LG gets a fraction of the love of heavier hitters like Samsung and Apple, but it’s not for lack of trying. The company makes good — and in many cases..
LG gets a fraction of the love of heavier hitters like Samsung and Apple, but it’s not for lack of trying. The company makes good — and in many cases envelope-pushing — phones. Recall the company’s recent forays into dual-lenses and new aspect ratios. Heck, the company even released a modular phone before it was cool — sure, it kind of stunk, but it was definitely interesting.
Maybe the company will have a little more luck this time out with the release of the V30. After all, it’s probably going to prove the biggest announcement out of IFA this year — a distinction that’s been up for grabs since Samsung decided to go its own way with the Galaxy Note a few years back. And the V30 definitely goes a way to push smartphone imagery even beyond what many of its competitors have done in the past.
The V30 has a pretty compelling audio-visual one-two punch. The company added a quad-HD six-inch screen in the 18: 9 aspect ratio it began pushing so heavily last time around. The color replication is great, and yes, the black is very black. That’s paired with a solid on-board audio experience, as far as on-board smartphone speakers go.
The company has added the big screen while still keeping the phone’s size under control. The overall design is really quiet nice, as well. I did some blind testing with TC staff members, and all were pretty taken with what is a quite sleek build. The phone is IP68 water-resistant and covered in Gorilla Glass on both sides for added drop protection.
That said, photography’s really the thing here. The phone’s got a great lens and does a bang-up job processing HDR images. LG’s also tossed a bunch of solid filter options into its camera skin. Those software enhancements apply to the video side, as well, with highly customizable settings and on-board editing.
Of course, it’s getting harder and harder to distinguish yourself on the photography front. Flagship smartphone cameras are pretty good, almost across the board. Aside from a few different configurations of the dual-camera setup and a push toward better depth sensing (see: augmented reality) , most of the differences between manufacturers come down to software. And those sorts of subtle tweaks are often lost on mainstream phone buyers. That said, I did enjoy fiddling around with the V30’s settings — the phone has a wide range of different video recording options that take a couple of taps to access.
The V30 is another well-rounded phone from LG. The company hasn’ t really sacrificed any features for the sake of forcing in others. From the time I’ ve spent with it, the handset seems poised to run with flagships from the competition — whether the company finds a compelling way to sell it is another question entirely.
