[Wilfrid]

So, I’ve just read the whole thread (I’m exhausted!). Now the question is: where I live there’s almost 400 euros of difference between a V40 and a G7. Is the V40 sound signature 400 euros better?

Truth is, the ideal model for me would be the V35 (battery, OLED, 6gb ram) but I’ll be damned if I can find it sold online anywhere in the EU...

 

[Mhog55]

So, I’ve just read the whole thread (I’m exhausted!). Now the question is: where I live there’s almost 400 euros of difference between a V40 and a G7. Is the V40 sound signature 400 euros better?

Truth is, the ideal model for me would be the V35 (battery, OLED, 6gb ram) but I’ll be damned if I can find it sold online anywhere in the EU...

Short answer - absolutely not. The only difference is that the 40 was hand tuned by Meridian Audio. Is it an improvement yes, though subjective and debatable, but definitely not worth 450 bucks.

 

[Wilfrid]

Short answer - absolutely not. The only difference is that the 40 was hand tuned by Meridian Audio. Is it an improvement yes, though subjective and debatable, but definitely not worth 450 bucks.

Thanks a lot. I remain very tempted by the v35 tho... Everything is more appealing to me.

Does anyone know if when ordering from Amazon.com towards the EU I'll have to pay customs when I receive it or not?

 

[stenog]

So, I’ve just read the whole thread (I’m exhausted!). Now the question is: where I live there’s almost 400 euros of difference between a V40 and a G7. Is the V40 sound signature 400 euros better?

Truth is, the ideal model for me would be the V35 (battery, OLED, 6gb ram) but I’ll be damned if I can find it sold online anywhere in the EU...

No the V40 is not "better" than the G7, but a bit different. At less than 400 Euro the G7 is a bargain in Europe and it's also an ok smartphone. I don't think the V40 is widely available in Europe so it's difficult to say how much the price will fall over time.

It's impossible to say which one you should buy, you have to decide. Do you know anything about LG phones? As a smartphone they have several shortcomings but they have great audio.

They rarely gets updated, G7 is still on Android 8. Battery life is okay, but not great. UI is dated etc. etc. To he honest, I prefer my OnePlus 6 as a smartphone but it doesn't have great audio. So I use both depending on needs

 

[Wilfrid]

No the V40 is not "better" than the G7, but a bit different. At less than 400 Euro the G7 is a bargain in Europe and it's also an ok smartphone. I don't think the V40 is widely available in Europe so it's difficult to say how much the price will fall over time.

It's impossible to say which one you should buy, you have to decide. Do you know anything about LG phones? As a smartphone they have several shortcomings but they have great audio.

They rarely gets updated, G7 is still on Android 8. Battery life is okay, but not great. UI is dated etc. etc. To he honest, I prefer my OnePlus 6 as a smartphone but it doesn't have great audio. So I use both depending on needs

I'm not a "I want the bleeding edge smartphone" kind of guy. Indeed, it would be my first "flagship" kind of smartphone ever (I'm a cheap Xiaomi kind of guy). I'm only buying them for the audio quality, and the rest is anyway an upgrade as compared to my current phone (battery excluded, I've got a 4000ahm now...).
Hence I was looking at the V35, for that slightly larger battery coupled with the OLED screen.

 

[stenog]

I'm not a "I want the bleeding edge smartphone" kind of guy. Indeed, it would be my first "flagship" kind of smartphone ever (I'm a cheap Xiaomi kind of guy). I'm only buying them for the audio quality, and the rest is anyway an upgrade as compared to my current phone (battery excluded, I've got a 4000ahm now...).
Hence I was looking at the V35, for that slightly larger battery coupled with the OLED screen.

Xiaomi has great battery life and definitely better than LG. As far as I know G7 has a bit better battery life than the V40. The G7 will get you through the day with moderate/slightly heavy use. It has great standby time, better than my OnePlus 6.

