This is by far the best phone on Verizon, IF you're willing to spend some time tweaking it to get around the somewhat annoying customizations that LG and Verizon have stuck on the phone.
The G2 has wayyy better hardware than anything else you can get on Verizon right now. I also played with the Moto X & Droid Maxx in store and the G2's overall smoothness, ability to run a bunch of apps at the same time, or lots of tabs in Chrome, etc is a noticeable improvement over those phones. Rock solid.
LG & Verizon's software layered on top of stock Android is not very good. I had to spend a couple hours getting the phone set up how I wanted. Now that I did that initial work I'm loving the phone.
If you want a nice clean Android experience right out of the box then this is probably not the phone for you. But if you're willing to do some tweaking it's worth it for the hardware. I've got some of my tweaks listed in the cons section.
Pros:
+ Great battery life. I'm a heavy user and at 1:30 pm on the first full day I've had the phone I'm at 74% battery.
+ Performance is fantastic, animations smooth, apps open quickly, multiple tabs in Chrome no problem, very stable. Compared to a Motorola Droid Maxx (VZW's other option with excellent battery) the G2 is noticeably better.
+ Awesome screen. Clear colors, good resolution. Compared to AMOLED it has much more natural colors but viewing angles aren't quite as wide. A fair tradeoff.
+ Super small bezels around the screen. It doesn't feel like a big phone. A little bigger than my old Galaxy Nexus but thinner and weight is fine.
+ Camera is quick, good amount of controls in the app, and takes quality pics.
+ LG's custom lock screen is kinda handy with customizable shortcuts, and you can still add widgets like stock Jellybean lock screen.
Cons:
Buttons on back of the phone make waking it up a little tricky. The Verizon G2 has smaller buttons than all other variations of the phone.
Knock-on feature is supposed to let you wake up screen with double-tap on screen when off but works maybe 2/3 of the time. Also lets you turn off screen with double-tap on empty part of screen but if not in LG launcher this only works if you tap status bar.
Glossy plastic back is a fingerprint magnet.
There's a junky looking sticker with the IMEI number on the back of the phone that is already getting ragged looking from 1 day of use. I'll probably take it off and stick it to the box (which already has the IMEI printed on it).
Lots of Verizon & LG bloatware.
LG launcher is pretty bad. Home screens are OK but the app drawer forces all the Verizon & LG bloatware to the first two pages and puts your installed apps after them. You can rearrange the installed apps but I couldn't find an option to sort them alphabetically. I ditched it for Nova Launcher.
LG keyboard takes up too much screen real estate, replaced with Swype. If you don't want to spend $0.99 on Swype then download the stock Google keyboard.
LG SMS app is very bad. Annoying popup notifications, and the message compose box in the conversation window is too big so with the keyboard up you barely see any of the conversation. Replaced with Chomp SMS.
On-screen buttons (back, home, etc) let you customize layout but there's no option for a multitasking button. You're stuck with back, home and menu. It lets you add a button to open notification drawer if that sounds appealing to you. Can choose multiple themes but no plain black. There's a "black gradient" option but it stands out more than plain black buttons on Nexus & other devices.
QSlide apps are pretty worthless and take up an extra row in notification drawer. Can get rid of it by editing the toggles in the notification drawer and checking the box for QSlide toggle, then toggle QSlide off.
Can't take screen shots by pressing combo of hardware buttons. Would be tricky to do with buttons on the back so I guess LG took this feature out. Instead you have to use Quick Memo which is accessible on the toggles on the notification drawer. A bit fussy, but workable.
I know that seems like a lot of cons in a 5-star review, but again the hardware on the G2 is so much better than anything else on VZW right now that I'm ok recommending it as long as people know what they're getting into with the software.
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