LG V20 VS995 Titan Factory Unlocked GSM + CDMA Smartphone - Compatible with all GSM Carriers Worldwide + Verizon Wireless - (Titan Grey)

I purchased this US996 from a different seller and I wanted to share my review of this phone.Why I purchased the LG V20 US996:- Removable battery - I don't like sealed devices and planned obsolescence.- Micro SD card slot - I like being able to use my 200GB micro SD as additional storage.- IR Blaster - I can control my TV's, Receiver, A/C, Sound bar, Stereo all from my phone.- Large display - Self explanatory.- Unlockable Boot Loader - So I can root the device.- 3.5 mm Headphone Jack - For wired headphones.- T-Mobile network compatibilityI had been using my Galaxy Note 4 since it came out in October 2014. I LOVED that phone. It had everything a power user could want. After almost 3 years of use my Note 4 was stolen during a trip in Europe. I was now looking for a new device but something had happened to the Android flagship smartphone market. They went all Apple on us Android users!They started sealing their devices so users couldn't swap in a fresh fully charged battery. They removed the Micro SD card slot so you can't increase storage. And the IR blaster has been kicked to the curb where only cheap Chinese android devices have them available now. What does a Note 4 user do?Enter the LG V20. I never owned an LG device before and none of LG's previous devices ever appealed to me. When I started searching for a phone that met all my requirements the LG V20 and Note 4 were the only devices that met my needs. I honestly could still be using my Note 4 today and I even tried searching for Note 4 replacements but they all ended up being used and had significant amoled wear out. The only worthy upgrade to the Note 4 was the LG V20.I have no legitimate complaints with the LG V20. It's an upgraded Note 4 without the S Pen. Sure the screen isn't amoled but I quickly got used to it. It's still a sharp, clear bright display just without the pure blacks that amoled displays are so good at. The Camera is an upgrade, the Nougat OS is an upgrade, the overall speed and responsiveness of the UI is an upgrade. Everything is great about this phone. I thought I would miss the front display LED notification but the second screen is implemented really well. I can quickly look at the second screen and see what notifications are pending.I can see myself using this phone for the next 3 years or longer. That's the beauty of having a device where you can swap out the battery yourself! You're no longer on the manufacturers upgrade schedule. They would rather you replace your device every year, that's why they seal in batteries now! It's not for slimmer designs or water protection. Seriously, how thin does your phone need to be?Keep in mind if you want to root your phone make sure the LG V20 you purchase has an unlockable boot loader. The US996 model does, and LG actually helps you unlock the bootloader as they offer instructions on their site. Once unlocked you can root your device and do whatever you want.My first action was to enable Android immersive mode in order to get rid of the silly Android on screen navigation buttons (Back, Home, Recents). They end up taking 10% of your screens real estate. I replaced the virtual navigation buttons with Pie Control and now the entire screen is being used in all apps.P.S. I hope the LG V30/Note 8 end up having a removable battery, Micro SD, IR blaster...

Coming from a samsung note. I'm LOVING this phone. It has so many features and options! The camera is decent. I haven't played with it for too long, but I'm happy with it so far (I've done some professional photography over the years). It won't replace my DSLR obviously. I haven't put it through realworld tests long enough to comment on battery life, but so far it seems to last quite a while and charging (QC3) is fast. Maybe part of that is because I'm not checking my phone every 20 minutes since I can look at the second screen to see the time and notifications.I'm also super happy getting this through Amazon vs Verizon. It was about a hundred bucks cheaper for the same phone and without the preloaded junk. Depending on your current SIM card, you'll probably have to order a new one from Verizon, but you can do that online fairly easily. I did have website troubles and then they sent me a SIM for a new line instead of upgrading my current one, but they eventually corrected their mistake (which took a call to Verizon)I can't think of anything I don't like about the phone. Wait, ok- the back cover has a click-in system that takes some getting used to. But assuming you're not going to be constantly swapping out batteries or sd cards (two huge benefits having those features, though) - it's not a big complaint. I'd never buy a phone that didn't have a user replaceable battery!!

