LG Wing Review – Specific, but unique
to make do with a somewhat slow soc in relation to the price, and a somewhat mediocre speaker.
Pros
- Beautiful design with smooth sliding mechanism
- Well-developed smartphone concept
- Nice camera for video makers
- Although niche, there are many applications conceivable for the two screens
Cons
- Battery life on the low side
- Little specific support for dual screen use
- Lack of high end soc
- Mediocre speaker
We have often seen in the past that manufacturers who have yet to make it in the smartphone market come up with greater innovations than manufacturers who already have a significant market share. When we still celebrated circle birthdays, for example, we sometimes heard that Apple would no longer be so innovative and we were asked why. In general, you can say that successful manufacturers try to find a balance between innovations and improvements to existing products. From the manufacturer’s point of view, this is quite logical, because if you innovate enormously, there is a chance that your reputation will be damaged. New technology sometimes does not yet work perfectly or the applications for it are still scarce.
A manufacturer that does not yet have such a large market share usually wants to show that it is at the forefront of developments. This will give you a reputation for innovation and hopefully that innovative reputation will lead people to buy other products from the brand. An example is ZTE, which often comes up with new technologies, such as the ZTE Axon 20 5G: the first phone with a front camera behind the screen. You can also think of Nubia, which released the Z20 last year , with a screen on the back. Manufacturers who have been around for a longer period of time release these kinds of daring products less often, which usually do not sell very well either.
LG does, however, and has been for quite a long time. For example, do you remember the Optimus 3D, which allowed you to create and view 3D content without glasses? Another example of a wild product is the flopped LG G5 where you could take off the bottom so you could put modules on it. Last year we got our hands on the LG G8X ThinQ , which you can snap an extra screen onto so you’re holding a book of sorts in your hands.
Sturdy wings
With the Wing, LG further elaborates on the idea of two screens in one smartphone. The nice thing is that in this case you do not see from the front that it is a smartphone with two screens. However, the 6.8″ screen you see on the front can be rotated clockwise, making it horizontal. A smaller 3.9″ square screen appears below it. In both cases, it is an OLED screen with Gorilla Glass 5 on it.
The system feels surprisingly sturdy. There is a hydraulic damper on the mechanism, which slows down the last bit of unfolding. This will probably extend the life of the hinge. On the back of the screen that folds away is a subtle tactile structure that increases grip. That is one of the details that show that this smartphone has been well thought out and that the design has been well worked out.
The smooth plastic edge around the screen is another smart detail. The sliding screen slides over that, which is what makes it feel so smooth. Due to small raised edges, there is little space between the two parts, but there is no brush or the like in between, as with the hinge of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 5G. As a result, sand can still get in, but that will not easily damage the screen, because of the raised edges.
Of course, you will be able to break the hinge if you try at all. It remains a moving part. However, we are confident that it will not simply break down under normal use. If we try to move it beyond horizontal, the hinge won’t budge. The hinge mechanism therefore consists of two metal parts, with springs that provide pressure and counter pressure so that the screen remains neatly straight.
The rest of the housing also feels sturdy. There is no waterproof rating, but there is a water repellent coating over the pcb. Seals have also been placed to keep water out. However, due to the sliding mechanism, this is not a waterproof smartphone. If it were a regular smartphone that doesn’t consist of two parts, we certainly wouldn’t spit on the design. The camera island does not protrude far from the device and is nicely transparent. The buttons feel nice, but are unfortunately a bit difficult to reach when the primary screen is folded horizontally. You then touch the back of the screen with your fingers when you want to press the buttons. Another point of criticism is that the device is very top-heavy when the screen is open. You can easily drop it because of that.
Winged Applications
When the screen is flipped sideways from standby, both screens turn on. Above is the screen called Twist Home. You will see apps that work with the two screens at the same time. There are two ways that works. The first is that one screen displays content from an app and the other the operation of that app or, for example, a keyboard. That could be YouTube, for example, where interface elements never have to be visible with the video itself. The same also works with LG’s photo gallery app, but not with the Google Photos app, for example. Video editing is also something that makes a nice application with LG’s fine editing mode. In the game Asphalt 9 you can see the overview of the circuit on the second screen, which is useful. However, there are virtually no games that use the second screen.
So the support is limited, which is not surprising. After all, LG is not a huge player in the smartphone market. That is also the reason that this device only serves a niche, no matter how well it works. But who knows, the concept of this phone will catch on and more and more developers will start working with applications. The message, however, is: don’t count on a huge number of developers preparing their apps for this Wing.