Go for the G7! You can't get a better phone for the price. Or wait for the G8/V50, they will have better battery life but will also be a lot more expensive.

 

[JoshG1217]

I went from the V30 to the Note 9, and I miss the v30. It was getting laggy, but I actually like the UI better. Yes, Samsung is better about upgrades, but several things actually take more steps. Sending a group text on the Note 9 can be annoying and is far more intuitive on the LG, plus I ended up getting a ZX 300 for audio. Have not done a direct comparison with the LG. I imagine it sounds better than the LG, but not sure how much and the Sony UI does indeed suck.

Balanced 4.4 port on the V60 would be great!

 

[ljnew]

Thanks a lot. I remain very tempted by the v35 tho... Everything is more appealing to me.

Does anyone know if when ordering from Amazon.com towards the EU I'll have to pay customs when I receive it or not?

I purchased the v35 and sent it back. It's loaded with AT&T blaotware. It was slower than my v20. It seems like a good deal but it's not imho. I think the v40 is a much better device.

 

[DLSS]

I had to replace my V30 which was getting pretty beaten up. It had both the front glass cracked in a corner and the back.
I could have waited for the V50, but I suspect it will cost well over 1000 euros at launch, mainly because of 5G which I'm sure is going to be completely useless and a waste of money for a long time with my carrier.

The V35 is not available in Europe and there is no chance of rooting it, so that's not an option for me.

The G7 is not appealing at all to me. LCD screens are meh and I'm never going to go back from OLED to an LCD.

So I decided to get the EU V40 for around 700 euros which isn't that bad of a price.
I'm not sorry I did it, it's an improvement against the V30.
The screen is fantastic, all the issues that affected the V30 display have been addressed: gamma problems causing crushed shadows on SDR videos, bad screen uniformity really visible with low brightness. All gone.
Also the loudspeaker was greatly improved. V30 had a terrible tinny loudspeaker, V40 is decent.
The DAC is similar to the V30. Couldn't notice much of a difference with the Sennheisers HD599, but with the HD800S it sounds cleaner. Overall I like how they tuned it, I'd call it a slight improvement.
Picture quality (main sensor) looks better at least in low light, but I don't care that much about the cameras.
The only thing I dislike compared to the V30 is the battery life which is at least 30% worse.
I could get over 9-10 hours of screen time with a one year old V30, but with a new V40 the maximum I could do was 6-7 hours even with root and partial debloating. I might improve on that a little more once I remove more unneeded services, but I don't have high hopes. The battery life is just bad, I don't know what the hell were they thinking keeping the same battery despite the larger screen and phone body.
They probably thought they could get away with it by using a newer SoC and scheduler. They were wrong, unfortunately.

 

[Mhog55]

I had to replace my V30 which was getting pretty beaten up. It had both the front glass cracked in a corner and the back.
I could have waited for the V50, but I suspect it will cost well over 1000 euros at launch, mainly because of 5G which I'm sure is going to be completely useless and a waste of money for a long time with my carrier.

The V35 is not available in Europe and there is no chance of rooting it, so that's not an option for me.

The G7 is not appealing at all to me. LCD screens are meh and I'm never going to go back from OLED to an LCD.

So I decided to get the EU V40 for around 700 euros which isn't that bad of a price.
I'm not sorry I did it, it's an improvement against the V30.
The screen is fantastic, all the issues that affected the V30 display have been addressed: gamma problems causing crushed shadows on SDR videos, bad screen uniformity really visible with low brightness. All gone.
Also the loudspeaker was greatly improved. V30 had a terrible tinny loudspeaker, V40 is decent.
The DAC is similar to the V30. Couldn't notice much of a difference with the Sennheisers HD599, but with the HD800S it sounds cleaner. Overall I like how they tuned it, I'd call it a slight improvement.
Picture quality (main sensor) looks better at least in low light, but I don't care that much about the cameras.
The only thing I dislike compared to the V30 is the battery life which is at least 30% worse.
I could get over 9-10 hours of screen time with a one year old V30, but with a new V40 the maximum I could do was 6-7 hours even with root and partial debloating. I might improve on that a little more once I remove more unneeded services, but I don't have high hopes. The battery life is just bad, I don't know what the hell were they thinking keeping the same battery despite the larger screen and phone body.
They probably thought they could get away with it by using a newer SoC and scheduler. They were wrong, unfortunately.

