LG V40 ThinQ: The most confusing phone at CES 2019
When a company launches a new smartphone, it is usually clear where the company's mobile division is heading. Not so with the LG V40. The device is probably the most enigmatic flagship of the season.
The LG stand is one that is always well attended. This is because LG is one of the few really big companies to show something new. Rumour has it that Samsung showed a selected few the foldable Galaxy Phone. However, enquiries at the stand have yielded nothing. LG, on the other hand, is showing its best side.
And the most confusing.
Because in the centre of the stand, which is always jam-packed, where people are pushing and shoving and saying "Pardon me", the LG V40 ThinQ is on display, almost inconspicuous and disappearing. The new flagship mobile has five cameras and I don't quite understand which direction the South Korean company wants to push in.
The specs that impress
The LG V40 ThinQ - from here on referred to simply as the V40, as ThinQ refers to LG's ecosystem - delivers a lot. But one thing is particularly noticeable when you first pick up the phone: even when it is attached to the table with a block and a cable, the device is extremely light. It weighs 168 grams without a SIM card, has a Snapdragon 845 system-on-a-chip (SoC) installed and boasts 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal memory.
That sounds all well and good, but the 64 GB gives me a bit of a headache. A flagship with so little memory? Really now? A first assumption arises: Last year, with the V30, the normal V30 was launched and then a few weeks later the V30+ with more storage space. Then the V30S ThinQ, which had the ThinQ platform built in for the first time.
Is LG doing this again? Does it have to be?
Nevertheless, the thing is red in my hand, because LG is one of the few companies that dares to bring a bright red phone onto the market. I wish them success with the colour, because the thing with the three cameras and the fingerprint scanner at the back looks damn chic.
The software that confuses and the sound that thunders
So I'm pressing around on the phone at the stand while people are pushing me left and right. I don't find it very funny, but I have questions. The advertising people at the stand are great at rattling off the specs, but they can't tell me what the company's main thrust is with the phone. Is LG working towards something? For comparison: Samsung is working towards using the entire front of a smartphone as a screen. No notch, no Infinity-O with a cut-out for the front camera. The company is not openly admitting this, but observers of the scene are well aware of it. However, it is not clear what LG is aiming to achieve with the V40 and to what extent the phone represents progress and not just an update.
This is not to say that the V40 is not impressive. Two things in particular are extremely interesting:
- The story shot
- The speakers
Let's start with the sound, because that brings us to one of LG's greatest strengths. Their smartphones always have outstanding sound quality. The V40 comes with four speakers, plus its own resonance chambers in the housing, which are intended to act as a kind of amplifier. When I watch a Korean pop video in the YouTube app, I hear the band Red Velvet. If I could speak Korean, I would understand the lyrics, even though the noise at the stand is constantly so loud that I can barely hear myself think and video producer Stephanie Tresch has to shout out every sentence, even though she is only about two metres away from me.
Well, that's hardly surprising, because the LG V40 has DTS:X surround sound and Hi-Fi Quad DAC. In combination with the cavity system, called Boombox Sound by LG, the small phone really packs a punch.
Then the Story Shot. This is a software-only exercise with the front camera and the three main cameras. Let's say you're standing on the Las Vegas Strip, the city's big tourist trap. You want a selfie of yourself in front of all the lights and lamps, but you don't have a Flipstik or anything like that with you. So you hold up your phone. In story shot mode, the cameras on both sides of the mobile take a picture. Then the software comes along, takes the selfie, cuts you out and inserts you into the panorama of the strip.
This works more or less well, as Stephanie has had one arm chopped off and then her hair trimmed. Nevertheless, the speed of the system is impressive, and if the calculated composite isn't good enough, you can always take a normal selfie.
We are then politely asked by a man if he can pick up the red phone. Of course he can. We wrap it up. But one thing is clear: the LG V40 is likely to be one of the more interesting phones of the season. Especially because its position in the market is completely nebulous. I'm sure LG will reveal its cards somewhere, but I need time to find the point.
V40, we'll see you again in Zurich.
You can find all articles on CES 2019 here.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.