InLG V10
troduction
There's quite a lot to the LG V10 - a flagship, a phablet, a camera phone, a rugged phone, a Hi-Fi phone and the first of the new V-series. It's a feature-packed device and its signature feature is the secondary always-on display and a dual selfie camera.
Until recently, the LG G4 and the G Flex2 ruled LG's lineup as co-flagships, but now there is only one king. In our preview we described it as "G4 on steroids" and the longer we spend with the LG V10, the more we are convinced this is an apt description.
The secondary display is essentially one line above the main screen that can be left on 24/7 and serves for notifications and shortcuts. This is to the notification light as email is to Morse code - a much richer way to give you at-a-glance info of what happened since you last checked your phone.
We've seen secondary screens like this one before, but this is our first dual selfie camera. LG solved the problem of group selfies ('groufies') by adding a super-wide 120° camera, in addition to the standard 80° one. Many more of your friends can now fit into the shot.
The main camera is very impressive too, it features the most comprehensive set of manual controls we've ever seen on a mobile device. Even PureView Lumias and Samsung's smartphone/camera hybrids didn't have some of the settings available on the LG V10.
And then there's the fingerprint reader, the 32-bit Hi-Fi DAC and the premium headphones. Here's the short version of it, we'll do a deep dive into the top features of the V10 as soon as we're done with the intro.
Key features
- Main 5.7" Quantum display, QHD resolution (515ppi)
- Secondary 2.1" line display, 1,040 x 160px
- Stainless steel (316L) body and Dura Skin cover; shock-proof (MIL-STD-810G)
- 16MP main camera, 1/2.6" sensor, f/1.8 aperture; optical image stabilization and laser autofocus
- 2160p video capture, manual mic control
- Dual-selfie cameras: both 5MP, one with 80° lens, one with 120°
- Dual-core Cortex-A57 (1.82GHz) + quad-core Cortex-A53 (1.44GHz), Adreno 418, 4GB of RAM; Snapdragon 808 chipset
- Android 5.1 Lollipop with Optimus UI
- 64GB built-in storage plus microSD card slot
- Fingerprint sensor
- Cat. 6 LTE (300Mbps); Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac; Bluetooth 4.1; GPS/GLONASS; NFC; USB 2.0 • SlimPort 4K
- 3,000mAh battery; Quick Charge 2.0 (50% in 40 min)
Main disadvantages
- More powerful chipsets exist, a flagship should have gotten the best
- Rugged, but not water resistant
- The durable back cover not as premium as G4's leather covers
- Rather heavy, even for its size
The LG V10 provides a nice antithesis of the Galaxy Note5 and S6 edge+. Their sealed back compartments and glass backs (which double the chance of cracks when dropped) make them seem more vain than practical. Also, the Galaxy S6 edge+ does not use its dual-curved screen as a separate control like last year's Note edge did.
LG V10 in Luxe White and Opal Blue
LG issues a serious challenge to other makers on the camera and audio battlefields with the V10. The phone is also LG's first to feature a fingerprint reader since 2009's GW820 eXpo (not counting the Google-designed Nexus 5X).
Time to get started since there's a lot of ground to cover. The bodywork on the LG V10 is quite complex, the software section has to explain why you need a secondary screen and the camera section has a couple of new terms to introduce to the world of smartphone photography
Camera features
The LG V10 camera uses the same basic hardware as the G4. This means a 1/2.6" sensor with 16MP resolution (widescreen aspect ratio). It's behind a bright f/1.8 lens, which lets in 80% more light than G3's f/2.2 lens.
It's optically stabilized with optional digital stabilization when you're expecting a lot shaking. OIS will further help it in the dark, but the V10 has more tricks - Laser autofocus for fast, accurate focus locks and a color spectrum sensor that promises accurate color rendering even in tricky lighting situations.
The dual selfie cameras are quite interesting too, but let's focus on the main camera for now as there's plenty of ground to cover.
The LG V10 brings with it polished, advanced camera software that sets it apart from the G4. The Manual mode has extended to videos while the still photo mode learned new tricks.
It starts off with a manual White balance slider (with an Auto option), a Manual focus slider (with an Auto option), exposure compensation, ISO (50-2,700) and shutter speed (1/6,000s-30s). Along the top of the screen you get a histogram, along with other readings (very reminiscent of a DSLR screen) to guide you as you set up the settings.