Still, that’s not the end of the world. The second way you can use the two screens is to put a different app on each screen. And you don’t need developers for that. Apps generally scale surprisingly well to the square screen. You can create shortcuts yourself, consisting of two apps. They then start at the same time when you tap the link. A handy combination that we can imagine people would want to use is video calling while you do something else random on the other screen. Navigating on one screen and controlling music or a podcast on the other screen is also useful in practice when you are driving. And of course you can also chat while you are watching Netflix. The second screen can also serve as a touchpad, where you see a mouse cursor on the other screen. The possibilities are enormous, although most usage scenarios are not for everyone.
We ourselves encountered a number of things in our time with the Wing that we would do with some regularity if we were to use the device as a daily telephone. One is editing videos. As usual, LG focuses on making videos, as you will read later in the camera section of this review. Those videos are easy to edit with the controls on the second screen. The photo gallery feature is also a favorite, as you can view photos in their full glory while keeping the overview of your gallery. We would also use navigation in the car regularly, because now we often have to switch between our podcast app and navigation app, for example, which is not nice while driving.
The flying gimbal
Our winged friend has another interesting feature and it shows up when we start the camera with the screen folded sideways. This is Gimbal mode. You can see the controls on the small screen and what you’re filming on the primary screen. In the middle is the stick that you also find on real gimbals. There are no moving parts in the Wing, so you simply change the crop on the 12MP sensor this way. This camera has six-axis stabilization and an ultra-wide angle of 120 degrees.
This is by far the most interesting camera and mode of the LG Wing, although dual recording is probably also a great addition for some people. You can record simultaneously with the front camera and 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera, which is useful for vloggers, for example. However, Gimbal mode is unique to smartphones. The tutorial is very nice and clear. There is a Pan Follow mode, a Follow mode and a first person perspective mode. The latter stabilizes, but you are otherwise free to tilt the camera. With the Follow mode, the idea is that you don’t tilt the camera, but that you make tight shots on the horizontal or vertical axis. The Pan Follow mode focuses on pan shots, so horizontal.
This camera is not very bright, but in good lighting conditions – or with the very bright flash on – you can take very tight shots in the Gimbal mode. The stabilization is very good. The maximum resolution is 1080p@30fps, which part of the target group of this smartphone will probably find too low. With the stick you can make limited panshots, because you quickly reach the edge of the sensor. So you will have to do the rest yourself with an arm movement, but fortunately the stabilization does its job well. You can see that for yourself in the examples below, and also that the Gimbal mode is not worth much in poor lighting conditions. Incidentally, LG is honest about this, because you will receive a notification about this during the tutorial. In good lighting conditions, the video quality is fine, but we do miss detail,
Since the screen rotates, a front camera in the screen is not a useful option. That’s why the Wing has a pop-up camera. There are three cameras on the back, with the top one serving for Gimbal mode. Below that is the primary camera, which has a 64MP Quad Bayer Isocell Plus sensor and a Quad Bayer filter, which takes 16MP photos as standard. Below that is a second ultra-wide-angle camera that has 13 megapixels, an f/1.9 aperture and an excellent angle of view of 117 degrees.
The photos taken by the primary camera have fairly neutral colors. They contain relatively little noise and the dynamic range is quite good. The improvement over the LG G8X ThinQ is significant in this area, especially in lower light. There is also usually more detail in the dark areas. This also applies in less good lighting conditions, although there are better smartphone cameras on the market for this money.
The ultra-wide-angle camera has a smaller dynamic range and does a lot less well in the dark. We’ve come to expect that from these types of cameras, so we’re not too shocked, but the difference from the top of the market is greater than with the primary camera. Fortunately, unlike many other manufacturers, LG has also made night mode available with the ultra-wide-angle camera. Both with and without night mode, the Wing’s ultra-wide-angle shots are improved over those of the G8X ThinQ.
We’ve snapped some photos with the LG Wing and LG G8X ThinQ from last year to show LG’s progress. From the picture of the painting, we use the ultra-wide-angle cameras, and the last pictures are from the front cameras. With the four photos of the garden, we first turned off the night mode and then turned it on.
Battery and hardware
The LG Wing has a battery capacity of 4000mAh. That is not a huge amount for a phone of this size, especially if you consider that the second screen also requires a lot of energy. However, when you look at it from the Wing’s design, it makes quite a lot of sense. The screen that folds away needs some kind of housing for strength, and that takes up space. Normally, the OLED screen of a smartphone is in the frame and the battery starts about afterwards. This Wing is a bit on the thick side, but it’s not too bad for a smartphone built like this. We can therefore imagine that it does not fit a much larger battery than this one. How does that affect battery life?
