LG X Venture hands-on: the ruggedized mid-ranger for $330

The LG G6 was one of the first flagships to launch this year, showing LG’s commitment in redeeming its flagship line over the previous year’s sullen LG G5. Just recently, however, the company introduced another handset exclusive to AT&T that particularly focuses on protection – the rugged variety meant to withstand punishment of all sorts. The LG X Venture is a mid-ranger that seems to have adopted the more rugged design language of the LG V10, but has more protection to safeguard it from the most extreme cases.

It’s tough to deny the vast difference that the LG X Venture features with its design over the recent G6, as its chassis it strengthened by stainless steel rails on its sides and a rubbery textured rear casing. All of this amounts to a design that has an IP68 rating, ensuring that it’s water resistant in up to 1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes. Submerge away with no worries! While it won’t earn fashion points with its design, the phone feels substantial in the hand and definitely would endure more abuse than its glass sibling in the G6.

On its left edge, there’s an orange-accented button that launches an outdoor essentials portal, which provides access to outdoorsy things like the barometer, compass, physical activity, weather, exercise, and flashlight. Naturally, it’s a great feature for the outdoor enthusiast because it’s a one-stop hub. Even better, the button is programmable to perform other functions, which will be particularly helpful for folks who aren’t interested in the outdoor portal. Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that it features a 3.5 mm headphone jack, fingerprint sensor, and a beefy 4,100 mAh battery. The latter should ensure some serious longevity, especially for those power users. Unfortunately there’s no rapid or wireless charging of any kind on the X Venture.

Taking a peek at the display, a 5.2-inch 1080p panel, it more than suffices with its detail at normal viewing distances. However, colors do appear a bit subdued and it’s rather difficult to view in direct sunlight. Running Android 7.0 Nougat, the only bummer that some folks might remotely perceive, is all of the AT&T bloatware baked into the software – and some of them you can’t even uninstall. Then again, this is a carrier exclusive for AT&T, so it’s something you’ll have to live with.

Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 with 2 GB of RAM, it seems more than responsive with the trivial things we’ve been checking out with this quick hands-on. Though, this device likely won’t be great at handling processor-intensive tasks. While emails, surfing the web, and other basic functions are more than capable for this Android device, don’t get your hopes up that you’ll be able to do any serious gaming on here.

Fetching the LG X Venture for AT&T means forking over $329.99 outright, or $11 per month on a 30-month installment agreement. That seems reasonable for a brand new mid-range smartphone, especially one with so many unique features built in. If you’ve been waiting for a ruggedized phone to take with you on your summer adventures, this seems to have a convincing package that won’t drain your pockets.