Looking for a budget smartphone with great features? Check out our article on the LG Prime 2 review to find if this is what you are searching.
LG Prime 2 smartphone was released in October 2019. It comes in with the price targeting consumers looking for a budget smartphone, but with the features that normally a budget phone won’t offer.
This phone comes with a few selling points that are worth looking for, such as a great Full Vision display, HD+ video recording, and many other features. LG Prime 2 might be the phone you want if you don’t like spending a lot.
However, many basic features here are enough to handle everyday duties. The phone has 2GB of RAM, a 1.4GHz processor, and a 3,000mAh battery.
Let’s take a look at more features this phone comes with by reading our detailed LG Prime 2 review. Find out if it’s worth your money.
Page Contents:
Key Specs
LG Prime 2 specifications:
- Weight: 150g
- Dimensions: 147 x 71 x 8.1mm
- OS: Android 9
- Screen size: 5.45-inch
- Resolution: 1440 x 720
- CPU: 1.4GHz Quad-core, Qualcomm Snapdragon 425
- RAM: 2GB
- Storage: 16GB
- Battery: 3,000mAh, Non-removable
- Rear camera: 13MP
- Front camera: 5MP
Design
LG Prime 2 comes with a design that resembles most of the modern smartphones, similar to smartphones that came out between 2018-2019. This phone also has a big display, no physical buttons underneath, with bezels surrounding the edge. It doesn’t use notch or another sort of modification on the top side.
We can find the physical buttons such as volume up and down, sim card slot, and power button on the side. The fingerprint sensor lies on the back with the carrier logo underneath. The headphone jack, charging port, and speaker are located underneath the phone.
LG Prime 2’s back cover is using plastic-glass-looking material so it can still show reflection. We recommend using a phone case or cover if fingerprint smudge is a problem. The camera and microphone are located in the front and top of the phone. It’s a very simple and minimalistic design that is commonly used by many smartphones and people seem to like it.
With this design, we don’t find it hard to use because everything is very accessible, thanks to the compact design that fits many hands. Even one hand usage won’t be too hard considering the screen size.
Everything is very easy to locate either with one hand or two hands. This is also one of the considerations to buy a compact phone from an easy-to-use point of view. If you’re looking for a device that’s not too big, this design will suit you.
Display
LG Prime 2 has a 5.45-inch display which is one of its highlight features. This phone has an HD+ Full Vision display with vibrant color. It can display pictures, text, webpage, and videos with great quality.
This phone also has an 18:9 aspect ratio to display wider and bigger content. This is great when we combine this with the Full Vision display. We get a big great display to enjoy more content on the phone without distractions from thick edges.
Playing video games will be more fun and enjoyable with more areas to look at. The phone is also able to play HD video and streaming HD videos. Playing 720p video will be very pleasant thanks to the sizable display.
The resolution of this phone is 1440 x 720 (HD+ quality). The screen to body ratio is 73.15% which is still a good ratio. This ratio is considered normal because it has bezel all over the edge. It’s not too thick although not the thinnest you can find.
There is no info if the display is using any glass protection. We recommend installing screen protection to prevent any crack when an accident happens. It’s very common for a budget smartphone to get cracked when dropped.
Read also: LG Prime 2 User Manual
Camera
LG Prime 2 has two cameras, one as the front camera with 5MP. On the back, it uses 13MP as the rear camera. The rear camera also has an LED Flash for the better image when the surrounding is dark. It can also be used as a flashlight when needed.
With the big megapixels of the rear camera, we can expect good quality pictures. Also thanks to the features included in the camera which will improve the result. We can’t expect for even higher quality considering the price and specs.
This phone can also record Full HD video up to 1080p (1920×1080) quality. We can playback Full HD video with 30FPS and H.264 encoding. It offers various quality options from HD+ to Full HD and different aspect ratios. The different megapixels option will help to depend on the situation when recording videos.
There is no LED flash for the front camera. We can expect the result of low-light selfies will be somewhat normal. This phone has features such as a QR Code scan for scanning, including the selfie feature for better results on the front camera.
This phone also has a live snapshot and AE/AF lock for better focus control of the object. Additional features like fast snapshot, cheese shutter, timer, and tag locations are also built-in. These features will come in handy when taking pictures in certain conditions.
