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00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So LG just announced their V40 ThinQ, their new five-camera
00:09flagship phone, and I've only had mine for a couple days, but I thought I'd give some
00:12early impressions on this device. The main feature about this thing is the five cameras.
00:17There's three cameras in the back, two cameras up front, and the three in the back have three
00:21different zooms. So there's your standard lens, a zoom lens, and then a wide angle.
00:25So LG's two-camera phones usually have a standard and then a wide angle. That's kind of what
00:30made LG's phones unique in the sense that they just had, instead of a zoom lens, they
00:34would have a wide angle to kind of give you a wider perspective of whatever you're shooting,
00:38which I've always liked, but they've now added this third lens, a zoom lens, so now this
00:41camera has a huge gamut of focal lengths to choose from when you take photos. The other
00:46thing is they actually have a triple shot function, so when you take a photo, you can
00:49preview all three lenses at once. You can kind of choose which focal length you prefer.
00:54So obviously having three camera lenses isn't super useful for everybody, but it's something
00:58that allows you to just kind of compose your shots a little bit better. I'm not a huge
01:02photographer, but there's one thing I'll say for sure. If you're ever taking a photo, instead
01:06of just moving up and moving away from your subject to kind of reframe or just kind of
01:11compose your shots better, this just makes it a lot more easier and convenient.
01:16The other two of the five cameras are for the front-facing camera, so you can have your
01:19regular selfie or kind of a wider angle selfie, which I'm assuming is for group selfies and
01:24stuff like that. Now, I never thought I'd see the day where I would think that having
01:29five cameras was useful, and realistically speaking, this is not something that I think
01:33everyone should be aiming for, and I feel like some of the phones out there are just
01:36over the top in terms of camera count, but with these particular cameras, the three in
01:39the back and the two up front, it just makes sense. It's not useful for everybody, but
01:43at least there's utility for every single one of those cameras.
01:46Another feature on the V40 is what they call CineShot. It's basically a cinegraph-making
01:51function, and you take a video, mask out the section that you want to keep moving,
01:55and now you've created a cinegraph. My experience with this particular application wasn't amazing,
02:00it was difficult to use, and it's not something that looks particularly amazing. Like, if
02:04you've seen cinegraphs that are made by more professional software, you can get stuff that
02:07looks amazing, like Peter McKinnon has a really cool tutorial on how to make this stuff. They
02:11can look incredible, but you're somewhat limited as to how good they look coming out of the
02:14V40. The other thing you have to keep in mind is that there are applications out there,
02:18like if you have another phone that's not the V40, there are apps out there that can
02:22simulate this process as well, so it's not like this is the only way to create cinegraphs
02:26on your phone. There are apps that can do what this thing has built in.
02:30The audio hardware on the V40 is strong again this year, as you would expect. It's got that
02:3432-bit DAC, it's got a headphone jack, obviously, and they include some headphones in the box.
02:39The speaker is, unfortunately, a mono speaker. It's something I didn't expect because so
02:43many other flagships this year are now running stereo speakers. This is still running a mono
02:47speaker. It is running the Boombox technology that they've carried over from the LG G7,
02:51so they basically use the empty space inside the device as a resonance chamber to amp up
02:56the bass. It does sound like stronger bass, but because it is a mono speaker, you are
03:00limited as to, like, the overall sound quality. It's loud, and the bass is relatively clean,
03:06but it's still a mono speaker. So, the way that I've noticed that is that if you use
03:09this just, like, to fill a room with sound, it's not bad, but if you're just using it
03:13as personal audio, it's still coming from that one side, and that's, well, that's something
03:18I don't love. The screen this year is a 6.4-inch, 1440p OLED panel, and it looks really nice.
03:24It looks better than the G7 screen for sure. That's an IPS panel. This has a kick-ass OLED
03:28panel. Unfortunately, it has a notch. It's not a big notch, but it's still a notch. You
03:33can hide it in software, and because it's an OLED panel, the blacks match relatively
03:36well, but in the back of your mind, you still know that it has a notch. Now, it doesn't
03:39bug me that much. I'm used to notches at this point, but for people that just really
03:43dislike notches, it has one. The bezels around the device are also not super thin, like we've
03:48seen other devices out there that have thinner bezels, and same with the chin, not super
03:52thick, but it is there. I do think that the screen overall looks really nice, though.
03:56It's got great viewing angles. It's everything you'd expect from a high-quality OLED panel.
04:00Okay, this device comes at a steep price, though, and I think that is the kind of overwhelming
04:06problem with the V40. Not that it's a problem with the phone, but it's more of a problem
04:10with the timing of their launch. This goes for $900, and it's near the end of the year,
04:15or at least it's the fall of 2018. If this device came out in the spring, I mean, that's
04:19not when the V phones launch, but if it had come out then, it would have been very price
04:23competitive with all the kind of like spring launch phones, but because we have so many
04:27comparable devices on the market right now, and some of them have dropped down in price
04:30because of their launch timing, it's difficult for people to look at this phone and be like,
04:35okay, this is the phone that is worth the $900. Not that it's a bad phone, it's just
04:40the timing of its launch. Personally, I think there's two main features on this thing that
04:44make it really unique. The five cameras, particularly that triple shot on the back, and the high-quality
04:49audio from the 32-bit DAC. So, if you're someone that's interested in music and high-fidelity
04:53audio, definitely check out this phone. There are some other unique features, like the Google
04:57Assistant launcher, like it's a dedicated button, which we've seen on the G7, and just
05:02the kind of form factor of this thing is not common, but those two main features are
05:05what you should be kind of looking for if you're going to purchase this phone, because
05:09it's relatively expensive. I think it's a good phone, I just wish it was released earlier
05:14this year. Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you
05:16loved it. See you guys next time.