The display: QHD IPS Quantum Display

Those who know the LG G3 will feel right at home with the G4 in their hand. It's got mostly the same look and feel. Sleek, curved, but angular at the same time. The glossy back has given way to ceramic-coated plastic — which sort of feels like glossy plastic. But we'll give LG the benefit of the doubt, because you can't just color plastic and stick it on a smartphone. This removable back cover has a sort of geometric texture to it that's quite smart, but it doesn't do a whole lot to change the fact that it feels like plastic. Not a huge deal, but there's something better lurking. More on that in a minute.

LG's particularly proud of its new 5.5-inch display. It's the same size and resolution (2560 x 1440) as last year's model. It has a very slight curve to it, the kind you won't notice unless you're looking at it from the side, so it's nowhere near as pronounced as the G Flex 2. But new this year is the so-called "IPS Quantum Display." If you're already stifling a yawn at yet another buzzword, we don't blame you. We mostly glazed over quantum dots when they bombarded us in the latest 4K televisions at CES in January. But the same idea is here, in a phone. The oversimplified version is that LG's Quantum Display technology lets you take an IPS display that starts with a blue backlight and get extremely good colors out of it, much better than you get with older filter technology.

So how does it look? You're going to see a lot of strawberries when you see IPS Quantum Display demos. And they look exactly as red as a perfectly ripe strawberry should look. And, in fact, LG put its own strawberries next to the same berries on the Galaxy S6 and its excellent AMOLED display. And they ... looked yellow. Just like that, we'd been shown that what Samsung has been serving us is an oversaturated lie, apparently. But that's just one example, and we'll need plenty more time with the G4 before we completely give ourselves over to the IPS Quantum Display hype. Does that mean the GS6 display is bad? Nah. But there's no denying that in that once instance, the G4's berries simply looked better.