Storage
The internal storage of the LG Prime 2 is 16GB. It’s one with the system including pre-installed apps the phone comes with. Approximately only half of it is available for the user to use.
This is one of the main problems of budget smartphones. Keep in mind that most apps these days are using bigger storage space. This is why it is important to choose a phone with a big storage space.
We are left with only limited space for images, videos, and other kinds of files. However, we can upgrade the storage using a MicroSD card which is supported up to 32GB. We also recommend using a lighter version of apps which is commonly called as Lite Version.
Read also: TCL Signa Review: Nice Battery and HD+ Display
Performance
LG Prime 2 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 which is a Quad-Core CPU. It makes sure the phone can run efficiently for many different tasks. Each core has a 1.4 GHz speed and can run apps faster.
Although it’s not a high-end or mid-end CPU, it has decent performance thanks to the 28nm chipset. This chipset is faster when compared to other similar budget brands. It also has Adreno 308 as the GPU for processing graphics.
We can play videos from low to high quality, loading images, audio without any problem. Playing video games with low graphics runs greatly. However, higher graphic games will be slower to run because it requires more processing power.
This LG Prime 2 review has a RAM performance similar to other budget smartphones. With only 2GB to work with, many apps will open normally. It will open but we can’t run more than 2 or 3 apps. There is also gonna be a problem when switching between them.
We cannot expect more performance with the RAM. The 2GB RAM is considered the minimum for an Android smartphone today. We also recommend closing apps you don’t need and clearing the cache of each app.
For a budget phone, it is a surprise that it runs a newer Android version. This phone runs with Android 9 Pie, which was released in 2019. We can expect some similar characteristics to other higher end smartphones that also use Pie.
A phone that runs an older version will bring risks such as security. It also has a risk of being abandoned by apps support. Running a new version also means more stability and features.
There are six sensors of LG Prime 2. Accelerometer to calculate the coordinate, ambient light to control the brightness depending on the lighting. This phone also uses Proximity sensors to detect motion such as during phone calls. The E-Compass is available to use the accelerometer and determine position. Tasks that require those sensors will run without a problem.
Connectivity
LG Prime 2 supports 4G LTE. Apart from 4G, the phone is also able to get 2G, 3G, and 3.5G signals. The Wi-Fi feature is also quite fast if your data isn’t available. Additionally, Mobile Hotspot can also be used to share connections with other people up to 10 people.
One of the most important sensors is GPS which many people use in their daily life, either to navigate from place to place or simply to locate their phone. LG Prime 2 provides this feature and it functions well.
There is also Bluetooth for transferring files between devices. Lastly, this phone uses Micro USB for charging ports, something the majority of budget smartphones still use today.
Battery
With a 3,000 mAh Li-ion battery, we expect the phone to run for a full day of usage. The phone uses less battery for normal tasks and no high power activity. This includes tasks such as texting, browsing the internet. However, watching movies or playing low graphic games might use more power.
It takes 80 minutes for the phone to charge up to 50% and 160 minutes to 100% using the standard charging port and cable. The size of the battery is very common among other budget smartphones. Looking at the charging time, it doesn’t take that long to fully charge this phone, even without any fast charging feature.
Is the LG Prime 2 a Good Phone?
LG Prime 2 is one of the budget smartphones you can buy with a limited budget. It competes with many other brands with similar prices. From our review of this phone, it seems very capable of handling day to day usage.
This phone can manage photography, playing HD videos, and playing low graphic games. You can record Full HD videos with the camera and play it back. It can also be used for more activities that require sensors such as GPS. There are some apps and games that will only run when there are sensors available.
With a price of $120, we can say that this is a very good choice. Although there are some pros and cons which you can read below. We can’t complain too much about the features for the price it offers.
If you use many apps or play high graphic games, we suggest another phone. Try to look for another phone with a bigger capacity. This includes bigger storage, bigger RAM, and a higher CPU chipset. This is the end of our detailed LG Prime 2 review.
LG Prime 2 Pros
- Compact size
- HD+ display
- Good battery capacity
- Decent processor
LG Prime 2 Cons
- Low RAM size
- CPU is not fast
- Low internal storage space