LG is back and better than ever with the V40 ThinQ, a phone that’s a significant upgrade over the awesome V30 from last year. While LG released some iterative updates in the V30S and V35 this year, the V40 is the true successor to that phone, sporting the same Snapdragon 845 and 6GB of RAM found in the G7 and V35, along with 64GB of storage and microSD card support. While it’s got the same 3,300mAh battery as last year’s phone, LG is citing better battery life thanks to better battery usage and other factors, despite having a larger screen. This time around, we’re seeing a 0.4-inch increase in screen size, a 6.4-inch notched OLED display on the V40 versus the standard 6-inch display on the V30. That’s a taller 19.5:9 aspect ratio versus the 18:9 version on the previous generation, matching it with the G7 ThinQ released a few months ago, only with a higher quality OLED panel.
It’s got a notch up top, which is hidden by default and looks actually hidden since this is an OLED panel, as well as a slimmer chin at the bottom. LG’s OLED displays have improved significantly over the past year, and we’re seeing the results here. Brighter and cleaner than ever, this is a great looking display all around, with thinner bezels and everything else that goes with a great display. The body has gained a bit of weight this time around, but for good reason: it’s got the excellent Boombox speaker from the G7. This is a really, really good resonance speaker that adds significant depth to audio when placed upon a flat surface, especially something like a wood table, and just sounds great overall.
The phone is shipping with Android 8.1 Oreo, not Android 9 Pie, but is likely the result of LG needing extra time to tweak its skin to cope with the new design decisions from Google. The phone ships with that same Assistant key on the left side that you’ll find on the G7 as well, but the big deal here is that you can shut it off completely if you don’t want it instead of having to rely on hacky apps to work their magic. Much of the experience is an amalgam between the V35 and G7, hardware wise, but there’s something significantly new that’s going to set the V40 apart from every other device this year: a whopping 5 cameras are on-board for the show. Check out our preview below on YouTube, and don’t forget to subscribe to the channel!