Re White

Design

LG dropped the previous rugged design in favor of a G5-inspired shell and you can tell the V20 is a beauty right away. The tiny chin at the bottom may confuse someone that the modular experiment is doing another spin, but its not the case.

The V20s shell isnt an unibody, but it sure looks like one. Everything that is not screen glass is made of AL-6013 aluminum alloy, which is reportedly used in boats and planes. The material is tough, as is the frame around the V20s chassis, so the phone has similar military shock resistance compliance as its V10 predecessor.

LG V20

There are, of course, two tiny plastic strips around the top and bottom to hide the antennas, but we are used to seeing these everywhere these days. The aluminum back panel between those is fully removable as is the battery itself.

Removing the battery is easy

There is a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor at the back, which also doubles as a home and power key - just like it did on the V10. Above is a tiny camera hump, housing the two sensors and the flash.

A closer inspection on the phablets sides reveals nothing out of the ordinary - the two volume keys are on the left, the top has the secondary mic and the IR blaster. The bottom houses the USB Type-C port flanked by the audio jack, the loudspeaker grille and the primary mic.

A peek around the sides of the V20

The front is quite interesting - the 5.7" inch is as flagship grade as it gets with top-notch resolution, great contest, colors, and sunlight legibility. Right above it is the secondary screen, which is wired separately and is independent from the main one. This allows the tiny fella to be very efficient, even though its always on. It should cost you just below 5% of your battery capacity per day which is quite acceptable.

A look at the front and its two displays

The secondary display is a tad longer than the V10s and LG doubled its brightness (68 nits). The new unit also supports longer signature of 24 digits (vs 14 at V10). The number of notification icons and the clock is the same. It can still show Info (time, weather, appointments, in-app controls), recent apps and app shortcuts, quick tools or simply your signature.

Popping the battery cover is easy as is removing the battery itself. LG says its focus was towards the users who are used to swap battery and have tried to make the experience smooth for them.

Handling the LG V20 is a pleasure - the phone is about 50g lighter than the V10, and you can tell it right away. The new material feels premium and the new shape suits it great. Operating with the V20 is a flagship experience itself, even before you dig into testing the power of its Snapdragon 820 beast inside.

The V20 next to the Galaxy Note7

Camera

The LG V20 has the same camera setup as the LG G5 - a 16MP (f/1.8) camera accompanied by a secondary wide-angle 8MP (f/2.4) fixed-focus snapper for 135-degree shots.

The V20 inherits all the G5 goodies, like Laser and Phase-Detect Auto Focus, Advanced OIS and the Color Spectrum sensor, but now has focused on improving another important area - stabilization.

The V20 offers Steady Record 2.0 system for its video capturing in addition to the optical stabilization - the phone is the first to offer Qualcomms proprietary (EIS) video stabilization based on gyroscopes. And it also offers image stream analysis (DIS) for tracking a moving object and stabilizing the video by the objects line of movement. It is also capable of minimizing objects the distortion, which is a problem with the wide angle snappers.

LG V20 is also capable of capturing lossless audio with its videos at 24bit/48kHz, which should also be able to record loud sounds of up to 132dB distortion free. According to LG such sound levels are louder than concerts and can rarely occur naturally, but football fans can occasionall y get there when cheering their favorite team.

The selfie cam is now a single 5MP camera with f/1.9 lens but it can still take either normal or wide angle images just like the V0 did with its dual selfie camera setup. We still have to hear how LG has managed to pull this one off.

As for the camera performance, we snapped a few camera samples at the venue with all three cameras.

Here are a few 16MP images from the main camera:

LG V20 16MP camera samples

And here are a few shots we snapped with the wide 8MP rear camera:

LG V20 8MP wide shost

And finally, two 5MP selfies - one regular and one wide photo. We dont know how LG managed to achieve this, but the (single) camera is capable of snapping both photos at the same time. There is no quality loss at the regular one which means there is no cropping involved. But the magic behind this doesnt really matter - the important thing is we are quite happy with the results.

LG V20 5MP selfies

Unfortunately, we werent able to shoot any video samples.

Audio

The audio department has always been a highlight at LGs flagships and the V20 is no exception. The phone comes with four DACs for very clear sound; it offers 75-step fine volume and independent L/R balance control. It supports lossless playback and is B&O Play-tuned. Even better - the phone comes with B&O Play headphones bundled in its retail box on some markets.

B&O logo on the back • the B&O Play headphones

Since LG upgraded the mics for the video recording, you can also record high-definition lossless sound (24 bit/192kHz FLAC) with the Sound Recorder.

First impressions

LG V20 seems like a worthy upgrade over its V10 predecessor. Instead of focusing on just one or two improvements, LG worked hard to upgrade pretty much every major feature within the V10 and bring the best the market can offer with the V20.

And judging by our first meeting with the LG V20 - the company did it. There is new eye-catching design, new premium body yet as tough as before, new hardware, new camera, new audio chip, battery bump, and even the secondary screen got an upgrade.

The V20 will be hitting the store this month starting with the USA and Korea. Stay tuned for our full-blown review in the upcoming weeks.