LG V40 ThinQ
Highlights:-
• LG V40 ThinQ has three rear cameras and two front cameras
• Overall performance is good but it gets hot after tension
• The price of LG V40 ThinQ in India is Rs. 49,990 for the only configuration
When MWC 2019 starts in less than two weeks, we will get some new flagship smartphones coming in 2019, all of which will be present in your pocket. These new models will have the latest processor, new designs, and better imaging capabilities. This is a question - does it make sense that 2018 is paying the full price for the Android flagship?
The phone in question is the LG V40 ThinQ, 949,990, which was launched globally around October last year but had entered the Indian market last month. Roughly Rs. 50,000, V40 ThinQ is the current head of LG. It can be seen as G7 + ThinQ ed 40,000 (review) beef, thanks to the back and front extra cameras, a high capacity battery and a big display. All this Rs. Comes on premium. 10,000 on G7 + ThinQ
So should you spend this kind of money right now, when we have a new crop of Android flagship around the corner? let's find out.
LG V40 ThinQ Design:-
We have to hand over it to LG for the overall manufacturing quality and the elimination of the V40 ThinQ. This phone looks and feels a lot more premium than our G7 + ThinQ in our opinion, which is a good start.
We also love matte finish of the metal frame and glass back which does not easily attract fingerprints. The phone also looks more or less ancient at the end of one business day.
The front and rear glass taper on the sides basically blends with the frame so that you never feel the edges.
The highlighted antenna lines above and below are a different color of gray, so they do not mix with the rest of the metal frame, but at least they are kept symmetically.
The V40 looks thinner as ThinQ, it is equally slippery. Smooth finish provides hardly any grip, which uses a one-hand multiple times. The phone had slipped through our hand several times during our trial period, but fortunately it fell short on tables or couch only. Our unit was not damaged, but we were lucky.
Large display on LG V40 ThinQ makes it a little harder to reach the physical buttons on both sides of the phone with one hand. The button feedback is good and we also have an additional Google Assistant button on the left, which can be used to help support or run on the display. The button is not customizable.
The Hybrid Dual-SIM tray sits right on the phone, and can accommodate two 4G nano-SIM cards for Dual 4G VoLTE or Single SIM and MicroSD card.
LG V40 ThinQ is one of the few flagships that still offer a 3.5mm headphone socket, which is placed at the bottom. Next to it, we have a USB Type-C port and a speaker.
The latter uses a part of the body in the form of a resonance chamber to increase the sound, which is called the LG Boombox speaker. Since it uses the body to enhance the sound, you get a little stereo effect, but earpiece does not really make much contribution and blocking it does not make any difference to the audio.
6.4-inch QHD + display dominates the front of this phone, but does not feel too immersive due to the thick black beams on the sides. At the bottom is not the chin, which is good, but you get a rung on top. LG has managed to keep two cameras and one earpiece in place to make it more broad or deeper. Earpiece sits a little off-center but we have no problem with the call.
LG has used an OLED panel (P-OLED according to the AIDA64 app), which produces bright color and good black level. You can choose different color profiles depending on what type of colors you want to see. We found the web 'color profile to create a good balance, but most other profiles made Reds very vulgar.
In the box, the LG V40 ThinQ ships have 16W Fast Charger, Type-C Cable, SIM Ejection Tool and a 3.5mm headset.
LG V40 ThinQ specifications and features:-
Being a 2018 flagship, the LG V40 ThinQue is powered by Qualcomm's
Snapdragon 845 Octa-Core SoC. In India, there is only one version
that has 6GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB storage. The latter is expandable for a
theoretical 2 TB using a MicroSD card, but it will be at the expense of the
second Nano-SIM slot.
The phone is IP68 certified
for dust and water resistance, with Gorilla Glass 5 for front, back and
cameras, and MIL-STD-810G military certification for shock resistance. Other
connectivity features include the general suite of dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac,
Bluetooth 5, NFC, USB-OTG, GPS and sensors.
LG V40 ThinQ
is still stuck with the Android 8.1 Oreo and our unit was running the security
patches of December 2018, which is a little embarrassing to see the phones
launched almost four months ago internationally. Perhaps LG's custom skin is
causing delays. In any case, an Android 9 Pie update is expected only in Q2
this year, about that time when Google announces the Android Q.
