LG has a “foldable” 5G phone but it’s not the one you want

Huawei had gotten a lot of attention with its foldable Mate X smartphone. It boasts insane 5G speeds with downloads of up to 4.6Gbps with its Balong 5000 modem. In the other corner, LG has also announced a “foldable” phone of their own with the LG V50 ThinQ 5G.

Essentially, the V50 ThinQ is an updated version of their V40 ThinQ. It gets a 6.4″ Quad HD+ OLED display and it runs on a newer Snapdragon 855 processor with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50 5G modem. The device has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage which is expandable via microSD.

To add more immersion and convenience, LG has added an optional dual-screen for the 5G device. This is actually a cover case that doubles up as a secondary 6.2″ Full HD+ OLED display which is kinda like ASUS ROG phone’s TwinView Dock accessory. The secondary display connects via Pogo Pins and it is powered from the phone itself.

With the V50 ThinQ 5G attached, this dual-screen setup can be used for gaming where the bottom screen is used for dedicated controls. It is also possible to run two independent apps at the same time. The dual-screen accessory can be tilted at 104 and 180-degree angles. It is surprising that LG has adopted this approach for a dual-screen experience considering it was executed almost 10 years ago with very little success. Even ZTE had a similar device and that didn’t go too far as well.

In the photography department, the rear gets a 16MP Super Wide + 12MP wide + 12MP telephoto cameras. Meanwhile, the front gets an 8MP + 5MP wide camera combo.

The V50 ThinQ 5G gets a 4,000mAh battery and it charges via USB-C. The battery capacity quite small for a 5G phone especially when it has two screens. The device also gets IP68 dust and water resistance as well as MIL-STD 810G certification.

According to LG, they will roll out their first 5G phone in partnership with 10 major telcos in markets where 5G is available. This will include the US, South Korea, Australia and several European countries.