LG Unveils Its First 5G Phone: LG V50 ThinQ 5G With Snapdragon 855 SoC

At the Mobile World Congress 2019, the South Korean phone maker LG announced three new flagships, the LG G8 ThinQ, G8s ThinQ, and the LG V50 ThinQ 5G as well.

It seems like LG is able to keep up with other phone makers and it is focusing on making smartphones with support for the 5G network. And the LG V50 ThinQ 5G is the first phone from LG with the latest Snapdragon 855 SoC and Snapdragon X50 modem, claiming as high as 20 times the 4G’s speed.

The LG V50 has a similar look to that of its predecessor due to the identical 6.4-inch QHD+ OLED FullVision panel with a resolution of 1,440 x 3,120 px. LG still sticks with the notch instead of trying something new like Samsung with the hole-punch design. The notch is where a dual selfie camera locates, including an 8MP main sensor and a 5MP secondary sensor with a wide-angle lens, just like those on the LG V40 ThinQ.

The V50 also sports the same triple rear camera setup from its predecessor, LG V40. The setup includes a 12MP sensor with an f/1.5 aperture and 1.4µm pixel size, a 12MP telephoto lens with an f/2.4 aperture and 1.0µm pixel size; and a 16MP ultra-wide lens with an f/1.9 aperture and 1.0µm pixel size.

For the battery, the LG V50 has a 4,000 mAh battery which is 20 percent higher capacity compared to the one on the LG V40. It is probably partly due to the 5G network integrated on the LG V50 that will likely consume more power. It still also has a Hi-Fi Quad DAC as well as stereo speakers, FM Radio and a solid body that is compliant with a military standards test (MIL-STD-810G).

Interestingly, the company doesn’t go for an on-screen fingerprint sensor which is quite common these days on the LG V50, but it instead opts for a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and Facial recognition feature as well.

While the phone maker doesn’t follow the foldable device trend, it still came up with a new and cool feature which is a second display case for the V50. The additional 6.2-inch OLED display with a 2,160 x 1,080 px resolution connects to the phone through its pogo pins on the rear.

Users can have better multitasking as well as gaming by having a second display, and it can work in both portrait and landscape mode, making it sort of similar to a foldable device.

The LG V50’s dimensions are 159.2 x 76.1 x 8.3mm with a weight of 183 grams. Connectivity options include 5G, Wi-Fi, 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth 5 LE, GPS, NFC and USB-C 2.0 port.

There will be a sole variant for the LG V50 ThinQ 5G, Aurora Black only. Hopefully, LG will offer a few more colour options for users to choose.