There is a lot going on in
LG's custom skin, and most tricks and gestures are similar to those we have
already seen with G7 + ThinQ. The home screen can be a single-layered
interface, or you can enable the app drawer. The order of the navigation
buttons can be swapped around, and two additional buttons can be added to the
regular trio.
Other features include 'mini
views' which shrink screen contents with swipe gestures on the navigation
buttons, the ability to mask the notch, shortcuts and quick access panels,
'Floating Bar' and Smart Doctor, who gives. You manage your storage and RAM.
Notification in the LG V40 ThinQ is not LED, but you can
always enable on-display. You can choose from different clock faces and it is
also interactive, which means that you can control your music or access the
wireless connectivity toggles without awaiting the phone without standby.
Fingerprint sensor works well
on the rear for authentication but you can also use face recognition. The
latter is not as fast as the implementation of others such as Vivo or Oppo, but
it is quite safe after enabling the option 'advanced face recognition' option.
LG V40 ThinQ display, camera, and battery life:-
There is some use in the size
of this phone, but after a few days, it was not very upset. The treatment for
the slippery body will be to use a skin or a case. General app performance is
very good.
There are good apps to run in
the background, and multitasking is also handled well. The phone runs quiet
with regular use, but fires the game or shoots a bunch of photos and metal parties
quickly get hot. Long-term use of the camera, especially video recording, heats
the metal frame very quickly.
The phone also posted good
benchmark numbers. In AnTuTu, we got 2,62,210 points while scores in the 3D
Benchmark such as the slingshots, we got 4981 points. These numbers are set to
native QHD + resolutions with screen resolutions
Asphalt 9: In games like
Legends, we experienced Smooth Framerates on 'High' presets in native
resolution, although PUBG Mobile struggled to provide frequent framerates with
'High' graphics setting and Framers set on 'Smooth'. We had to reduce the
display resolution to full-HD + to get better results.
In some games, you can set
the LG's Game Tools feature to reduce graphics settings without entering the
settings page of the game.
Audio has always played a
major role in LG's flag, and like the G7
+ ThinQ, the V40 ThinQ also has high-Fi DACs that are meant to run
high-impedance headphones.
The phone for headphones also
supports DTS: X Virtual Surround, which claims to add more spatial elements to
the audio. Speakers have been tuned to meridian audio, and it can get quite
loud, but as we mentioned earlier, we would prefer a true stereo effect while
using speakers.
The bundled headset provides
very good audio quality. The settings app has an in HDR video effect 'toggle
switch, which enhances the brightness and color while viewing the video in
fullscreen mode, although the screen of this phone does not really support HDR.
Camera setup is another big
difference factor between this phone and LG's G series. The V40 ThinQ has two cameras at the back
and three in front. There is a 12-megapixel standard shooter with rear, f / 1.5
aperture, dual PDAF, OIS, and 1.4 microns pixel size.
It is followed by a
12-megapixel telephoto camera which provides 2x optical zoom, f / 2.4 aperture
and autofocus. Finally, you get a 16-megapixel wide-angle camera with a f / 1.9
aperture but no autofocus.
There is a 'triple shot'
feature in the viewfinder that lets you shoot photos with three sensors
simultaneously, giving you three different perspectives. This is useful when
you can not decide which type of shot to take. You can also enable 'Cam AI
Cam', which will detect what is in a scene and what effects and filters will
suggest.
AI sometimes takes a few
seconds to detect the scene, so it is not particularly useful for action shots.
You can switch between the
three sensors in the viewfinder with the respective markers, and a long-press
on any of them gives you a little preview that what your frame will look like
using three, which is a good touch. The appointment of these markers could have
been better though, because they were out of reach during the shoot in
Landscape Orientation.
In daylight, the primary
camera picks up very good detail and color tones in the scenario. HDR kicks
when needed, which balances exposure well. Autofocus is very fast, and by
tapping your subject in the viewfinder, the focus gets locked, which makes it
easy to re-compose the shots. Wide-angle camera does not naturally do good with
close-up topics, but landscape shots help in getting more objects in frames.
You will get a little barrel
Distortion around the edges
of the frame, but it is not very serious. The telephoto sensor also captures
very fast images in good light.
Wide aperture of the primary
sensor makes it even better in low light. There is a good definition of details
in distant objects, colors are well represented, and noise is suppressed
without elaborating detail. Even under low or artificial lighting at night,
macros sharpened for us with the right color and good box. In low light, the
camera app does not switch on the telephoto sensor when you press its button,
instead using the main sensor and digital zoom, like most other phones with
telephoto cameras Wide-angle camera also captures great data in low-light, due
to which the large f / 1.9 aperture is.
