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LG Stylo 5 Plus Review: Budget Phone Equipped with a Stylus

Budget phones are generally risky to purchase, with compromises made to lower the price. Find out if it is worth buying this smartphone in our detailed LG Stylo 5 Plus review.

LG Stylo 5 Plus Review

The LG Stylo 5 Plus smartphone was released in October 2019. In this review article, we will talk about this cost-friendly phone in-depth. This phone is built for people who want a built-in stylus on a phone without emptying their wallets.

Customers have been wanting to buy more and more budget phones lately. That is the exact reason why manufacturers have been making more and more of them. But, budget-friendly smartphones are usually made cheaper by compromising on key features.

With a quick look at the key features, the LG Stylo 5 Plus seems decent for the price that it is marketed at. But, do the specifications meet the price? Are this phone’s essential features any good?

This review has the answers to all the questions regarding this device. Read this detailed LG Stylo 5 Plus review to help you decide whether to purchase this phone or not.

Key Specs

LG Stylo 5 Plus specifications:

  • Weight: 179g
  • Dimensions: 160 x 77.7 x 8.4mm 
  • OS: Android 10
  • Screen size: 6.2-inch
  • Resolution: 2160 x 1080
  • CPU: 1.8GHz Octa-core, Qualcomm Snapdragon 450
  • RAM: 3GB
  • Storage: 32GB
  • Battery: 3,500 mAh, Non-removable
  • Rear Camera: 16MP
  • Front Camera: 8MP

Design

LG Stylo 5 Plus
LG Stylo 5 Plus

The LG Stylo 5 Plus follows the design of most budget smartphones in 2019. There are no extraordinary features on its design, it simply resembles other cost-friendly phones. The design of this phone is quite simple and minimalistic.

The front side of the phone features the 6.2″ FHD+ display enclosed in tiny bezels on the top and bottom. The size of the top and bottom bezels are impressive if this was a phone from a few years ago, but now almost all phones (even cheap ones) have thin bezels. There is no navigation bar on the bottom since LG decided to integrate it into the display. The 8MP front camera is located on the top left of the phone.

The rear side of the phone is pretty plain. It contains the 16MP rear camera and flash located in the center of the back panel. There is also a built-in fingerprint sensor located right below the rear camera. This placement of the fingerprint sensor is quite convenient for the average person. The rear panel is made out of plastic, but it feels sturdy and well-built.

The left side of the phone contains the volume buttons and the Nano SIM tray, while the right side of the phone contains the power button. The main feature of this phone, the built-in stylus, is located on the bottom side of the phone. On the bottom side of the phone, there is a USB type C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a stylus.

Display

LG Stylo 5 Plus Display

The LG Stylo 5 Plus has a 6.2-inch Full HD+ IPS display, which is able to display sharp images with good quality. The front display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass which is good at being resistant to scratches. The display size is big and it definitely is enough for daily use. The phone also boasts a 79.76 % screen to body ratio, which is certainly not bad for a budget phone.

The display has an 18:9 aspect ratio. This aspect ratio was strange a few years ago but has become the norm recently. This phone also has FullVision™, which basically means that the display has minimal bezels and provides an immersive experience with little borders around the screen.

The LG Stylo 5 Plus has a resolution of 2160 x 1080. This provides a higher quality image than lower resolution displays. This display uses the IPS technology (In-Plane Switching), which means that this screen won’t have image burn-in (like AMOLED or OLED) and this display also has a good quality image.

In summary, the display of the LG Stylo 5 Plus is of good quality, with good colors and HD resolution. It is also relatively big (6.2 inches) and it is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass to ensure optimal protection from drops and scratches.

Read also: LG Stylo 5 Plus User Manual

Camera

LG Stylo 5 Plus Camera

The LG Stylo 5 Plus has two cameras, an 8MP front camera, and a 16MP rear camera. These megapixels are enough to produce Full HD (1920 x 1080) videos on both the front and rear camera, and they can take even higher resolution photos.

The presence of only 1 rear camera is lacking for most photography enthusiasts. In some cost-friendly phones, there are two rear cameras on the phone, which aims to produce bokeh photos or higher quality images. But, the LG Stylo 5+’s rear camera is decent at taking photos and can take some pretty good images.

The 8MP front camera should be enough for an average person since it can take selfies in Full HD. However, if you take selfies really often, maybe you should opt-in for a phone with a higher megapixel front camera. The videos you can take with it are also very good, and this camera can be used to take portrait mode images (bokeh images). Not to mention, the front camera can be used to unlock the phone.

