LG V20 Goes Official with Dual Displays, Dual Rear Cameras and Quad DACs

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Right before a certain company with a shiny logo unveils their next product, LG has tried stealing the thunder with the launch of its new flagship device for the second quarter of 2016. Meet the LG V20, the smartphone with a renewed focus towards multimedia creation and consumption.

When it comes to the design of the V20, LG has chosen the parts of the V10 that made it unique and merged it with a design language seen of the LG G5. As a result, the V20 does look a lot like the G5. Instead of the V10’s rugged design, the LG V20 goes for an aluminium body which still is as tough and MIL-STD-810 compliant for shock resistance, meaning it can chug through a few drops. But thankfully, LG has dropped the pseudo-modularity out of the equation while still retaining a removable battery. The removable chin from the G5 is now fixed, while the modular button now acts as a release button for the back panel. You can remove the back panel to have easy access to the removable battery — making the V20 one of the only phones around with such a “feature”. The back also features the dual rear camera setup and the fingerprint sensor, while the volume rocker has been moved to the left side.

The front of the V20 is dominated by the 5.7″ QHD IPS LCD display, with a secondary “Always On” LCD ticker display (2.1″ diagonally) placed above it. The front camera is now a single camera instead of the dual camera “groupfie” setup found on the V10.

On the inside, the LG V20 has all the traits of a flagship. You get the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 for the SoC with its Quad core Kryo setup. The GPU is handled by the Adreno 530, which should be able to support the QHD display. The phone comes with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and 64GB of UFS storage, along with micro-SD expandability of upto 256GB. The removable battery is 3,200 mAh in capacity, and is Quick Charge 3.0 capable. The V20 also bears a USB Type-C port. This is LG going all out with the specs, and the V20 certainly possesses an impressive overall package.

The camera setup on the LG V20 is similar to that on the G5. The dual rear camera setup comprises of a 16MP main camera with f/1.8 aperture, OIS along with laser autofocus, phase-detection autofocus and dual-LED flash; and a secondary 8MP wide angle (135-degrees) camera with f/2.4 aperture. The V20 is capable of recording 4K at 30fps, and is also the first phone to feature Qualcomm’s proprietary EIS solution which is based on gyroscopes. The V20 can also track moving objects through image stream analysis and stabilize the video by the object’s line of movement. Audio in video recording often takes a backseat, but with the V20, LG boasts that the device can capture lossless 24bit/48kHz audio as well. The front camera is a 5MP shooter with f/1.9 aperture, but it can still capture wide angle images despite being a single camera.

LG also gave a lot of focus on audio consumption on the V20. The V20 comes with four DAC’s for clearer sound, and offers some nifty features like a 75-step fine volume and L/R balance control out of the box. The phone also supports lossless playback, and in some markets, the phone will come with B&O headphones in the retail box.

The software side of things seem pretty too, for the V20. The LG V20 is the first smartphone to ship with Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. But, it comes with LG’s UX 5.0+ skin on top, so it isn’t a skin which is close to AOSP.

The LG V20 will come in three colors: Titan, Pink and Silver. Availability of the phone is expected by the end of this month, although pricing still remains up in the air.

With the LG V20, LG is aiming at the top of the smartphone pack. The feature set will be hard to resist for anyone looking to get a comprehensive multimedia device. We do hope that the LG V20 does not suffer from the sudden death issues that LG’s previous flagships have faced — not dying is good enough when its competitors can not even accomplish that.

What are your thoughts on the LG V20? Does it cover all the tickboxes of what you expect in a top-tier smartphone? Let us know in the comments below!