During its IFA 2017 event today, LG unveiled the LG V30. This is the phone LG hopes will take on Samsung’s Galaxy Note8 and Apple’s iPhone 8. It will become available in South Korea on September 21 and expand to more markets from there.
2017 is all about smartphone screen-to-body ratios, and LG is playing ball. The LG V30 features a 6-inch 18:9 OLED FullVision display, but is still 8mm shorter and 3mm narrower than its predecessor. With a thickness of 7.3mm and weight of 158g, LG declares its new flaship is “the lightest among smartphones in the 6-inch and over category.”
Moving on to the trend of dual rear cameras, the South Korean company wants to emphasize the V30 is the first flagship smartphone to feature a rear camera with an f1.6 aperture camera lens (translation: it lets in more light). The glass Crystal Clear Lens meanwhile is supposed to deliver more accurate colors and clearer images than a plastic lens. Unsurprisingly, LG believes the two make the camera system “the most capable image capturing device in a smartphone.”
If you liked the V20’s second screen, LG will try to placate you by pointing to the phone’s always-on display (AOD) and floating bar features. The AOD provides shortcuts to quick tools and the music player when the screen is off while the floating bar can be customized with up to five apps for easy access to your most frequently used apps.
Audiophiles will be happy to learn LG has included a 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC and a set of earphones by B&O PLAY. You can select from three digital filters to adjust the pre- and postringing of the impulse response while four pre-programmed presets let you change sound frequencies and decibel scales. The V30 supports Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) technology that allows for high-resolution audio streaming.
As for software, the phone ships with Android 7.1.2 Nougat, but you can expect it will be upgradeable to Android Oreo. VR afficionados will appreciate that Daydream support is available out of the box, but unfortunately ARCore is not. With Samsung focusing on Bixby, LG is doubling down on Google Assistant.
More specifically, the digital assistant will have capabilities unique to LG. Users will, for example, be able to say “Ok Google, take a wide angle selfie” to launch the camera app with the setting on the front-facing camera wide angle mode. The V30 will use advanced signal processing to let users use the “Ok Google” voice command even when loud music is playing. But if you’re an LG die-hard fan, the best part will be the integration with LG appliances (washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, air purifiers, ovens, air conditioners, and robot vacuums) and Google Home. Users will be able to say, “Ok Google, talk to LG to wash my clothes.”
Here are the phone’s official specs:
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
- Display: 6.0-inch 18:9 QuadHD+ OLED FullVision Display (2880 x 1440 / 538ppi)
- Memory: 4GB LPDDR4x RAM
- Storage: 64GB UFS 2.0 ROM (V30) or 128GB UFS 2.0 ROM (V30+), microSD (up to 2TB)
- Rear cameras: 16MP Standard Angle (F1.6 / 71°) / 13MP Wide Angle (F1.9/ 120°)
- Front camera: 5MP Wide Angle (F2.2 / 90°)
- Battery: 3,300mAh
- Operating System: Android 7.1.2 Nougat
- Size: 151.7 x 75.4 x 7.3mm
- Weight: 158g
- Network: LTE-A 4 Band CA
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a, b, g, n, ac / Bluetooth 5.0 BLE / NFC / USB Type-C 2.0 (3.1 compatible)
- Colors: Aurora Black, Cloud Silver, Moroccan Blue, and Lavender Violet
The phone has IP68 certification (water and dust resistant) and is MIL-STD 810G compliant. It also features voice recognition (for unlocking using a combination your voice and user-defined keywords), face recognition (for unlocking using the front facing camera), a fingerprint sensor, and wireless charging.
Source: LG V30 unveiled with envelope-pushing screen-to-body ratio and camera optics