Manual mode: note the histogram and all other informative readouts
You can enable RAW shooting with the JPG+RAW mode (there's no RAW only mode). This takes a bit longer to save the shot and it takes up more storage - it's about 7.5MB for JPG and 19MB for RAW. Good thing that the V10 comes with plenty of storage and you can expand it too.
The camera flash has a neat trick too - front and rear curtain sync. You may not have heard of those, but in capable hands they make a world of difference for low light shots. Basically, this setting controls whether the flash fires at the start or at the end of the exposure (important for multi-second exposures).
Using a tripod, we managed to drop the ISO to 50 and get a great shot of the city at night, while the close-by subject was illuminated by the flash. Rear curtain sync made quite a difference, it really helped to capture close-by subjects without overexposing them.
Rear curtain sync also makes a difference if you're trying your hand at light writing. With it, the light trails will follow the light, while the default mode shows light trails going ahead of the light.
The Manual video mode is hands-down the most flexible, advanced video shooting mode we've seen on a smartphone. You get to adjust the framerate - going from 1fps to 60fps - and the bitrate (High, Medium, Low).
The Directivity setting is unique. It puts you in control of what sounds the LG V10 will capture - ones ahead (in front of the main camera), your voice (in the direction of the selfie cams) or any balance of the two. This is great for narration in a noisy environment or the opposite - capture sound from the scene and ignore noise from your group.
You can also adjust the mic level. The Left and Right meters show the levels so you can immediately spot peaking. There's a wind noise filter you can toggle in windy environments too. You can even use a wireless Bluetooth mic to record sound like a pro.
The video camera manual settings are almost the same as those for photos, you don't get to adjust the exposure compensation though. The great news is that you can adjust the settings during video recording - this way you can, say, slowly bring something into focus.
Finally we get to the selfie cameras. One (the right one) has a fairly standard 80° lens, while the other one has a wide 120° lens. This makes a great difference in how much you can fit in the shot - LG says you'll never need a selfie stick again (which is just a crude way to capture more of the scene around you).
Samsung has a 120° Wide selfie mode on its phones, but they stitch three photos, kind of like a panorama and is much trickier to use. The LG V10 takes a 120° shot in one go, which makes it much better for group shots (you don't want people moving between multiple photos).
The selfie cameras don't do manual mode, but you are unlikely to need that either.
One fun mode to try is Multi-shot. It splits the frame into several segments and you capture separate photos for each one. The four-way split takes one 80° selfie, one 120° selfie and two shots with the main camera. There are other layouts, the simplest one is just main camera and selfie. We do wish we had a way to resize the segments or, say, take four selfie shots.
Snap mode does pretty much the same thing, except for video and the cameras work simultaneously. This can create a video with a narrow and wide views of you, plus one or two views of the scene ahead (since there is just one camera on the back, for it just copies the footage for the two by two mode).
Snaps also work great with just one camera at a time. Hitting the record button takes a short 3-second clip or you can hold the button for up to 60-seconds. Multiple clips add up on the timeline and you can switch the camera between takes. So you can do a narrow selfie to introduce the scene, then flip to the main camera, then a wide selfie and so on. When you have filled up the 60 second timeline (or even before), hit save to send that video to the gallery and start a new one.
Or you can use the Quick share button to immediately send out the last photo or video you too. Just tap the button that shows up with the share with last used app or tap the down arrow to pick an app from the list.
And if all that is too confusing, the Auto mode or even the Simple mode are great ways to quickly snap a photo without worrying much about settings or multi-camera angles.
Gallery needs RAW editing
The LG V10 brings a capable Gallery app, which compliments its serious camera department. The Memories feature automatically organizes photos by location and time, or you can view the images by Album or as a Timeline (by Day, Moth, Year and with pinch zoom to help you navigate).
DLNA is built into the app, so you can send photos to a compatible TV or pull them from a storage device or computer.
Then there's the cloud connectivity - Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive and T cloud are supported, though not Facebook or Flickr.
The gallery easily integrates with DLNA and cloud photo sources
For photo editing you get an Auto enhance button, basic color correction and cropping. Photos you shot in RAW format will get a DNG icon, unfortunately there are no advanced tools to edit those files on the phone itself, so you'll have to resort to your desktop computer for those or get a separate app from the Play store.
