LG V20 Flagship Android Smartphone - Reviewed!
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May 30, 2025
The LG V20 Smartphone is the new flagship model from LG and it's a terrific Android-powered phone. Featuring the innovative "second screen", it also has a DAC-powered audio system that sounds terrific, a camera that lets you adjust settings manually to get the best photos possible, and a replaceable battery. It also has some curious design choices too, including a power button that's located on the back of the phone rather than the front, something that took tech expert Dave Taylor of http://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ rather a while to figure out, as he explains in this extensive review of the LG V20. Learn more about the LG V20 at AT&T Wireless: https://www.att.com/cellphones/lg/v20.html
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0:00
the LGV 20 it's like the Samsung Note 7
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but it doesn't explode let me tell you
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about it oh hey Dave Taylor here again
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take these off for once I'm actually not
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reviewing headphones though these are
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lovely Bayer dynamic headphones I'm
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actually looking at this this is the LG
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V 20 this is their new flagship I was
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think of like Austin Powers flagship
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smartphone and it has a lot of really
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cool features one of the best of which
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is that it has a built-in deck and a DAC
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is this circuitry that basically takes
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your music and gives it more dynamic
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range and just makes it sound better and
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I will say that just listening to Google
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play music with these headphones off the
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phone boy it sounds really good and you
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get a lot of volume and a lot of just
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sort of spatial sense to the music very
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very nice
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but the v20 has lots of other cool
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features too and let's start with the
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screen because this is basically the
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same screen the same dimensions there's
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a lot of features that overlap the now
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recalled samsung note 7 which I hope you
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don't still have one because seriously
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it's kind of dangerous who would think a
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smart phone would be dangerous but this
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has a let's see 5.7 inch qHD display
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it's actually running it better than
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1080p it actually is running at 1440 by
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2560 which gives it 513 dots per inch
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which means that everything on this
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thing just looks gorgeous I mean it's
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just a really nice display it also is
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running off of snapdragon the 820
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processor which is 2.1 5 gigahertz
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quad-core keep that in mind 4 gigabytes
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of RAM 64 gig of storage and it has a
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micro SD card slot yay thank you I wish
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my iPhone had that and that gives you up
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to 2 terabytes of storage
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who the heck needs 2 terabytes of
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storage on your smartphone but hey I
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don't judge you if you need it you can
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do that with this phone it's running
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Android 7.0 which is also known as
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you got not sure why the people at
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Google are so obsessed with candy when
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it comes to Android but it's okay they
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haven't yet nailed the favorite candy I
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have but maybe someday what else can I
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tell you let's see so this has 3200
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milliamp hour of battery and let me show
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you something it's gonna freak out all
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of you people that are used to other
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companies we won't name them but you
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ready I can take the back off because
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it's a removable battery oh my gosh what
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a great thing which means you could
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actually have two or three batteries and
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you could be charging one while you're
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using the other one or you can actually
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pre charge both of them and then when
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you get to like a big trade show or a
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day-long workshop you are good to go and
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you don't have any issues because when
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your battery gets super low all you have
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to do is switch it with the other one I
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really like that this gives you this
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battery gives you about eight hours of
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talk time and what people are finding is
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that the battery might be one of the
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weak spots on this from other reviews
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I've seen and read and people find that
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right around early evening it starts to
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run out of juice so that's something to
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keep in mind but it does come with what
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LG calls their quick charge 3.0 which is
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just a higher amperage charger which
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means that this baby can charge over 50%
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in 30 minutes and just over an hour for
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a full charge from zero to 100% and
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that's really nice now worth mentioning
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is that it is a USBC connector so if
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you're used to having your little micro
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USB and having to deal with the stupid
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orientation stuff who thinks of oriented
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cables is just a bad idea you will love
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USB C however you will need to get new
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chargers you will need a new car charger
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you might need a new extra charger at
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work if you are using a docking system
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of any sort this now won't work right
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because it's USB C however USB C is the
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future so I would encourage you to just
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sort of jump in and just go for it and
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pick up a couple extra cables it's not
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really a nightmare now from a usability
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perspective one of the things that I
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found most
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about the v20 is that there's no on/off
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button on the edges there's no button on
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the front like on an iPhone the actual
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power button is on the back and I think
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the idea is that you know as you pick it
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up you just go ahead and put your finger
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on it and boom your phone's turned on
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and everything's all hunky-dory and it
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actually has a fingerprint scanner on
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that but I will tell you not to sound
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like I'm not an expert but it took me a
