The LG G7 ThinQ feels as though a world he has traveled to several times over the years came by post: slightly out of date inside its sleeve, but with a few eye-popping riffs to make you nod along. Pick it up and the first thing you notice is how civilized it seems. At the 162 g, the phone is lighter than most counterparts, and the curved Gorilla Glass 5 back, sandwiched in a polished aluminum rail, slides comfortably into a jeans pocket without the also there to bail bulk that's so prevalent on today's phablets. Thumb the power button, and the 6.1-inch IPS LCD flares to life with a 3120 × 1440 resolution and a brightness that, even six summers later, doesn't budge in the face of noon's glare. LG's “Super Bright Display” toggle, meanwhile, kicks the panel up to max brightness at 1000 nits for three minutes at a pop, plenty of minutes to view menus of baked beans in direct sunlight before graciously dimming to reduce embarrassment, and save some juice.

What truly shines is audio. LG's 32bit Quad DAC, funneled through a 3.5mm jack that just refuses to die, transforms any set of wired cans into a miniature hi-fi rig. The single bottom-firing speaker is juiced by a resonance chamber that uses the entire phone's body as a woofer; put the G7 on a wood table and the bass blooms like a tiny Bluetooth speaker, and filled a hotel room more than I would have ever guessed.

The fact that this is a dual-camera tale makes the commentary even more bittersweet. The main 16 MP lens is equipped with OIS and a f/1.6 aperture which absorbs light and produces daytime shots with excellent color and visibility of detail. The accompanying 16 MP ultra-wide delivers sweeping vistas, though with less sharp edges and no autofocus, so you're limited in your extreme up-close creativity. In low light the G7 battles determinedly, but LG's heavy noise reduction sometimes turns skies into watercolor splotches. But the AI Cam that premiered here, identifying food you were trying to take pictures of, pets you might have photograph aspirations for, sunsets you wanted a shot of, may feel antiquated now, yet resembled in 2018 the first whisper that phones might think before they shot.

Battery life is the skip in the record. The 3000 mAh cell barely makes it through a day if you stay out of that Super Bright mode, and by 5 p.m. you're foraging for USB-C cables. Quick Charge 3.0 gets you to 50% in half an hour, but there's no wireless charging pad to help you out at the café. The sealed battery has aged, the replacement today is a weekend under a heat gun and patience.

To conclude, it won't win drag races against the newest phones, nor will its camera impress Instagram influencers. But the G7 is a reminder that good design evolves gracefully, and no matter how often the latest softsynth flashes across your screen, sometimes the sweetest solos come from the instruments you're no longer charting.