So far, so good. The phone came in excellent shape for a used like new phone. The only blemish was a scuff on the back, and I really had to look at it closely to see it. The phone came in a plain white cardboard box that was clearly made for the phone and gave the phone good protection. The box had a small UPC label on one end with the IMEI and SKU numbers and the title on the label was "LG V20 US996/VERIZON TITAN CRB". Inside the box was the phone, the USB cable, an LG wall charger adapter, the phone's battery (outside the phone), and a couple of information cards from Breed. There was no owner's manual.I put the battery in the phone and it had about 50% charge in it, so I was able to power up the phone immediately. The phone was factory stock and took me through all the normal LG first time start up steps and within a few minutes I had the phone connected to my wifi and was downloading apps from the Google play store. The phone is snappy and responsive. I went online with the AT&T site to get a sim card for the phone, but when I entered the IMEI number, the AT&T site said that it couldn't determine if the phone was compatible and that I needed to go to an AT&T store to get the sim card for it. I did that this evening. It took about 15 minutes. The phone is now working.As far as performance, I love it. I'm coming from a heavily loaded AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4 with no internal storage left and as many apps moved over to a 64GB sd card as possible, but it couldn't even update the apps anymore and the phone was slow. The LG V20 is lightning fast in comparison. Fast and smooth scrolling, web page rendering in the Brave browser is typically under a second, it's just fabulous. I haven't had a chance to try out the quad DAC on headphones yet, but I don't have high quality headphones anyway, so that'll have to wait. At any rate, so far I really like this phone. The GS4 will become my backup phone and I'll get a nano sim adapter for it.The reason that I bought the LG V20 US996 version is that it was carrier unlocked, has a removable battery, and LG provides the bootloader unlock code so that I can load a different OS in the future. The removable battery is extremely important to me not only because it can be replaced in the future when it goes bad, but because when you're installing a new OS like Lineage OS, the phone can lock up and refuse to boot and pulling the battery is the only way to get out of the lock up. That being said, LG has two versions that they called US996, the USA version that is carrier unlocked, and another version from a cellular carrier that I can't remember, for which LG does not provide bootloader unlock codes. So, I was concerned that I might get the wrong version of the US996.So, prior to going to the AT&T store, I went to LG's developer site to obtain the bootloader unlock code, and was able to do so, so it's definitely the carrier unlocked US996 version of the phone. However, to obtain the bootloader unlock code, I had to get the phone's device ID which required me to put the phone into fastboot mode. Unfortunately, that process wasn't painless. I had quite a bit of trouble getting the phone to be recognized by adb. Windows installed some generic Microsoft LG usb driver and when I tried to use the "adb devices" command from the command window, nothing was listed. I had the phone's USB type set to file transfer and I had usb debugging enabled, but I never got the prompt on the phone to allow usb debugging when I plugged the usb cable in. I went to LG's web site and downloaded the mobile USB drivers for the US996 and installed them. That added the LGE ADB Interface to Windows device manager, however, adb still didn't list the phone. Then I downloaded and installed the LG Mobile Support Tool, but it didn't recognize that the phone was connected either. I uninstalled all of the LG devices listed in Windows device manager, uninstalled the LG Mobile Support tool, disconnected the USB cable, and started over, reinstalling the LG Mobile USB driver and LG Mobile Support Tool. After the installation was complete, the LG Mobile Support Tool started. I plugged the USB cable back into the phone and switched the phone's USB mode to file transfer, and, finally, the LG mobile support tool was able to connect and it verified that the phone already had the most up to date software. However, I still didn't get the prompt on the phone to allow USB debugging and adb still listed no connected devices. After some further researching that led me to try different usb modes to no avail, I just decided to restart the adb server with the "adb kill-server" and "adb start-server" commands. After that, the allow usb debugging prompt came up on the phone and I was able to get the phone into fastboot mode and get the device id so that I could obtain the bootloader unlock code from LG. Now, when I plug the usb cable in with usb debugging mode on, the allow usb debugging prompt comes up every time, so, it appears that there was some issue when I installed the LG Mobile USB drivers the first time. At any rate, it's working properly now. I haven't unlocked the bootloader as of yet, and I'm not sure that I will, but I thought that I would get the bootloader unlock code while the getting was good. I'm not deducting any stars for the trouble I had getting the phone connected to my pc via the usb cable. It's not Breed's fault that the LG drivers didn't install correctly the first time and adb needed it's server restarted. It's just one of those tech glitches that sometimes happen and have to be patiently worked through.So, if you're considering this phone because it has an officially unlockable bootloader, and you're concerned that you're going to get the wrong US996 version, I can tell you that I got the correct version, so I think the risk of getting the wrong US996 version is low.