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Typically the LG G8 will get you through a day of mixed use, but for many this will be a phone you have to charge every day. Firstly, there's a conventional fingerprint sensor on the rear of the phone.

This works like any other and why LG chose not to have an in-display scanner like most rivals, we don't know. Perhaps it's because the fingerprint scanner also supports swipes to pull down the notifications, for example. While the fingerprint placement makes the G8's design less seamless then some rivals - such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Samsung - it's easy to use and fast to tap when lifting the phone to unlock. This enables a great 3D face unlock option, as well as being able to do some magic things using your hands.

Face unlocking isn't new. It's been offered on Android for some time, but this is a more secure iteration - you can't use a photo or another person to unlock the phone, as you get a much more detailed 3D scan from the ToF sensor. You can also use it when wearing sunglasses, so it becomes really convenient, meaning you just look at your phone and it unlocks, like the recent iPhone models with Face ID.

Where there's a slight disconnect is with some apps.

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Android just doesn't seem to be as well positioned as Apple in universally managing biometric authentication. Some apps on Android support fingerprint locking - like banking apps, for example - but if you don't setup a fingerprint because you're using Face Unlock, then you'll be back to passwords. Such apps can't use Face Unlock yet. The ToF camera also allows palm vein identification.

The IR can recognise the unique vein patterns in your hand so it's a pretty secure biometric option, but we do question how useful it is. To unlock your phone you need to show it your palm - but how often does that situation arise where it's convenient to do that? When driving, perhaps, or when it's on a stand - but certainly not when you're walking down the street trying to use your phone.

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The same slightly niche situation arises when it comes to LG's Air Motion gestures too. You can use your palm to control various things on the phone, like music playback and volume, but again, how often are you in a situation where holding your hand in front of the phone is useful? Gestures like this have been attempted before - BMW and VW both have some gesture options for cars - but it doesn't really solve any problems.

Sometimes it just adds to them. The same is true of LG's implementation: while it's clever that the G8 can do these things, there just isn't really a situation where it's more convenient than using voice via Google Assistant. There's one area where Air Motion is pretty good and that's for triggering a selfie. Yes, usually you're holding the phone, but if you're not, it will detect your fist unclenching and then give you a three second countdown before taking the photo. It's great for selfie sticks, if you have one, or otherwise just propping the phone up at the end of a table and taking a photo.

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A clever technology, sure, but this unique feature doesn't come across as a reason to buy the phone. It's joined by LG's fun wide-angle camera, offering degrees to help fit more into the frame. LG has lost the initiative on wide-angle cameras though. Where it was once the only manufacturer to be offering this type of camera, it's now on Samsung and Huawei phones too, so there are plenty of options when it comes to getting a phone with these capabilities. The downside - as is the case with most such cameras - is that the wide-angle is a little darker when taking photos compared to the main lens and that means it can be poor in low-light conditions.

While the G8 on review offers a dual camera setup, there's actually a triple camera version that adds a zoom lens to the offering too. Whether you'll be able to get that model depends on where you live - at the time of writing, it's not clear if that model will be available in the UK or the US.

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It attempts to identify a scene and optimise the settings for best effect. It's good at certain things, but as per the previous iteration, it can run a little far, giving you a photo that doesn't really look like it originally did - like water that's just too blue. Still, it's an easy option to toggle on and we'll leave you to decide which you prefer. In normal daylight it's pretty good and there's little to complain about, and it also unpicks some tricky lighting situations admirably, so for most people, this camera is going to be just fine.

The lack of zoom means one less competitive feature on this version at least and night mode is so deeply buried in the app that you'll likely never find it. The mode is designed to let you take longer exposures in lower light conditions, with a slider to easily change the exposure for the desired result.

You lose detail as noise is processed away, but to our eyes, the results look the same as you get from AI Cam - which will detect low-light for you anyway. The G8's front camera gets the advantage of using the time-of-flight sensor for depth information, which LG says will give you great bokeh on your selfies. Sure, this is something that ToF is good at, but equally as important is how you process those images. That's where the Google Pixel 3 is really using its skills and here LG struggles a little, lacking the same dynamic - it's just not as good at balancing out a shot from the front camera and it's pretty poor overall in low light.

The front camera again offers AI Cam, as well as normal and portrait modes. There's also a studio option that will let you strip out backgrounds, replace them with colour or create a wide range of portrait style photos, some of which are pretty clever - but still that ToF sensor isn't perfect and you'll still get some anomalies in edge detection, as you'll notice below. You can also apply bokeh to video on the rear camera, but it does make things look a little artificial and milky - so perhaps needs to be used sparingly.

LG has long been criticised for the changes that it makes to software, but it now sits in a sort-of middle ground between the likes of Xiaomi or Samsung and Android One as used in Nokia and Moto phones. The G8 still has a lot of apps you perhaps don't need, amusingly bundled into a folder called "Essentials" - which is far from it, as you don't really need any of them. If Google is your core service then switching to Google's Messages and Calendar improves the experience and we also found the LG Keyboard to be rather laggy.

It's a little too slow and swipe isn't as good as Google's G Board - but it's an easy switch to make. We're still not sure why LG breaks its settings menu down into panes. It's rather dated in appearance, even though there's a lot on offer to customise in there.

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Thankfully, the search option at the top makes it easy to find what you're looking for. We do like the fact that LG isn't messing around with the launcher too much - you can opt for an apps tray rather than having it all on the home screen, while you can get your Google Discover page by swiping over to the left. So overall, there's not too much that offends in LG's software offering, but at the same time there's not much that stands-out either. The LG G8 has a lot to offer and in many areas. It's a perfectly capable phone that ticks most boxes on the spec sheet and has convenience features like waterproofing, a 3.

But the battery is a little lacking and the design isn't the most exciting in the current flagship roster.

Although it's equipped with the same hardware as some rivals, it doesn't feel quite as fast in some areas and the camera performance - while capable and stuffed with feature - is thrown into the shade of superior rivals like the Huawei P30 Pro. It certainly works, but it's a struggle to see who will actually want to use it.

It just doesn't feel like a feature that will sell phones. That results in a phone that's 'safe' rather than special. Which is just fine, but not a great enough reason to want to buy one. This review was originally published as a hands-on preview on 20 February and has since been updated. Xiaomi's appeal really lies in the fact that you get the latest hardware, a great camera and lots of power for not a lot of money.