The LG G4 could be the best phone of 2015. Source: Supplied

The iPhone just works. Its camera is one of the best on the market that let’s you take good photos without the need to even really know what you’re doing. The user interface is fluid, intuitive and even my 75 year old grandmother can use it fine. Sure, other phones might have a better battery life or a bigger screens, but they often sacrifice in some other area. The iPhone doesn’t, it just does everything well.

When I started using LG’s latest flagship phone, the G4 it felt eerily familiar. At first I found that odd, because with its leather back and curved design there isn’t really anything else out there like it. But then it hit me: this is as easy, as great to use as an iPhone. As I spent more time with the G4, I soon came to realise it didn’t just do everything well like the iPhone does, it does everything great.

The first thing you’ll notice with the G4 is its leather back. While most high-end phones have either a metal or glass design, LG decided to go with a full-grain leather back. Did you know

that “genuine leather” is one of the worst grades of leather you can buy? Full-grain is the best leather money can buy, which is why LG picked it for the G4.

The leather back has received mixed responses, but I’m a fan. Source: Supplied

The use of leather has received a mix response. While myself and several other technology journalists really enjoyed the look of the leather, you’re probably more interest in what someone who actually has a fashion sense thinks about it. So I asked news.com.au’s lifestyle editor Kate Midena what she thought of it, and this is what she had to say:

“I love the look of the back on the LG G4, it’s a classic tan colour and the leather feels nice in your palm. As far as I can see, the middle seam running straight down the back is the phone’s only downside — it’s not super comfortable to hold and also shows up dirt quite easily. If that doesn’t bother you too much and leather is your thing the G4 is perfect, and it definitely looks smart. If you prefer to keep it simple and not use your phone as a fashion statement though, the iPhone 6 is probably a safer bet. It’s equally classy, especially in gold and silver.”

But if leather isn’t your thing, there are also plastic covers that you can put on the phone instead.

Unlike the Galaxy S6, the G4’s back cover can come off allowing you to swap out batteries and add more memory if you need it. It’s ironic that the G4 is the only device of this year’s flagships that has a removable battery because its battery life is easily the best. You will feel comfortable getting through a day of moderate to heavy use and still have 30 — 40 per cent remaining when you go to bed.

Curved, but a little thick. Source: Supplied

The phone is quite big though, it never feels unwieldily but it’s much thicker. The Galaxy S6 does feel much better in your hand and feels easier to use with one hand, but its screen is a smaller 5.2-inches. The G4 on the other hand has a 5.5-inch display and a Galaxy S6 matching quad-HD resolution which packs four times the screen pixels of standard HD screen.

The screen itself is really bright. And I mean really bright. It almost blinds you when it’s turned up all the way. The high resolution means you never have to worry about seeing a pixel, and this year LG has used a similar process that Apple adopted for the iPad Air 2, bringing the touchscreen glass and the actual screen together. That eliminates any obvious gap, and makes for a much better display.

Colours are fantastic, and while last year’s G3 felt washed out at times, the G4’s display is vibrant and rich.

Using the phone results in the best experience of just about any Android device on the market. Despite having a less powerful processor than some of its rivals, it almost always feels just as fluid, if not more when doing day-to-day tasks and changing between apps.

Thankfully LG has done very little to alter Google’s Android 5.1 interface, resulting in a clean, easy to use system with helpful additions here and there.

But what you will really be buying the G4 for is its camera. The 16-megapixel snapper is the best I have ever used on a mobile phone — sorry Apple, Samsung and Sony, but it really is.

It takes incredibly accurate shots in automatic mode, both in good lighting and low lighting scenarios, thanks to the new f/1.8 lens, which allows more light in. It also has a new optical image stabiliser that works twice as well as before to eliminate the blurriness your shaky hand causes in photos.

But while the automatic mode is great for casual shots, it’s the manual mode that sets it apart, allowing the device to be a genuine DSLR replacement in a lot of scenarios. Taking images in RAW format allows you to quickly edit them in something like Lightroom on the go. Below, the first image is the original RAW image — the second is what I got out of it after 5 minutes in Adobe Lightroom. Excuse the images if they look a bit fuzzy, our website compresses them a fair bit.

The original photo of a Bathurst sunset captured in RAW format. Source: Supplied

A few minutes in Adobe Lightroom it turned into this. Source: Supplied

You can even adjust the shutter speed to take those cool light trail shots — the image stabilisation is good enough for this to be done without the need for a tripod. It’s ridiculously easy too. Even a novice photographer like yours truly picked it up within minutes. This is a game changer in mobile photography.

While I took some shots that came out great, a quick look on Flickr shows how incredible the camera on this phone is.

You can keep the shutter open for longer to take cool water shots like this. Source: Supplied

Night time shots are second to none. Source: Supplied

The detail, light and colour is brilliant. Source: Supplied

The G4 is the first Android phone to truly feel like it’s without compromise. On top of that, it also has the best camera ever seen on a mobile device and a class leading battery life. For $869 with a plastic back or $929 with the leather back, it’s also a bit cheaper than all its rivals too.

I didn’t know how LG could best Samsung’s brilliant Galaxy S6, but its incredible camera, great battery life and clean user interface may have just done it. If you’re in the market for a new phone, the LG G4 goes on sale on July 14, and unless you need an iOS device, I couldn’t recommend the G4 enough.