LG announced LG V30S ThinQ at MWC 2018, a successor to LG V30 that was launched last year. LG needed this to compete with Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones that were also launched at MWC 2018. LG recently introduced AI-enabled applications such as Vision AI which is a little similar to Bixby Vision and Voice AI which is powered by Google Assistant.
The company has not revealed its price and availability details as of now. There is also a bigger storage variant of LG V30S ThinQ called V30S+ ThinQ sporting 256GB of internal storage. LG previously launched its debut smart speaker called ThinQ powered by LG’s Google Assistant-based Voice AI at CES 2018 which you can read about here.
Detailing the highlights first, LG V30S ThinQ is an AI-focussed smartphone that includes both Vision AI and Voice AI applications and offers all features of its predecessor. You get everything that was missing in V30 with V30S ThinQ and the model with 256GB internal storage. The new device has enhanced camera which is powered by Vision AI and hence offers three new camera features- QLens, AI Cam, and Bright Mode.
QLens is designed to scan QR codes and Barcodes for the enhanced online shopping experience and that’s not it, the smart cam system can also detect things. Capture an item that you would like to buy and the lens will serve up a shopping list or show where to purchase the product online at the lowest price as well as recommendations for similar items. It can also perform image search and offers detailed information of landmarks such as buildings or statues.
AI Cam, on the other hand, analyzes subjects in the frame and recommends best shooting mode among eight categories- portrait, food, pet, landscape, city, flower, sunrise, and sunset. It also recognizes things in front of the camera and labels them. Bright Mode is designed to improve low-light photography as it brightens the image automatically. “This AI feature uses algorithms to brighten images by a factor of two for better-looking photos without the noise”, says LG.
LG’s Voice AI works alongside Google Assistant and allows users to change settings and run apps using their voice. LG has added a total of 32 LG-exclusive commands of which 9 are new, to the V30S for tasks like opening the camera app, capture a wide-angle photo, taking a selfie, image search, shopping search, and more. It eliminates the need to search through menu options and allows for direct selection of specific functions.
In terms of specifications, the smartphone sports 6-inch QHD+ (1440×2880 pixels) FullVision OLED display that comes protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on top and supports the HDR10 standard. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 octa-core (four cores @ 2.45GHz & four cores @ 1.9GHz) SoC paired with Adreno 540 GPU and 6GB of RAM. It comes with 128GB internal storage which can be expanded further up to 2TB via MicroSD card. There is also a 256GB internal storage model as I’ve mentioned earlier called LG V30S+ ThinQ.
LG V30S ThinQ features dual camera setup consisting of one 16MP standard-angle lens with f/1.6 aperture, 71-degree field of view, 1/3.09-inch sensor size, 1.0-micron pixel size, glass camera lens, and OIS+ (optical image stabilization) and EIS (electronic image stabilization) and one 13MP wide-angle lens with f/1.9 aperture, 120-degree field of view, 1/3.4-inch sensor size, and 1.0-micron pixel size. Both camera sensors come paired with LED flash, PDAF (phase detection autofocus) + LDAF, HDR, camera modes like Manual Mode, Food Mode, Panorama, and 360 Panorama, and on top there Corning Gorilla Glass 4 to protect the dual camera setup from damage. On the front side, it sports 5MP wide-angle selfie camera with f/2.2 aperture, 90-degree field of view, and selfie light.
It’s a dual-SIM (hybrid) smartphone that comes packed with non-removable 3300mAh battery and supports Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging technology. The device also supports wireless charging and on the connectivity front, it includes 4G LTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, GPS/ A-GPS, Bluetooth v5.0, FM Radio, NFC, USB Type-C v3.1, and 3.5mm audio jack. Sensors on the smartphone include proximity, accelerometer, gyroscope, ambient light, and magnetometer.
Don’t complain! We copied last three paragraphs from our LG V30+ report because nothing’s changed in the hardware department of LG’s latest smartphone V30S ThinQ except for RAM and 256GB internal storage model.
LG claims that V30S ThinQ is still “the thinnest and lightest among smartphones with displays of 6 inches or more” just like the previous models- LG V30 and LG V30+. And like father like son, LG V30S ThinQ also comes with an IP68 rating for water (up to 1 meter for 30 minutes) and dust resistance and also MIL-STD 810G for shock resistance. It also supports Google’s Virtual Reality platform called DayDream and packs SS Sabre ES9218P digital-to-analog converter and Master Quality Audio (MQA) decoding powered by 32-bit HI-FI Quad DAC to produce great audio experience. It runs UX 6.0+ UI based on Android 8.0 Oreo and comes in two color options- Moroccan Blue and Platinum Gray.
