The LG V10 and revamped Watch Urbane were quietly announced last night in Seoul. One is an Android-powered smartphone with dual front cameras and a second screen, while the other is the company’s first cellular-enabled Android Wear smartwatch.
The LG V10 is a slightly different product for LG. On the inside, it’s like any other Android-powered smartphone: it features a Snapdragon 808 processor, 5.7-inch QuadHD display, 4GB of RAM, and a 3,000 mAh battery pack. But it also boasts some extra hardware and software features that are firsts for LG.
First off is the Second Screen, which is exactly as it sounds: an inset display that rests above the main 5.7-inch display. It can be set up to display information like the weather, time, and battery life, or, when the main screen is on, it can serve as a launcher for your favorite apps. It can also be used as a discrete area for notifications when you’re in a full-screen application, so that whatever you’re doing on the main screen isn’t interrupted to notify you of a missed call from Mom, for instance.
The V10 also features dual front cameras. Rather than equip the phone with a wide-angle lens, the V10 features two 5-megapixel front-facing cameras that can capture a standard 80-degree selfie or a 120-degree one. LG adds that the V10 “employs a sophisticated software algorithm to combine images from the two separate lenses, which are just far enough apart to provide two different pints of view.” The two front-facing cameras can also be used to record video in multi-view.
Lastly, the V10 offers complete manual video controls. You can adjust the shutter speed, frame rate, ISO, white balance, and focus while you’re recording video. LG was one of the first smartphone-makers to offer manual settings for still photos on the G4, though there’s no word if the manual video controls will come as a software update to its flagship release.
The LG Watch Urbane Second Edition is the second iteration of the Watch Urbane, and the first Android Wear watch to offer standalone cellular connectivity. You can connect the watch via 4G, 3G, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
Inside, it has all the standard makings of an Android Wear smartwatch: a 1.38-inch P-OLED display, a Snapdragon 400 processor, and 4GB of onboard storage, for music and things. However, LG bumped up the RAM to 768MB, which should help the smartwatch a bit with performance. The battery pack has also been increased to 570mAh, no doubt because of the cellular connectivity.
Both devices will be available in the US and Korea very soon. We’ll be going hands-on with both products later today, so stay tuned!