Though LG’s first-ever modular phone, the G5, was received by all with gleaming eyes, but they couldn’t emulate the same in phone sales. The company also released the V10 last year, which packed in a weird secondary display(taking on Samsung’s edge displays) and a set of high res. wide-angle cameras on the front and the rear. And it was also well-received by the audience in general.
Well, the company is imbibing the same design+feature trend and following suit to announce its newest flagship device, the LG V20. Let’s begin by saying that the V20 isn’t modular. It is somewhat similar to its elder brethren, the V10, but adds some new additional functionalities to make the whole new phone thing ‘pop’. You’ll see later what I’m trying to convey here.
Taking the stage at the launch, Juno Cho, president of LG Electronics and Mobile Comm. said,
The LG V20 is designed to offer customers a more dynamic experience by building on the most popular video and audio features of the V series. With the LG V20, we are giving our customers more of everything they love and less of anything they don’t need to set a new standard for premium smartphones.
Expanding its premium V lineup, LG has focused more on enhancing the multimedia experience while retaining the outer appearance of the G5. This beauty has been carved out of aircraft-grade aluminum which not only gives it a solid durability but also adds to the sophisticated. The back of the device holds the fingerprint sensor and home button at the central position where your finger naturally rests. And the feature that the leaks defined as ‘modular’ is nothing but a button to pop-off the metallic back cover to swap out the battery in seconds(see I said it, the thing pops).
The shiny metallic body of the V20 sports a crisp and gorgeous 5.7-inch Quad HD Quantum display with a pixel density of 513ppi, along with a secondary IPS diaply strip that sits atop the main screen. Like the V10, this secondary screen will still be used to easily view notifications and alerts in outdoor situations. But it has also picked up some nifty updates that make it brighter and allow it to display longer signatures. The secondary screen now also has the functionality to display the complete notification and reply to it with just a tap of a button.
Talking about the beastly internal specifications, the LG V20 packs in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 chipset(why not the 821, i don’t know!?) coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of on-board internal storage. It is easily be expanded up to 2TB using a MicroSD card. The phone though has a removable back, holds a solid 3,200 mAh battery pack.
Being a multimedia powerhouse, the V20 retains the dual camera setup on the rear that pairs a 16-megapixel, f/1.8 standard camera with an 8-megapixel, f/2.4 wide-angle camera. It provides you with a 135-degree field of vision and also packs in Optical Image Stabilization for crisp memorable pictures and steady 4K video recording. The dual camera setup also features a Hybrid Auto Focus(HAF) that combines three AF mechanisms — Laser Detection AF, Phase Detection AF and Contrast AF — for both photo and video.
In addition to these, the LG V20 has also introduced a lot of improvements on the audio and video front. The smartphone leverages the Qualcomm’s gyro-based electronic image stabilization(EIS) to record sharper video while neutralizing shaky images. It can also record Hi-Fi videos and manually control the settings for perfect audio output using Low Cut Filter(LCF) and Limiter(LMT) to remove unwanted background noise, and set recording distance respectively.
And if you own a LG V20, you wouldn’t need any additional hardware accessories to enjoy high quality audio on the go. The details are a bit scant on the exact functioning of this feature, but the V20 features a 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC — it reduces distortions, cranks up the volume and runs lossless music files without any hiccups. It also takes the audio recording experience to the next level by allowing you to play with a wider dynamic frequency range using three high AOP microphones. It also features a Studio Mode on this device.
On the software front, one already knows that LG V20 is the world’s first-ever smartphone to come with the shiny new Android 7.0 ‘Nougat’ operating system. It’s the first phone to introduce the new Android experience, with cleaner Notifications, multi-tasking, quick app switching, and the recently added ‘In Apps’ search feature. The UX experience of the operating system has also been bumped to version 5.0+
The LG V20 , though not modular, leaves a significantly good first impression based on its range of perky features and functionalities. There is currently no word on the official pricing of the device but it is expected to be first made available in the Korean market starting this month. The launch dates and pricing info for other regions and markets will be announced soon.
