LG’s latest flagship phone, the G7 ThinQ, packs some of the latest camera hardware and software tricks in its all-glass and metal body. Two out of three total sensors have seen an upgrade from the LG V30S ThinQ’s release just last month, with upgrades to the secondary sensor on the back and the selfie camera on the front. On the front you’ll find an 8-megapixel camera with f/1.9 107-degree angle lens, and on the back you’ll find identical 16-megapixel Sony IMX 351 sensors, one behind an f/1.6 71-degree angle lens, and the other behind an f/1.9 107-degree angle lens. This wide-angle camera is a more narrow field of view (FoV) when compared to the LG V30 or last year’s LG G6.
The biggest upgrade is probably in that wide-angle sensor, which is not only a megapixel jump at 16-megapixels, compared to 13-megapixels on the V30 and G6, but also the fact that this sensor supports what’s called “pixel binning.” Pixel binning is a method of virtually combining pixels by lowering the resolution of the image to effectively take in more light, and what a huge difference this can make on that wide angle lens. Previous LG phones with wide-angle lenses suffered from dark shots when the lighting gets dim, but this time around LG has significantly upped the game with lower light photography on this particular sensor. Since the main sensor is also the Sony IMX 351, it too supports pixel binning, just as the V30S ThinQ and the V30 with its Oreo update does.
The front-facing camera has received an upgrade and a downgrade at the same time, starting with the upgraded sensor. This larger sensor also features a higher megapixel count, and paired with the excellent soft flash methodology on the camera software, produces fantastic images in any light. The downgrade is in the lens, which features a much more narrow angle when compared to last year’s devices; an unfortunate change that’s likely to annoy some folks, as you can’t fit nearly as many things in the shot as you used to be able to on LG phones. What do all these changes add up to? Find out in our video below, and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest as it drops!