Basic photo editing options, nothing for RAW files
Video editing got more love, the Auto edit feature can take an unwieldly 16 minute/2GB video and trim it down to the 15 most exciting seconds. It will recognize people's faces and keep those parts of the footage, while discarding duplicate or blurry shots.
Video editing options.
You can do manual video editing too. Predefined styles quickly add background music and a color theme or you can select those manually. Also, you can slow down or speed up parts of the video to create a dramatic effect.
Music player
Like the gallery, the music player features DLNA and cloud integration making it easy to sync your music collection. And the LG V10 will take anything you throw at it - lossless FLAC and ALAC files as well as MP3s.
Now, MP3 offers lower quality than the lossless formats, but LG's software and 32-bit Hi-Fi DAC from ESS Technology promises to upsample your 16-bit/44.1kHz files to 24-bit/192kHz. This works for streaming audio too (which is usually worse than offline MP3s). Keep in mind this is more of a placebo effect - upsampling raises the bitrate but there's no way for it to add extra data and thus improve the quality. If you do have high-quality tracks the V10 will play them trouble-free though.
The music player features a Hi-Fi DAC that you enable from the notification area
Have you ever been annoyed at your music player because you can't get the volume right? You'll feel like Goldilocks with the V10, which offers 75 levels of volume so you can find one that's just right.
The app comes with a number of equalizer presets, including one dedicated to the Quad Beats headset you receive in the retail box. Hitting the Custom option gives you a manual 7-band equalizer to play with.
The first time you plug in a pair of headphones, the phone will tell you about the 32-bit DAC. Enabling it gives you the precise volume control as well as dials to change the left/right balance.
The LG V10 has built-in FM radio, though in some regions it has been disabled (it's not available on our unit, for example), so be sure to double-check.
Video player
There's no dedicated video player on the LG V10, you have to go through the gallery. The good news is that its DLNA capabilities come in handy if you have your videos stored on a compatible device. You can also manually load subtitles and customize their look (size and style).
The video player supports subtitles and QSlide
The Qslide shortcut moves the video into a small, floating window so you can keep watching as you use the phone. It's a handy way to reply to a message without hitting pause or keeping music videos going.
Audio output is nicely clean, but not very loud
The LG V10 produced perfectly clear output when connected to an active external amplifier - there wasn't a single one of its readings to be anything other than excellent. The volume wasn't particularly impressive, but it was still just above average so we certainly liked what we saw here.
Plug in a pair of headphones and you get some extra stereo crosstalk and a bit of intermodulation distortion. Both readings remain very good for the case though so the overall clarity is rather pleasing. Volume levels do drop a bit though and that means the V10 wouldn't be particularly comfortable handling high-impedance headphones. Those aside however, the LG flagship did a very good job here.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| LG V10 | +0.01, -0.03 | -93.3 | 93.3 | 0.0021 | 0.0098 | -93.0 |
| LG V10 (headphones attached) | +0.25, -0.10 | -93.1 | 91.9 | 0.0049 | 0.186 | -67.3 |
| LG G Flex2 | +0.01, -0.06 | -92.5 | 92.5 | 0.0031 | 0.012 | -91.5 |
| LG G Flex2 (headphones attached) | +0.03, -0.10 | -92.6 | 92.1 | 0.0027 | 0.387 | -60.1 |
| +0.05, -0.02 | -93.4 | 93.4 | 0.0018 | 0.0069 | -71.1 | |
| +0.15, -0.11 | -90.2 | 92.8 | 0.0031 | 0.139 | -59.9 | |
| +0.04, -0.04 | -94.0 | 94.0 | 0.0013 | 0.0064 | -72.0 | |
| +0.10, -0.04 | -94.0 | 93.9 | 0.0016 | 0.087 | -64.1 | |
| Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ | +0.02, -0.05 | -93.3 | 93.2 | 0.0017 | 0.0070 | -93.7 |
| Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ (headphones attached) | +0.03, -0.02 | -93.0 | 93.1 | 0.0058 | 0.038 | -58.3 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note5 | +0.04, -0.01 | -93.6 | 93.5 | 0.0024 | 0.0076 | -94.7 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note5 (headphones attached) | +0.02, -0.05 | -93.1 | 93.2 | 0.0023 | 0.030 | -84.1 |
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