Over the past couple of years, LG has focused on the idea of ultra-productivity for every user, not just the wealthy ones who can spend more than $1400+ of the latest folding devices.
After much soul-searching, LG just announced the LG Wing. It’s a dual-screen phone with a twist: the primary screen can rotate 90-degrees revealing a secondary display. Essentially, you can use the phone in landscape and portrait mode at the same time.
Previously, LG phones like the LG V50, LG G8x, LG V60, and LG Velvet either had an optional dual-display case, which is relatively bulky and made the dual-display configuration less portable and pocketable.
LG did advance user productivity with these phones but did so in arguably limited scenarios, mostly gaming, in my opinion. They were good phones but for a niche market
The LG Wing design breaks away from that. A lot of the friction experienced by previous LG dual-screen phones seem to have been successfully addressed with the swivel screen.
"IDEA IS INGENIOUS AND PRAGMATIC"The idea is ingenious and pragmatic: this could be LG’s breakout moment, as the LG Wing has a lot of the advantages of dual-screen or folding phones, but few of their downsides. It is thinner, more affordable (my estimate), and pretty much turns into a regular phone if you want it to.
I don’t think that LG has announced the pricing yet but the specifications and comparison with previous models show that the BOM (bill of material) will make LG very competitive in the productivity-phone market.
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G 5G + X52 5G Modem
- 8GB RAM / 256GB storage
- Primary display: 6.8-inch 20.5:9 P-OLED (2,460×1,080)
- Secondary display: 3.9-inch 1.15:1 G-OLED (1,240 x 1,080 / 419ppi)
- Triple rear camera: 64MP + 13MP (Ultrawide) + 12MP (Ultrawide)
- Pop-up selfie camera: 32 MP
- 4000 mAh battery
- 5 x 74.5 x 10.9 mm, 260g
We will dive deeper if we do a full review, but a couple of things in these specs caught my attention.
The phone is a little bigger than an iPhone Xs Max, so that gives you a rough estimate of its closed size. It is not small, but smaller than a dual -screen with a case, and smaller than some Foldable phones.
The system configuration is optimized for performance/cost. This means that LG is targeting a large audience and it’s a good indication that pricing will be sensible (hopefully).
The Snapdragon 765G 5G can easily handle most people’s use cases, including top-notch multimedia experience and a good 3D games performance. It is not the absolute highest performance, but it won’t bankrupt you.
The Primary and Ultrawide camera configuration is somewhat similar to the LG Velvet (we’ll have an update on this shortly), and sits in the Premium segment. We don’t expect it to compare with the absolute “killer cameras” out there, but it should provide a decent photo experience.
I’m not 100% sure that having two Ultrawide cameras is better than one ultrawide and one zoom, but we’ll have to see what the added-value is in the real world. There’s probably a good reason for doing so.
The selfie camera is a pop-up camera, so the display has no hole or notch, which is a good thing. I’m guessing that if you snap selfies all the time, waiting for it to come out could be annoying, but it wasn’t a problem for OnePlus and others, so LG should be fine on that front.
The last camera idea I want to mention here is the Gimbal (video stabilization) functionality. Apparently, LG has added extra motion-sensors to turn the LG Wing into a gimbal-like camera, with similar controls and user-experience.
The motion stabilization is done by software instead of a physical gyroscope and motors. It will be interesting to see how good it really is, but the idea is neat.
"RESONATES WITH A LOT OF MY OWN EXPERIENCES"The use cases for the LG Wing display are extremely down to earth, and that resonates with a lot of my own experiences, and perhaps yours. For example:
- I don’t like watching videos in portrait mode, but I also dont like holding the phone in landscape mode: solved
- I never liked using a keyboard in landscape mode (or wide screen): solved.
- You can still use the phone with a standard car holder and have the extra screen out: great!
- Notifications interrupt the main app: solved
- Etc
These are not “once in a while” use cases. These are things that I do every day or at least several times a week.
With the LG Wing, I feel like LG is onto something, and that design could be refined even further if there is popular support for this product.
I must hand it to LG: it is not an easy time for them in the mobile industry. But for the past two years, LG Mobile has consistently focused on the user experience (vs. new concept every. single. year) and came up with several iterations around that theme, which ultimately produced the LG Wing design.
Whether you like the brand or not, it is undeniable that the spirit of innovation is still there. Next: let’s see how it performs in the real world.
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