LG Velvet hands-on: a fun dual-screen phone that’s not entirely gimmicky By Engadget

It's no secret that LG's been struggling with its smartphones for some time, but it's not giving up just yet. The Korean giant is betting on a new mobile strategy with the velvet, which is a little odd, given that it's actually a mid-range 5g phone we've managed to get hold of this Korean retail unit and I have to say I'm quite surprised by how much I like this phone, especially when I use it with the dual screen case. Let's take a closer look. The first thing you notice is that the velvet has this refreshing, look I'm a fan of this raindrop camera layout on the back, which looks cleaner than all those camera eyelids on most smartphones these days, the color I got here. Is this low-key new black, which gives the phone a nice glossy ceramic like finish? But if you prefer something more vibrant, there are other options as soon as I picked up. The velvet I was impressed by how slim and light it was especially for 5g phone of this size.

It's just seven point: nine millimeters, thick and 180 grams heavy, but we still get a generous six point. Eight-inch OLED screen. In fact, it's exactly the same screen as the flagship v60 as a bonus. The edges on the left and right sides are tapered to help make the velvet look even slimmer than it already is. Lg managed to achieve this by partner using Qualcomm snapdragon 765 G processor, which takes up less space by baking the 5g modem into the chipset.

Unfortunately, LG still had to make do with a forty-three hundred million power battery, which is a little small by today's standards. Still I think LG makes the right decision here. Keeping the velvet slim and light allows it to make a stronger case for LG dual screen design. This combo weighs 309 grants, which sounds rather heavy for a phone, but you have to bear in mind that the 360 combo comes in at 350 grams I'd. Much rather carry the velvet here, as for the case itself, it's not that different to the wines made for the v60 and the g8x.

The hinge holds well at any point between 0 and 360 degrees, so I can watch videos in laptop mode or tent mode when closed I can quickly peek. At the small display for notifications and I can even pick up caused directly by pressing the Google Assistant key here once more noise. Here is that if you want to use wide charging, you will have to use this magnetic USB, adapter. Otherwise, you'll have to rely on while it's charging of up to 10 watts, or you can just take the phone out. Lg has kindly ported all the dual screen features from the flagship v60 to the velvet.

My favorite one here is the ability to set multi app shortcuts, which let you launch to predefined apps on both screens with just a single tap for me, I often have YouTube on the left and either Facebook or Twitter on the right, so I have a few related shortcuts on the home screen. Lg also introduced some pre-made shortcuts, such as gallery camera gallery with cue member plus and HD audio record with humor plus. So these are all rather handy. Another nice dual screen feature is wide view which lets you stretch a single app across both screens. For now, this feature is only applicable to the core apps from Google and I find that it only makes sense with maps, photos, chrome and maybe Gmail you'll just have to bear with the wide gap between the two screens of course, and like before, while you're using the camera app in dual screen mode, you can view photos on the secondary screen while retaining the viewfinder on the main screen.

This may help you compose your next shot. Better. The rest of velvet is very much a mid-range device with a few premium features. I'll wait for you of the full list, but you do get an in display fingerprint reader, micros expansion, stereo speakers and ip68 protection against dust and liquids. Oh, and just like all the flagship phones from LG, you still get a headphone jack at bottom, but you do miss out on the quad DAC this time.

As for the cameras, I can't say, I was particularly impressed. The photos that came out from the 48 megapixel main camera and the 8 megapixel ultra-wide camera were over sharpened and details were lost, especially when taken indoors I suppose they're. Okay. For me to range phone, but then again, LG is facing tough competition these days. Luckily, my selfies came out fine from the 16 megapixel front camera and to LG's credit.

It does provide cool video recording features like ASMR, recording, voice, focusing and 4k time-lapse. Now, I'm, not sure if this has anything to do with the mid-range processor, but I did experience laggy scrolling on my velvet, and apparently I'm not alone. Hopefully this is something that LG can fix by a software update overall I do think the velvet makes a strong case for dual screen: smartphones, maybe more so than the chunky of v60. It's the next best thing to a foldable phone. At least you only have to pay $70 instead of say two thousand for the Samsung Galaxy fold, which is more fragile as well.

By the way, if LG could fix those touch issues and maybe even frame the dual screen cases for free, then the velvet could be a fun option. That's not entirely gimmicky. It's also headed to Europe and the US, so do keep an eye out for it at the shops. What do you think of the lg velvet and its dual screen case? Leave us a comment below and as always hit subscribe for latest tech news from any gadget. You.

Source : Engadget