By Md Waquar Haider

New Delhi, Mar 24 (IANS): South Korean tech firm LG aims to grow its presence in the affordable smartphone market in India and recently launched K42 with quad rear cameras and a 4,000mAh battery.

The smartphone sports a military-grade certified build that is said to have passed nine different categories of the US military defense standard testing, including high and low temperature, temperature shock, vibration, shock and humidity, among others.

The affordable device is priced at Rs 10,990 for the lone 3GB RAM+64GB storage variant and comes with a 2-year extended warranty along with a free one-time screen replacement.

We used the recent offering from LG for around a week and here is what we think about the phone.

Aesthetically appealing, the K42 sports a smooth grip with distinctive rear design that fits smoothly in the hand, and provides a stable grip with unique wave patterns and UV coating, making it less susceptible to scratches.

The K42 comes with a dedicated Google Assistant button. Pressing the button once instantly launches Google Assistant and pressing it twice launches Visual Snapshot that show weather, schedule and other information.

The K42 comes with an ergonomically placed fingerprint sensor on the side for easy one-hand control and unlocking.

The LG K42 comes equipped with a super sharp and crisp 6.6-inch HD+ display, designed to be cinematically proportioned for an immersive viewing experience.

The display is big and perfect for those who love streaming videos/movies as well as playing games.

The LG K42 houses a quad rear camera setup that includes a 13MP primary sensor and a 5MP secondary sensor with a super-wide-angle lens. The camera setup also comes with a 2-megapixel depth sensor and a 2MP macro shooter. For selfies and video chats, the LG K42 features an 8MP selfie camera sensor at the front.

The camera also houses convenience features such as Flash Jump Cut that takes 4 pictures with some intervals, the flash indicates when the camera is going to take a picture so you can pose and be creative.

The Time Helper feature made the camera blink its flash to tell us exactly when a picture is about to clicked.

The phone comes with an AI Cam feature that uses artificial intelligence (AI) backed algorithms to recommend an optimal camera mode among eight different modes after analysing subjects in the frame.

The device is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio P22 SoC, along with 3GB of RAM. It runs on Android 10 with the LG UX on top.

The performance of the device is decent and one would not face any issue while performing the daily tasks.

For entry-level gamers, the LG K42 comes preloaded with ‘Game Launcher' that helps provide relevant settings for mobile games.

The LG K42 packs a 4,000mAh battery. The smartphone lasted for over a day and can even survive to more hours depending on the usage.

Conclusion: For Rs 10,990, LG K42 is a powerful affordable smartphone with good build.