Camera app has a portrait
mode that works well with locating the edge for both static objects and human
subjects. Under the artificial lighting system, the level of expansion is also
good. You can also enable portrait mode for front camera, and it works quite
well under good light.
Upon arrival in Selfie
cameras, we have a standard 8-megapixel sensor F / 1.9 aperture and a narrow F
/ 2.2 aperture with a wide-angle 5-megapixel sensor but a big pixel size of 1.5
microns. Along with the primary camera, there is very good details in daylight,
as well as in low light in Selfie. A slightly larger pixel in wide-angle sensor
compensates for a narrow aperture while shooting in low light.
LG V40 ThinQ is
suffering from the same HDR problem that we had with G7 + ThinQ, which is that highlights in white areas and selfies
appear over exposed and burnt. We really hope LG will fix this with the next
update.
The camera app provides a ton
of different shooting modes, for some screwed people with standard panoramas
and expert modes. In portrait mode the background backdrop setting changes the
background of your subject to a solid color of your choice and jump flash
jump-cut captures a picture in every You can also make your own avatar by using
a picture of your face, but adaptation is a bit limited because there is no
alternative to connecting or editing facial hair.
Finally, we come to video
capabilities of the LG V40 ThinQ.
This phone can shoot up to 4K resolution, either 30fps (10 minutes per clip) or
60fps (6 minutes per clip). The quality of the video recorded in daylight is
good and the footage is well stable without any major discrepancy. The phone
uses a combination of electronic and optical stabilization for video.
With wide-angle camera, you
can shoot till 1080p, but the image can be quality dip. The color looks a bit
pale and the lack of good definition in the objects. While shooting in low
light, the quality of the video is still quite good, although when there is
some amount of visible noise
Shooting at 4K.
Usage of heavy camera
consumes lots of battery life, but with regular use, we were able to charge
once a day. Given the size of this phone, the capacity of 3,300mAh is not very
high, but with the display resolution in QHD +, we were able to fit the
day-to-day use.
Upon switching to full-HD +
resolution, we could take a few more hours, reflected in our battery loop test
too. We got runtime of 11 hours and 15 minutes, and continuous playback time of
11 hours and 49 minutes, with a set of QHD + and full-HD + sets, respectively.
The V40 ThinQ supports
Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0, which charges up to 77 percent of battery in one
hour and it takes an additional 40 minutes or so to fully up. You can charge
the phone wirelessly using any QE compatible charger, but it is going to be
very slow. We have been able to fully charge the phone in 3 hours and 10
minutes using the 10W Qi wireless charger.
Decision:-
LG V40 ThinQ
is a solid package at the current cost of Rs. 50,000 The only real competition
is Samsung's Galaxy S9 + (review), which is slightly higher, but can be found
well under Rs. 60,000 online. OnePlus 6T (review) top-end version costs Rs.
46,000, and it provides the same CPU power but there is less camera and no
shock or water resistance.
The V40 ThinQ offers better
features than the G7 + ThinQ, but there are some drawbacks to it. The HDR for
selfie camera is still broken, the side of metal gets hot in a little tension
too quickly, there is no proper stereo sound, and the Android version is still
behind in the competition. On a more positive note, the V40 ThinQ seems like a buck. 50,000 phones
It has a good display, a versatile set of cameras, good battery life and quick
performance.
This is for our basic
question, which should you buy now? Hopefully LG can launch the MWC 2018 G8 ThinQ
and V50 ThinQ in a week. Looking at LG's
track record from last year, these phones may take some time to reach India,
but we can at least see the drop in price of V40 ThinQ.
Meanwhile, Samsung has flown
the Galaxy S10 900 66,900 series launch at Flipkart, which means that we can
see these new flagships in India
at the beginning of March. After this, HMD is Global, which will make a great
start to the new Nokia phone, which also includes the much anticipated Nokia 9
PureView.
We would suggest that you
stop your shopping by MWC 2019 and select one of the new 2019, or at least wait
to see how they are stacked against the current options. In the upcoming phone,
you should usually spend a bit more than the V40 ThinQ, but you will get the
current version of upgraded hardware and Android, which is a win.
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