LG Unveils Smartphone With Dual Camera, Virtual-Reality Set

LG’s flagship phones have always boasted a removable battery and expandable storage and the G5 is no different.

Featuring a modular design that will allow users to boost the camera and audio functions of the device, which the company says allows for a better all-round mobile experience, the LG G5 also features a slide-out battery than can be replaced when worn out.

The LG 65 comes with 4GB LPDDR4 RAM and 32GB of internal storage which can be extended upto 2TB via microSD card.

LG Hi-Fi Plus, built in collaboration with Bang and Olufsun, is a high-resolution DAC audio player, allowing the smartphone to play back 32-bit 384KHz high-definition audio.

I’ll be honest and say that while LG has managed to pique my interest more over the past few years, I can’t remember the last time I was this impressed with a flagship.

But the thing we were most interested in seeing is the new slot, which can be accessed by removing the LG G5’s bottom part. It looks like AT&T and Sprint will have all four color variants of the G5 – Silver, Gold, Titan, and Pink – while Verizon is going to offer only the Titan and Silver ones. The LG CAM Plus has physical buttons for power, shutter, record, zoom, LED indicator and comfortable grip. Thanks to this technology, the Always-on Display requires only 0.8 percent of the battery’s full capacity per hour to operate. We’ll let you know when we get our hands on a review unit.

The battery has been decreased to just 2,800 mAh, but I don’t expect to see any decrease in battery lifetime, as the display is also smaller and Android 6.0 Marshmallow is great at battery management. Presumably Google Cardboard is excluded from this claim, though the 360 VR is compatible with Cardboard content and 360-degree images and videos captured with the LG 360 CAM. The 135-degree lens on the LG G5 offers a viewing angle that is approximately 1.7 times wider than those of existing smartphone cameras and 15 degrees wider than the human eye’s field of view.

A 16-megapixel rear-facing camera will handle most of the G5’s photography, plus an 8-megapixel selfie shooter on the front.

These companion devices include virtual reality goggles, a 360-degree camera and a spherical rolling camera that can be used as a home monitoring device.

One of the other accessories the company plans to launch alongside the G5 is the LG Smart Controller. The first is the LG 360 VR headset, which can be connected to the G5 via a dedicated cable and works exclusively with the G5 to simulate a 130-inch TV viewed from two metres away.

LG has switched to a non-removable, sealed fully metal back for the rear of the G5, with a fingerprint sensor that’s largely reminiscent of the circular one on the rear of LG’s own Nexus 5X and the Huawei Nexus 6P.