Wow, the V20 looks amazing. I'll probably sell my iPhone 6+ and my Nexus 6P and get one. Not sure when I can get it in America, unfortunately. Any way to import it from Korea?

According to /r/lgv20 T-Mobile and Sprint are getting it in Oct. Not sure about the import part sorry, I live in Seoul these days :)

Sounds like a good side business for you to start :-)

Sadly the only hardware feature I consider critical is available only in the Note:the stylus (I like painting). Just an example how the value of a hardware feature does not depend on the quality of the feature but also on the utility for the user.

Yep, absolutely. For example I personally go to a lot of live music concerts, so the V20's microphones are really the selling feature for me (and they have nice synergy with the wide angle camera for stage recordings) - I've had the phone for two weeks now and had occasion to try them out at a rock concert and a jazz lounge so far, and they work as advertised and record a clean feed where my Nexus 5 just amounts to garbled noise and clipping that isn't intelligible as music. It's a hw feature I can't seem to get anywhere else (to my knowledge). I can easily see the stylus be the same thing for someone else.

It's a sad state of affairs that a removable battery is now a headline feature. In the past I didn't care but these days I sure do.

Is it paranoid of me to associate the disappearance of removable batteries with our apparent steady steps towards an Orwellian future? Or no?

Yes and no. It is paranoid because we're already about 20 years into our Orwellian future; it's no longer ahead of us.

Do you mean, 'It is not paranoid because we're already there?'

> Madness, it's by far the most compelling phone available right now.

It is completely insane. I'd buy one tomorrow. But I cant

LG has a bad reputation since G3, G4 and V10 with random bootloops.

http://www.androidauthority.com/lg-admits-g4-bootloop-proble...

http://www.androidauthority.com/lg-v10-bootloop-problem-7113...

I started with an LG optimus on Virgin mobile, and loved that phone. I had an LG G3 and the girlfriend has one as well. I'm mixed about them.

On the one hand, the hard ware is great. I got them cheap refurbished and they have a good community. On the other it gets hot, like burning hot touch. I've been through three batteries since getting it. The boot loop on mine made me switch phones. The thing that is making me pause with them is the software. I'm not fond of the custimaztions, but I can live with them. What got me is getting a marshmallow security update nuked the phone. WiFi stopped working, any earphones in the jack always started "Ok Google" recognigtion. Cell Signal went to 2G, and the Home/Back/OpenApps buttons stopped working. It turned the phone into a brick. I finally got around to rolling back this weekend, which took several hours. This wasn't just me I saw similar complaints on XDA.

This looks great and a removable battery! Thanks for the tip.

It all sounds good but it has a 5.7" screen, which kills it for me. It must be super hard to build a good, small phone or something.

This is partially down to the culture they come from. Koreans spend tons of time commuting on subways or sitting in coffeeshops, often watching video during both. The big screens are just a trade-of geared towards those use cases.