In summary, both of these cameras are decent for their price, but the rear camera would be better if there was a second camera added. Both of these cameras can also take HDR pictures and images and can take Full HD video.

Storage

LG Stylo 5 Plus Left Angle

The LG Stylo 5 Plus is equipped with 32GB of internal storage. But, this phone is installed with Android and additional software from LG, so the remaining usable storage is 16.2GB. 16GB of storage should be enough for light usage. But, if you download a lot of games and save a lot of photos or videos, then 16GB will not be enough for you.

This phone also has expandable storage. If the 32GB of storage isn’t enough, then you can add up to 2000GB with a MicroSDXC card. The MicroSD slot is located in the SIM tray, so it should be quite easy to add more storage to the phone.

Read also: LG Prime 2 Review: Affordable with Great Display & Features

Performance

LG Stylo 5 Plus Right Angle

The LG Stylo 5 Plus uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 processor to act as the brain of the phone. This processor is widely used in budget phones, mainly because it is cheap and has decent performance. The graphics processor for this smartphone is the Adreno 506, which is also popular among cost-friendly phones for the same reason.

This phone can perform quite well during basic tasks, such as streaming videos and browsing the web. This phone could also be used for light gaming. However, this phone might struggle to perform CPU/GPU intensive tasks such as heavy gaming and video editing.

Another big part of the performance is the RAM of the phone. The LG Stylo 5 Plus is equipped with 3GB of RAM, which should be enough for casual web browsing and gaming. But, if tossed with RAM intensive tasks such as heavy gaming or heavy web browsing, this phone will eventually run out of memory.

However, there are ways to lessen the amount of RAM used. You can uninstall unused applications or close unused applications. By doing this, you could prevent applications from crashing because of the lack of RAM. But if you play a lot of games, you should consider getting a phone with a higher RAM amount and a better processor.

The LG Stylo 5 Plus runs the operating system of Android 10. This is the 10th generation of Android and it has a lot of features packed in it, such as Security Updates, Dark Theme, Live Caption, and Privacy Control. Despite that, LG runs its own LG UX skin on top of the Android 10 OS.

All smartphones nowadays require sensors to use for certain features on the phone. The LG Stylo 5 Plus has a fingerprint sensor to unlock the phone, a GPS sensor to track your location, then it also has Accelerometer, NFC, Gyroscope, Compass, Ambient Light Sensor, and Proximity Sensor.

Connectivity

Our LG Stylo 5 Plus review wouldn’t be complete without discussing the cellular properties of this phone. The LG Stylo 5 Plus supports up to 4G LTE. It also supports HD voice and UMA (Wi-Fi Calling) and it uses the small Nano SIM to enable these features.

This smartphone supports the new Bluetooth 5.0, which is way faster and supports further range than the previous one. It also supports all types of Wi-Fi, including Wi-Fi Direct and Hotspot. The phone also has NFC, which is a feature rarely seen on budget phones. The LG Stylo 5 Plus also has GPS, which is used all the time in our daily life, for example Google Maps.

Battery

The battery of the LG Stylo 5 Plus is a 3,500mAh non-replaceable battery. The battery could last up to 48 days on standby or up to 15.2 hours of usage. Because of the big battery, you wouldn’t even have to charge it a lot of times per day. Despite that, if the phone is used for intensive gaming or video editing, the battery life may decrease significantly.

Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 is supported on the LG Stylo 5 Plus, so it can charge from 0 to 50% in 45 minutes. This is quite impressive, making it so you don’t have to charge it for a long time. The Quick Charge feature together with the big battery really makes this phone useful for people who don’t want to charge their phone often.

Is the LG Stylo 5 Plus a Good Phone?

The LG Stylo 5 Plus is a pretty good mid-range phone packed with the basic essential features and a couple of additional features. If you want a budget phone with a stylus, then this phone is the way to go. But, if you just want a usable budget phone, then maybe try to browse for more phones and compare them.

To conclude our LG Stylo 5 Plus review, with the price at $300, we think that this budget note-taking phone is worth it at its price. For a phone with a stylus, it is hard to find a better deal than this. If you never really wanted the stylus then we think you could find a better deal. The better budget phone to buy would be a newer phone with a better processor and increased storage.

LG Stylo 5 Plus Pros

  • Has a stylus, facial recognition, and fingerprint scanner
  • Decent CPU and GPU
  • Has a FullVision display with thin bezels

LG Stylo 5 Plus Cons

  • The display could have been better
  • The rear and front camera could have been better
  • The RAM and storage could have been increased