Weekly poll: can five cameras seduce you to buy the LG V40 ThinQ?
There are no phones quite like the LG V40 ThinQ, a rugged handset with a refined taste in multimedia. Its the first phone with five cameras on board, three on the back and two on the front. More importantly, we could argue that this is the first triple camera done right.
Three lenses, three fields of view 107°, 78°, 47°. Mechanized optics for zooming never caught on in the mobile world, so this is the only way to overcome the last remaining advantage of point & shoot cameras.
Huawei and Leica produced the first phone with a triple camera on its back, but we felt that the B&W sensor wasnt strictly necessary. Not when you have a massive Quad Bayer sensor for low-light. Thats why we like LGs setup better.
Speaking of sensor size and low-light performance, the main 78° camera of the V40 features large 1.4µm pixels and a brighter f/1.5 aperture, quite an improvement compared to the LG G7 (1.0µm, f/1.6). LG even adopted Dual Pixel AF, which offers fast and accurate focus locks in most lighting situations (we think its a fine replacement of Laser AF).
Then theres a dual selfie camera on the front, something LG hasnt done since the V10, the original V-series phone.
Like it, the V40 ThinQ takes durability seriously with MIL-STD-810G compliance in addition to the usual IP68 waterproofing. Theres no grippy rubber back anymore, but the fast wireless charging is a fine development. The V-series is not one to give into trends just because. Case in point the V10 had a proto-notch because LG found a good use for it, not because it wanted to copy Apple. That was before the iPhone X, anyway (but we digress).
Similarly, LG hasnt given into the whole no headphone jack trend the company is in the business of selling you phones with 32-bit Quad DACs, not Bluetooth headphones. Plus, the BoomBox speaker is constructed like a dedicated speaker with a resonance chamber to produce a deeper bass. The speaker was tuned by Meridian to boot.
You can find more details on the flagship in our hands-on (if youre not in the mood for reading, watch the video instead). Don't forget to check out the camera samples! When youre done, you can cast your vote LG V40 ThinQ, love it or hate it?
LG V40 ThinQ - love it or hate it?