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The G4 ships with Lollipop 5.1 – which seems to be over the issues which affected the OS upon its initial release. And with phone manufacturers being phone manufacturers (meaning they want to stand out from the crowd), LG have included a custom Android UI called LG Optimus UX 4.0.
LG Optimus UX 4.0 certainly is not the worst Android skin we have ever seen. It actually looks fairly sleek, and is not too cluttered. The home page, for instance, has a few apps lined up neatly in a row, while a smart weather widget is not overly busy or clunky – and is actually useful in that it tells you how the weather will change during the day.
One interesting feature of the included software is the variety of ‘smart settings.' These are a few options tailored to mean you have to do less things yourself – making the phone more efficient. For instance, you can set your G4's WiFi to turn on automatically once it detects you are at home.
You can also have the music app open automatically once headphones have been plugged in, or when a Bluetooth device is connected. It is small but useful innovations like this we like to see with mobile operating systems.
There is also a ‘Smart Bulletin' page which appears to left of your default home screen. This is where users can collate their calendars, health information, music and smart settings for easy access. Again, it is not a huge innovation – it is rather like HTC's Blinkfeed – but it is certainly useful for those users who organise their lives through the phones.
The rest of Lollipop is quite familiar. The settings menu is nice and clean, with different category options at the top – which mean the settings menu itself does not go on forever. The quick settings drop-down is also fairly standard, featuring circular buttons which turn turquoise when activated. LG's KnockOn feature also remains, where you can tap a pattern on the display to turn on and unlock the phone.
