- Hey guys, this is Austin.
If you're really into smartphones,
you've probably heard of the LG V Series of phones.
However this year they're doing
something a little different.
This is a pre-production model
of the LG V30.
Pre-production is a key word here,
as LG sent out an early version
of the V30 to take a look at.
So some things will definitely change,
most notably a lot of the software stuff.
But it should give us a good look
at what the phone will be like
once it actually hits shelves.
Put the V30 side by side with the G6 as well as the S8,
and it's actually a pretty big jump in design.
So not only does it have smaller bezels than the G6,
but it also is a little bit more curved
both on the edges as well as on the sides of the display.
Very much similar to what Samsung is doing with the S8.
The V30 is rocking a 6 inch 2880 by 1440 P OLED display.
Now Samsung has kind of been on top
of the smart phone screen game for a couple of years,
but the V30 is right there,
which makes sense.
LG has been making OLED TVs for a few years,
so it's only natural for that tech
to trickle down to the V30.
Hey guys, this is Austin.
Today I'm here in New York City
for the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy Note 8.
While the speaker isn't exactly amazing,
it's just a single one on the bottom of the device,
the screen really does look nice.
So the only issue here is that because
this is a smartphone in 2017
with essentially no bezels,
it's actually a slightly awkward looking
18 by 9 aspect ratio.
For most content this is no problem.
But when it comes to video,
that means you actually have some
small black bars on either side of the video.
The design looks really nice
and also very similar to the Galaxy Note 8.
That is certainly not a bad thing.
So this guy's rocking an all glass and metal build,
with Gorilla Glass 5 on front and back.
But what it doesn't have
is a stupidly-placed fingerprint sensor.
It's right here in the middle,
and it doubles as the power button.
Good job LG.
It also has IP 68 water resistance,
which means that it should be able to survive
in a meter and a half of water
for up to 30 minutes.
Just like the Galaxy S8, the iPhone 7.
It's a fairly standard spec on smartphones these days,
but it's something that you really should expect
when you're paying this much for a phone.
Not only does it have a USB-C port
as well as the speaker on the bottom,
but importantly it also has a headphone jack on top.
Spec-wise, it's exactly what you would expect
out of a 2017 flagship.
So it's rocking a Snapdragon 835 processor,
four gigabytes of RAM,
either 64 or 128 gigs of storage,
and that is backed up with a micro-SD card slot.
The only thing that's a little bit of an unknown
right now is the battery life.
So to be fair, it has a pretty decently-sized
3300 milliamp powered battery.
Right in there with stuff like the Galaxy Note 8
as well as the S8 Plus.
However, because this is pre-production,
it's hard to say too much about that just yet.
Now for someone who has a lot more
perspective on the V30 is Wes,
our resident cinematographer and colorist,
which sounds super cool.
- That's a fancy title.
- So you've been playing with V30,
but you actually have experience
with the earlier V Series phones.
- Yeah, I've actually been on
that gravy train since the V10.
(Austin laughs)
What initially kind of drew me to the V Series
is it's definitely a little more utilitarian.
- [Austin] Yeah.
- And for me as someone that,
when I'm out on the field,
on a set I like the idea of,
I just carry a second battery.
I swapped it and I go. - Yeah.
Have you listened to the headphone jack yet?
Dude, that is legitimately really impressive.
So come down, you actually
had to turn on the DAC?
We were testing yesterday, we did not do that.
- [Wes] Yeah, so there's actually a Hi-Fi Quad DAC option
that enables the higher processing.
- [Austin] What if you disable it, what happens?
- It just becomes a little quieter, a little flatter.
I don't know, that's why I can't go away
from having a headphone jack.
- Yeah.
- For me, I just really love music and
having that sort of quality just in my pocket.
- Yeah.
- Even if I'm in an airport or something,
just putting in my earbuds and pumping
something like that, it's just cool.
- As far as the cameras go,
LG was one of the first to embrace dual cameras,
and the V30 is no exception.
So in addition to a 16 megapixel standard shooter,
it also has a 13 megapixel wide angle camera.
So for example, this is what a standard shot looks like.
And then when we switch over to the wide angle camera,
you can see that there is a massive difference.
Now specifically with the wide angle,
on earlier phones like the G5 and the V20
it was not quite as high quality as the main,
and you could actually see a pretty big
difference in quality.
But here, this actually looks pretty good.
And honestly, while a lot of dual camera setups
are going to be more focused on having
like a second telephoto lens,
having something that's this wide
actually is kind of nice.
It does give you a very different perspective.
So this is what the standard video
looks like on the main camera.
But if I jump out to the wide angle,
you can see that we are getting a lot more in this shot.
In fact I can get uncomfortably close to Ken here.
And (laughs) it still actually doesn't look crazy.
But we get back into the normal shot
that looks really goofy.
Something else interesting about the V30 camera
is that the main shooter has a pretty large 1.6 aperture.
And for comparison, a lot of other smart phones
have 1.7 or 1.8 or even 1.9.
What this means is, is that it actually
is going to be able to collect more light
which is especially useful in low light situations.
So one of the things with the V20 that is
a pretty major upgrade are the cameras.
- Yeah.
- So I played around with them a little bit,
but coming from the V20, what do you think?
- [Wes] Just from my initial impressions,
they're both better in a bunch of different ways.
So with this one, unlike the iPhone
which has a telephoto. - Right.
- In the standard, this one has basically
standard view and a wide angle,
which I found to be incredibly useful.
Just because you find yourself in so many
neat situations where you're like,
"I'm in the middle of some cool woods.
"I just want to take a picture of this."
So the raw capture is 10 bit,
which actually the V20 was 10 bit as well.
- [Austin] Okay.
- [Wes] But going--
- [Austin] That's still a lot better
than most smartphones though,
if they even have raw in the first place.
- Just from my initial tests,
I think the V30 rivals the S8.
When you're shooting raw here,
it's gonna take a little more monkeying with,
but the range that you get versus
what I'm seeing you get on the S8,
I would say if you are confident going to Photoshop,
going to Lightroom, going into DaVinci Resolve.
- Yeah. - If you're that dedicated.
(Austin laughs)
Then I think the V30 outshines it a little bit.
- One of the big features of the V30
is the improved video performance.
They actually added a lot of really cool
sort of more high-end features to it.
- Yeah, which kind of the most interesting one
to me is it shoots log,
- Okay, so - which is--
- Log for you guys who are not giant camera nerds,
essentially a more flat picture profile
that is sort of meant to be able to allow you
in post-production to get the most out of the image.
- This is really just refining
and making the cameras as good as possible.
Now that they kind of have
the form factor and the idea down.
They know who they want to be for,
and they know the idea to have,
people like the wide angle,
and then they like the more standard width.
So this is really just an improvement on everything.
- While this is pre-production,
so some things could change between now and release,
it is pretty clear to me that the V30
is absolutely up there with other big flagships.
So what do you guys think about the LG V30?
Let me know in the comments below,
and I will catch you in the next one.