LG G2 Mini review

The LG G2's little sibling

LG G2 Mini review
At what size do phones stop being mini?

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Unusually for a smartphone in the mid-range, LG has equipped the G2 Mini with a decent rear facing camera. It is an 8MP camera with a decently fast F/2.4 lens that can generate a very nice bokeh effects.

Despite this, the camera is still not going to challenge those found on more expensive devices. In good light it is capable of capturing lots of detail but it can struggle with dynamic range ending up with slightly over saturated images.

LG G2 Mini

The camera app offers some measure of manual control with the ability to change the ISO and white balance of your images as well as being able to apply a few basic filters such as a sepia effect.

LG has included one fairly cheesy addition. You can set the camera to take a picture when one of the people in the shot says the word 'cheese'. Like most of LG's software, this does work but I do have to question why you would want this feature.

LG G2 Mini

The camera has various modes including a fairly weak HDR mode that seems to do almost nothing to improve the end results. The panorama mode is quick and easy to use but the results are not much to look at.

There is a basic burst mode for taking six shots at a time and a beauty shot mode that lightens skin tones whilst making faces look unnaturally smooth. Generally though, normal mode is all you will ever need.

LG G2 Mini

The reasonably weak LED flash can help to brighten some scenes but the G2 Mini is far too quick to use the flash when in auto flash mode.

One of the consequences of the relatively meagre hardware in the G2 Mini is that the camera is not the fastest to capture. It never seems ready to go when you are and shot to shot times are only average. In low light, it is slow to respond which can be very frustrating.

LG G2 Mini

In nice bright light outdoors, the G2 Mini camera does a decent job. A fair level of detail is captured but there is already some noise in the shot and colours are over-saturated

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LG G2 Mini

With the right conditions, the G2 Mini focuses very cleanly and blurs the background superbly. No special modes were used to take this picture

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LG G2 Mini

Indoors with plenty of light, we get a nice usable image with plenty of detail. Colour reproduction and exposure are off somewhat, but it is still a decent effort

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LG G2 Mini

Despite there still being some light in the scene, the G2 Mini starts to struggle as light levels drop slightly

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LG G2 Mini

The flash does little to help with poor focus and a very narrow spread of light. A brighter flash would help a lot

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