We tested the Wing with the screen folded. This is how you will probably use it most of the day; you only fold it out when it is convenient. The aircraft is not a high flyer, as can be expected. Still, it does better than we expected based on the design. In this list we have also included devices that often fall in the same price range and are also large. These are not the least devices in terms of battery life. Still, you have to keep in mind that it won’t last, especially if you use the Wing a lot with the second screen. The phone will then probably use about half as much energy.
Unfortunately, the load tests went wrong with the Wing, so we can’t show it. There is a 25W Quick Charge 4+ charger with the Wing and with that you should be able to charge the phone to at least about 35 percent in half an hour. There is also support for 13W wireless charging.
If we look purely at the hardware, the Wing with its Snapdragon 765G soc is somewhat ill-endowed in relation to the price level. Of course you pay for the special design and not so much for the fast hardware. In addition, we can imagine that space in this smartphone should be used sparingly and the Snapdragon 865 has a separate 5G modem that would take up extra space. This is integrated with the SD765G.
Still, we would just like to see the fastest Android soc of the moment in this device, because you want it to last a long time if you spend that much. We don’t have any complaints about delays, but heavy apps do of course start a little slower than on devices with an SD865. Furthermore, the Wing has UFS 2.1 storage, which is not the latest and fastest variant.
The optical fingerprint scanner is worth a mention as it’s been significantly improved over the one on the LG G8X ThinQ. It is a lot faster, although it is still not the fastest on the market. However, we could live with it just fine. The mono speaker at the bottom is a disappointment, because the volume is not very high and the sound quality is not up to standard.
Screen and software
The primary 6.8″ screen, which folds away, has a resolution of 1080×2460 pixels. This could of course be higher, but that would be at the expense of the battery life, so in our opinion this is sharp enough. It is also a p-oled screen and we don’t see that very often. The screen looks nice at first glance, with good viewing angles. The same goes for the square 3.9″ screen with a resolution of 1080×1240 pixels. The screens are well matched. We see no difference in color temperature or brightness.
The maximum brightness is fine. There’s an extra brightness setting, which is actually quite a smart idea. Many manufacturers determine the maximum brightness for you, but with the Wing you can decide whether you want that bit of extra brightness at the expense of battery life, apart from the automatic boost you get when you walk on the street in sunny conditions. The minimum brightness is also within the limits of what is pleasant in a darkened room. The color fastness could be a bit better, although many people will not notice without a reference.
LG’s Android skin is quite an intervention. We are not a big fan of it, but we have been walking around with it for a long time and we get used to it somewhat. Finding the right settings takes a while and sometimes the skin is visually a bit cluttered. The animations are a bit slow, making smartphones feel less fast. Nevertheless, the skin is well taken care of and we usually do not encounter any crazy mistakes. The tutorials are very good, like that of the Gimbal mode, and there’s a lot to set up. The skin has therefore been well thought out, whether you like it or not. The downside is that LG’s support is substandard, with at least two years of upgrades and updates .
Conclusion
Not only the unique concept of the LG Wing deserves a compliment, but also its good execution. This makes the housing and the hinge feel solid. Although it is more difficult to get the software right for this smartphone concept than with the LG G8X ThinQ with a second screen accessory, it is better executed. You also don’t have to bring a separate accessory with the Wing, so you actually use the second screen faster. Moreover, there are quite a few interesting applications to come up with, although this smartphone will only be interesting for a select group of people. If you like to make videos, the Wing certainly offers added value, thanks to the Gimbal mode.
Still, the concept is not perfectly executed. For example, we sometimes lose the content of the second screen for a while. However, LG itself is still not much to charge, because most of it works well. A bigger point – as is often the case with separate smartphone concepts – is the lack of support from developers. Because the Wing – also because of its price – will only be bought by a very small group of people, adapting an app for the Wing is not very interesting. That makes the aircraft somewhat paralyzed.
As a regular smartphone, the Wing generally performs reasonably well, although the battery life lags behind slightly, the speaker is disappointing and it lacks a high-end soc. Unfortunately, the software support isn’t great at LG either. However, it has great screens and the LG camera is a leap forward from last year, even though it doesn’t have a telephoto camera. So you sacrifice something for this special design, but you get something in return if this smartphone concept appeals to you. However, this is not the ideal form factor for a smartphone for everyone. For example, the device is extremely top-heavy if you hold it while it is unfolded. We are afraid that not a lot of smartphones will come out based on this concept, but we would like to see it, because with better app support there are still a lot of applications to explore.