LG makes some wonderful phones. But why the company has let go of its marketing and now only trickles a phone or two into a country that’s the fastest growing market for mobiles is plain baffling. When newcomers are grabbing the opportunity the Indian market affords, an old timer is staying in the shadows. This has been the trend for some years now and it looks set to continue as the LG V40 Thinq all but tip-toes into India almost six months after its birth date. All that said, their phones are still very nice and have a number of strengths that they maintain — which is why I end up looking forward to reviewing them whenever they do come.

The V40 variant that arrived for me to look at reminds me of a silver fish. It has an interesting smooth metallic-looking back in a grey finish that catches the light nicely. Two logos, the camera assembly, and fingerprint sensor are the only things that adorn the back panel. This finish will ensure that no fingerprints smear themselves all over the phone, which is a nice refreshing change. The LG V40 is a good and premium-looking, well-built phone though caution is advised with slipperiness, as usual. It’s not very narrow and small hands could have trouble holding the device for long. It’s overall a large phone and its 6.4-inch display feels like one. It’s a nice screen, though it has a wide notch on top because it comes from an era before waterdrop notches became the norm. The lower bezel is thicker than the rest but that’s something many phones haven’t managed to work around. It’s otherwise an entirely flagship-level display.

You unlock the phone with the fingerprint sensor on the back and that works fast enough as it isn’t in-display or mapping in 3D. Face recognition and other methods are also there.

The V40 runs on last year’s top processor, the Snapdragon 845, which is still capable, with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage.

Underwhelming specs

These specs are easily available on phones that cost half as much. You have a memory card option, which will take up one of the two SIM slots but this probably won’t compensate for the less-than-flagship specs. There are hardware quirks such as a special button just for the Google Assistant and a squeeze feature again to trigger the assistant but this is overkill rather than being outright useful or necessary.

The software is one aspect on this phone that’s really difficult to warm up to. Everything is arranged in arbitrary categories making it more difficult rather than easier and intuitive to find things. It’s also filled with features and options that indeed do take a lot of digging through.There’s also something not quite refined and finished about the interface. On top of that, the phone is running Android 8.1, when now Android 9 Pie is gaining traction even on cheaper phones. Even the 3,300 mAh isn’t exciting considering the phone is expected to be used a lot for its cameras and audio.

Penta-camera

What the phone does have going for it is a set of five cameras that are rather fun to use, when put together with the camera app and its features. The primary cameras include a 12 MP standard lens, a 12 MP telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom, and a 16 MP wide-angle lens. There’s an interesting mode that lets you take a shot in all three modes with a one-button tap. As ever, there’s an AI camera mode if you want the phone to tamper with your photos. There are lots of different shooting modes when you browse around the camera app, in fact. In good light, the cameras work very nicely with very good dynamic range and colours and good detail. It’s not too bad in low light either. Something I particularly like is being able to shoot macros and that ability is available on the V40. Overall I find the results from these cameras very natural and pleasing. They also shoot good video in 4K at 30 fps and 60 fps for short videos. There’s optical stabilisation too .

In an ideal world, the V40 would exist in a marketplace that wasn’t teeming with sparkling new flagships with features that LG hasn’t yet caught up with on this phone, including the latest version of Android. In the real world, the V40 Thinq looks like last year’s flagship — which it is — but still costs more than people would be willing to pay. If you’re an LG fan though, you may not mind the compromises.

Price: ₹49,999

Pros: Good build and looks, stays clean, great display, IP68 rated, smooth performance, interesting camera set, Quad Hi-Fi DAC gives great audio, superior bundled headset

Cons: Unintuitive software, not on latest Android, competition is ahead on specs, heats up, too expensive considering the options, large for some

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