LG X Power 2: Hands-on review and UK release date

At MWC 2017, it’s been all about the LG G6 so far, but LG has sneaked out another new handset this year – the LG X Power 2 – and the focus is all on the battery.

Under the skin of this new handset, which joins LG’s burgeoning range of X-branded phones, is an enormous 4,500mAh battery. That’s just 600mAh shy of the longest-lasting smartphone we’ve ever tested at Expert Reviews – the Lenovo P2 – and I’ve been down to the LG stand to get hands-on with one.

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LG X Power 2 review: Design, key features and first impressions

While it’s great to see another phone emphasising longevity over simply squeezing in more and more features, the design of the LG X Power 2 leaves a lot to be desired. It’s clearly a phone aimed at the lower end of the market, but the lightweight plastic chassis lags a long way behind phones such as the Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus, which both have an all-metal design.

It’s available in three different colours – “shiny blue”, “shiny gold” and a “shiny titan” – all with a subtle patterning of vertical stripes applied – but you’re not going to buy this handset for its looks.

You probably won’t buy it for its display or performance either. On the front of the LG X Power 2 is a 5.5in, 720p screen that’s bright and colourful, but quite obviously low-resolution.

And powering the phone is a MediaTek MT6750 chip – an SoC that typically finds itself in obscure budget handsets such as the Meizu M3. As such, we don’t have much information so far as to how efficient this chip is, but an LG spokesperson assured us that he’d seen the battery last beyond two days in normal use. Presumably, the low-resolution screen helps here.

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The phone runs Android 7 Nougat and felt reasonably responsive when I tried it on the stand, but the rest of the specifications might give you pause for thought, with only 2GB of RAM and a miserly 16GB of eMMC storage. It’s just as well there’s a microSD slot for memory expansion, as you’ll run out of space pretty quickly when you start loading the phone up with apps, games photos and videos.

Speaking of which, the LG X Power 2 has a 13-megapixel camera on the rear with a single LED flash, and a 5-megapixel wide-angle camera on the front. The floor of a conference hall isn’t the fairest environment in which to test a smartphone camera, though, especially one on a low-budget phone, so I’ll reserve judgement on this until I have a review sample in my hand and can test it away from the bright lights and garish colours.

LG X Power 2 review: Early verdict

When the LG X Power 2 comes to the UK later this year it will almost certainly come in at less than £200 (alas, there’s no confirmed price just yet), and that will make it a seriously tempting proposition if the battery life is as good as LG says.

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If nothing else, it’s great to see another manufacturer chucking a larger battery at a smartphone. That’s what consumers have been asking for for ages and it looks like it’s finally happening.