Cleaner is a good way to describe the sound, but wait, it gets better.

 

[Deolum]

So after reading the V40 and V30 thread i ordered a V30 because so many people were complaining about the V40s sound here. I accidentally ordered a G7 too so i used it to compare them both. I have to say that the G7 sounds better to me. The V30 ist louder and has a more warm and bit more muddy sound. The G7 sounds cleaner especially at higher volumes where i find the V30 to be more unpleasent. Now i compared them to the V40 in a store and the V40 has the same clean sound signature as the G7 but still sounds a bit better. A bit more detailed, more texture, more energy. I think i'm getting the V40 in a few weeks or months and return both other phones.
I used the HD660S and Westone W40 for the test. It's a pity though that you can't manually enable the high impedance mode because so it wasn't able to drive my planars. But all of them had enough power for the 660S because of it's 150 ohm and the switching to high impedance mode.

 

[Mhog55]

So after reading the V40 and V30 thread i ordered a V30 because so many people were complaining about the V40s sound here. I accidentally ordered a G7 too so i used it to compare them both. I have to say that the G7 sounds better to me. The V30 ist louder and has a more warm and bit more muddy sound. The G7 sounds cleaner especially at higher volumes where i find the V30 to be more unpleasent. Now i compared them to the V40 in a store and the V40 has the same clean sound signature as the G7 but still sounds a bit better. A bit more detailed, more texture, more energy. I think i'm getting the V40 in a few weeks or months and return both other phones.
I used the HD660S and Westone W40 for the test. It's a pity though that you can't manually enable the high impedance mode because so it wasn't able to drive my planars. But all of them had enough power for the 660S because of it's 150 ohm and the switching to high impedance mode.

Maybe you didn't read the entire 40 thread, but most everyone (myself included), concluded that the 40 offers a moderate sound improvement over the 30. Even though at the beginning, most were disappointed and felt differently, after some time and burn in, it became much clearer. The G7 doesn't have the custom tuning as the 40, and while I've never heard it, I would imagine it doesn't sound much different from the 30.

 

[Deolum]

Maybe you didn't read the entire 40 thread, but most everyone (myself included), concluded that the 40 offers a moderate sound improvement over the 30. Even though at the beginning, most were disappointed and felt differently, after some time and burn in, it became much clearer. The G7 doesn't have the custom tuning as the 40, and while I've never heard it, I would imagine it doesn't sound much different from the 30.

I can't take people serious who state that the sound is so miserable and such a deterioration and then after the magic of music flows through the dac and burns it in for 200 hours it makes it from being a worsening to being an improvement. Headphone or Loudspeakers with big moving parts maybe alter their physical strukture and thus their sound but now even smartphones burn in? Cmon.

 

[Mhog55]

I can't take people serious who state that the sound is so miserable and such a deterioration and then after the magic of music flows through the dac and burns it in for 200 hours it makes it from being a worsening to being an improvement. Headphone or Loudspeakers with big moving parts maybe alter their physical strukture and thus their sound but now even smartphones burn in? Cmon.

Lmao. Your loss. I never put much stock into burn either. But I don't think a decent handful of people are all experiencing this random mystery because one person said so, and all others woke up and decided, hey.... Me too! Take what you want seriously. No sweat off my bag

 

[musicday]

Apparently android pie 9.0 is not far away for V40.
Still looking to get the V50 beacuse of the bigger battery. Not interested in 5 G, i keep the all features off, including the fingerprint scanner.