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while to figure out that that was
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actually a button I just looked at it
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and just thought that as you might it's
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just part of the camera and lens setup
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but this is actually the home button so
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even as you're using your phone you
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might find that you're using that
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particular button so an interesting
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design choice on LG's part so let's see
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speaking of cameras the back is a 16
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megapixel camera and the front is an 8
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megapixel but it's working in wide-angle
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and I don't have any super glamorous
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photos to show you but here's one that
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you can see and it does a really nice
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job with photography and there's
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actually a lot of manual settings and
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what I've read online from other users
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is that if you really want to get into
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working with all the manual settings you
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can get some phenomenal photos out of
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this v20 so that's worth knowing they
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also have what's called a steady record
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system so supposedly if you're recording
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a video and you're not very stable or
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smooth or you're on a boat or something
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the system itself is supposed to try to
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smooth things over a little bit so
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really pretty cool idea again I haven't
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really tested it that extensively but
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you can go on YouTube and search and
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probably find a couple of sample videos
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and let's see the audio recording is
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another interesting one because you
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can't see it when you look closely but
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there are actually three microphones and
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what this does is it gives you a better
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quality audio recording so what LG says
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is this is studio quality audio
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recording and I guess that's true if
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your studio represents a smartphone on a
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table but still I use my smartphone to
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record audio when I'm at lectures for
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example so having better quality is
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definitely a
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benefit and let's see there's the other
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interesting thing is that on the very
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top here I'll give you a close-up they
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have what they call the second screen I
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see this and I think it's kind of like
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the new MacBook Pros touch bar the idea
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is that they have just a little like 160
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pixels on the very top that they've
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dedicated to showing stuff other than
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what you're actually doing at that
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moment so in this case I can see the
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icons from recent apps that I've used
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when I was using Dropbox for example it
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was showing me the statuses I was
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uploading photos so it's an interesting
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idea and it certainly is a nice use of
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the real estate because they can't use
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all the way across because they have the
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camera lens so that's why it's not just
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part of the regular display but it's
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kind of cool because they're just
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utilizing the space that otherwise on
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most smartphones would just be dead
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space so I like that in terms of
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dimensions six point three inches three
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point one inches one-third of an inch
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and it weighs it's it's maybe a little
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heavy for a smartphone but certainly no
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big deal it's big enough that it's not
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gonna fit in most of your pockets and
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you do not want this in your back pocket
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because snap bad you know that that
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would not be a good thing so this is
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Titan gray it also comes in silver and
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price wise because that's really all we
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haven't talked about at this point
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price-wise it's 799 bucks unlocked at
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amazon.com or if you want to just get it
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through someone like AT&T Wireless it's
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eight hundred and twenty nine bucks so
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it is a computer that happens to be
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really small so you know it's expensive
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now I do want to point out that AT&T
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also has their pay-as-you-go sort of
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thing that's not the right name for it
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but you can basically take the cost of
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your phone and divide it into monthly
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payments in which case you can have one
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of these beautiful LG v 20s for a mere
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twenty seven dollars per month so that
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runs for some number of years and
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somewhere along the way you have the
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option of doing an upgrade but I have to
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say this is a pretty slick phone I
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really have to say that the LG has done
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a really nice job
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the glass is edge to edge it's metal I
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really like the replaceable battery
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though it took me a while to figure out
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how to open the back the camera does a
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great job the audio is really notable
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and it's Android 7 so it's pretty darn
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easy to use so I would say all in all
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I'm gonna give this a thumbs up it's a
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pretty nice phone now you can learn more
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about it at LG comm or you can go to
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somewhere like AT&T Wireless and you can
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learn more about it there so this is
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Dave Taylor and I think I'm gonna get
9:27
back to my Google Play so I will catch
9:30
you in my next video but wait whoa
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you're not allowed to leave yet do not
9:36
press that pause button because I'm
9:39
hoping you will actually spend a couple
9:41
of seconds and click on the subscribe
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button you've done that I sure
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appreciate it and that'll help you keep
9:46
up on all the stuff I'm doing so now
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finally this is Dave Taylor and I'll
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catch you in my next video
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[Music]
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