LG

LG

LG

LG

LG

I can just imagine a group of Saturday Night Live writers sitting around after the iPhone X launch. "Hey guys," one of them says, "How can we make fun of Face ID?"

" I know!" says another, "Let's do 'Hand ID,' we'll say the phone can read your palm like a psychic."

"That sounds great!" says a third. "I'll cue up a laugh track."

And from there the sketch brainstorming evolves into progressively stupider body parts you could get a smartphone to "ID."

LG is actually doing this, though. On the LG G8 ThinQ, you can stick your hand up for the front camera and it will identify you by veins in your hand. "Hand ID," LG's tagline reads, "Your hand is the password."

The LG G8 has the usual notched smartphone design. Besides a front camera, the notch contains a Time of Flight (ToF) sensor, which enables a bit of 3D sensing. LG implemented a face unlock system with this sensor, of course, but you can also raise your hand in front of the phone, move it around a bit, and the G8 will do some whole-hand biometrics.

"LG’s Hand ID identifies owners by recognizing the shape, thickness and other individual characteristics of the veins in the palms of their hands." LG's press release reads. "Simply placing a pre-registered hand in front of the front-facing camera for a split second is all it takes to unlock the LG G8 ThinQ and all its content."

In addition to a palm-reading, you can also do a few basic hand gestures over top of the sensors to control the current app. You can answer or decline incoming calls, snooze or stop an alarm, stop a timer, take a selfie, control media, or open a favorite app. Most of these functions can normally be done with a single tap on the touchscreen, so I'm not sure if replacing these with a hand gesture is worth it. I'm also not sure if any normal human wants to stick their hand up to a smartphone camera to unlock it. Maybe it would work on a table?

The other standout features of the G8 include a side-mounted Google Assistant button, which is coming to several new phones from LG and Nokia. The display also doubles as a speaker, which eliminates the need for a bottom-firing speaker. Other than that, the LG G8 looks just like the LG G7, which itself just added a notch to the LG G6 design. It doesn't seem like LG has been investing a lot in smartphones lately.

For specs, we have a 6.1-inch 3120×1440 OLED, a Snapdragon 855, 6GB of RAM, 64GB or 128GB of storage, a 3500mAh battery, three rear cameras, a front camera, a USB-C port, a headphone jack, IP68 water resistance, and a MicroSD card. If you're wondering why LG announced both the LG G8 and the LG V50 this week, when usually its phones are released six months apart, the answer probably has to do with 5G. The V50 has 5G and the G8 doesn't, and 5G is big, power-hungry, and expensive. LG isn't talking prices today, but the V50 will probably be significantly more expensive than the G8 thanks to the 5G setup.

No word on yet on if the LG G8 will provide a horoscope after it does a palm reading.