG Q70, etc.

Last year, the LG Q60 came out at a price of Rs 13,999. This year, the LG Q61 is priced at Rs 22,740, almost Rs 10,000 more expensive. We shall hope the LG Q61 will be worth the additional money.

It appears that the LG Q61 is more costly than Chinese competitors in the same segment. For example, the latest Redmi 10X 4G with outstanding specifications will likely be priced at Rs 16,990, still much cheaper than the Q61. However, it’s been pointed out by users that the higher price is the trade-off for better privacy, security, no ads, along with fewer bugs and vulnerability.

Display

This smartphone features a 6.53-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1080x2340 pixels. This screen size and resolution surely match the common specifications of a mid-range smartphone these days.

The display features a punch-hole design with the front camera placed in the top left corner of the screen, the same as the Redmi 10X 4G. To compare, the LG Q70 sports the same display design while the Q60 has a top-notch on its screen.

Meanwhile, the Redmi 10X Pro 5G still features a top-notch design while the Redmi Note 9 series houses a similar punch-hole display but with the camera hole placed in the top-middle of the screen. 

While a lot of mid-range smartphones this year feature AMOLED screen, LG still uses LCD tech for its handset. LCD is short for liquid-crystal display, which is a flat-panel screen using liquid crystals’ light-modulating properties combined with polarizers. It’s popularly used in manufacturing displays for a wide range of products like phones, TV, and computer monitors, but being gradually replaced by OLED and AMOLED tech.

The phone was announced three weeks ago and it may take a little more time for reviewing this device, but with a pixel density of 395 ppi while the screen is 6.53 inches large, we don’t expect excellent images on the Q61.

With such specifications, we still expect the LG Q61 screen will be able to handle PUBG Mobile among other mobile games, though the images inside the game may not be very satisfying.

Chip

This device is powered by the 12nm MediaTek MT6765 Helio P35. This is an octa-core processor released in late 2018 by MediaTek, designed for mid-range smartphones. It got 85,000 points on AnTuTu, higher than the Snapdragon 625 but is not as powerful as the Snapdragon 636.

If I have to say, this chip isn’t really for gaming. You can try playing games with it, but don’t expect much.

Storage

The LG Q61 comes with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage and this is the only storage variant of this smartphone. In short, this RAM capacity is enough for gaming and should be able to handle popular titles like PUBG Mobile.

Battery

In terms of battery, this handset packs a 4,000mAh battery. Sadly, it doesn’t support fast charging or wireless charging. To compare, the LG Q60 packs a 3,500mAh battery, the LG Q70 features the same battery capacity as the Q61, while the Redmi 10X 5G sports a 4,520mAh battery. A 4,000mAh capacity should be enough to last you an entire day, provided that you don’t attempt to play games on it. Since you cannot fast charge the phone, you may want to limit energy-intensive tasks in this device.

Other specifications of the LG Q61 suggest that this is not a smartphone for gaming, so up to this point, you should give up the idea of trying to play games on this phone. Though it leaves to further review to tell, we expect the phone will heat up if you perform intensive tasks on it, including gaming. And there’s no fast charging support so you won’t be able to get back to your game as fast as the Q70.

Camera

Regarding photography capabilities, the LG Q61 sports a quad-camera setup on the rear, including a 48MP wide-angle lens with an aperture of f/1.8, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens with an aperture of f/2.2, a 2MP macro lens with an aperture of f/2.4, and a 5MP depth-sensing lens with an aperture of f/2.4. The rear camera array is supported by an LED flash, featuring HDR, panorama modes and you can record videos at 1080-pixel resolution and 30fps frame rate.

Meanwhile, on the front, there is a single 16MP selfie lens that can also record videos at a resolution of 1080 pixels and a frame rate of 30 frames per second. Besides these specifications, we haven’t found any outstanding camera features that the LG Q61 may offer, we’ll keep updating on that.

In general, thanks to the 48MP lens, the LG Q61 takes beautiful pictures in the daylight. To compare with the LG Stylo 6, its photos are true to life, features better contrast, and captures much more detail. The LG Q61 also takes better portrait photos with more vivid colors while the background is blurred reasonably to highlight the subject without making the entire thing unnatural. It requires more camera testing for us to know better about the phone’s camera quality. For example, it takes good daylight pictures, but how about the quality of low-light photos?