LG’s V30S ThinQ Comes with Bumped Specs and AI

It’s super early into Sunday in Barcelona, but here in the US, it’s Saturday evening across the county. That makes tonight’s news a bit unexpected, but nonetheless, LG has announced a new smartphone that succeeds last year’s V30.

Called the V30S ThinQ (yup, that’s a horrible name), LG’s latest offering is nearly identical to the standard V30 with some slight spec bumps and new AI tricks. As for internals, we’re looking at 6GB of RAM instead of 4 and 128GB of storage instead of 64. You can also opt for 256GB of space if you need it.

Other than that, the same all-glass-and-metal design, 6-inch OLED 18:9 display, Snapdragon 835 processor, 3300mAh battery, USB-C port, dual rear cameras, and fingerprint sensor are present. But none of these really matter in the V30S as LG’s focus with the handset is in the software department.

The V30S comes with Android 8.0 Oreo on board that’s layered with LG’s custom skin on top. While that may not be fantastic, it does enable LG’s new AI feature set that aims to make taking photos and shopping online easier and more enjoyable. (The artificial intelligence systems are a part of the ThinQ family, hence the device’s name.)

To kick things off, the V30S includes AI Cam. Basically, it uses EyeEm technology licensed by EyeEm Vision to identify over 100 million objects and adjust the camera’s colors, contrast, brightness, and highlights to create a more pleasing photo. For example, it could make a sunset more colorful or a plate of fruit pop more. Of course, we’ll need to test this feature to see if it’s really worth it so stay tuned.

Also arriving on the V30S is QLens, LG’s object detection system that aims to make shopping easier. Essentially, you hold your camera up to an object, ask your phone to identify it, and then hit a link that pops up at the bottom of your screen to go and buy it. It works just like Samsung’s Bixby Vision and Google’s Lens does, but it isn’t yet known if it works as good as either. Again, we’ll need to perform some testing to determine the conclusion.

Finally, the V30S also brings something called Bright Mode to the phone’s cameras. It’s supposed to provide a brighter image for darker situations by using a 4MP image and blowing it up to 16MP over just using a 16MP shooting mode, but I’m not sure how well it’ll perform in the real world if it works at all.

All of these features sound great and may compel you to buy a V30S, but here’s the thing: LG has also announced a forthcoming software update that will enable every single feature listed here on the standard V30. The only things missing will be the 6GB of RAM and extra storage on existing phones. Therefore, I’m not sure if there’s actually a reason to buy the V30S. It’s gonna come in New Platinum Grey and New Moroccan Blue if that’s your thing, but other than that, you may just wanna pick up a V30 and wait for the new software to hit.

Of course, for those of you who are set on buying a V30S when it drops, you’ll need to note we don’t know pricing information just yet. We do know, however, that it’ll first be sold in Korea and later sold in other territories starting in March. We’ll, of course, let you know of any additional info when it comes in.

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Author Max Buondonno Founder of Matridox. I also founded and am CEO of MBEDDED Media, a new kind of media company. Lover of anything and everything involving technology. I enjoy coffee, music, and writing. I'm also really getting into traveling and photography. Legendary Scoop himself.

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