LG G8X Dual Screen Foldable Phone Impressions! By Android Central

Lg has never been afraid of being weird. The company's back catalog includes bendable phones, modular phones, ticker tape displays aerial, gesture wizardry, and earlier this year it's wacky dual screen add-on for the LG be 50. Now LG is launching a new model at A?fe 2019, the LG G 8x, themed q. This is an updated, upgraded take on the g8 that we reviewed earlier in the spring, and it goes hand in glove with the updated, second-generation LG dual screen add-on. So this in a strange roundabout way is LG's answer to the foldable phone and boy. Is this thing just about as weird as anything else from the company in recent years stick around and subscribe for more from before 2019, and we'll dive in first I'll hit you with the basics in a lot of ways.

The g8x is your typical 2019 Android smartphone 6.4 inch OLED, display snapdragon 55, six gigs, plus 128 gigs, two cameras, four thousand William hours, water assistance, wireless charging, otherwise not a lot to say about hardware of the g8x. It looks like a phone, it's metal and glass. It feels like a phone in the hand. Furthermore, it's a phone since the standard, g8 air gesture support has gone away. The g8x manages to trim down the screen not to a smaller dewdrop cutout, which is a lot more palatable and the audio has been upgraded ? with balanced stereo output, there's also an in screen fingerprint scanner, which worked well in my brief time with the phone, but you probably don't really care about that stuff.

You probably care about how the g8x fits into the wacky new LG, dual screen, add-on and I say a DOM, because LG hasn't decided if it's going to ship this in the box or the g8x, it says, that'll be up to the carriers anyway, like we saw from the v50 a few months back you snap the phone to the dock, and it turns into this sort of rudimentary foldable phone. This isn't exactly the same accessory of the V 50 hats. However, the hinge has been upgraded. It's now smoother to rotate. It can be stopped anywhere within the full 360 degrees.

The second screen is bigger and now fully symmetrical and the front which, by the way, is a total fingerprint magnet. Also, has this small always-on display panel, showing you the time and notification icons already a minute or two in so let's get to the first really weird thing about the G 8 X and the dual screen. You see this notch here in the main phone display. It's peer, obviously to house the front-facing camera, but this not in the second screen. Well, it's just a notch.

It's there for symmetry, I, guess no cameras or sensors behind it. It's pretty hilarious to see LG doing this, as other companies work tirelessly on ways to remove display cutouts from their phones anyway play of GO -. The dual screen turns this: otherwise, rather dull phone into something pretty unique: the multitasking opportunities for a clamshell device with twice the screen real estate as a regular phone, are interesting to say the least, and since LG is using androids built-in multi display API's. In theory, you shouldn't run into any major app compatibility problems. That said, it definitely takes some time to wrap your head around what is effectively using two phones that are joined at the hip.

A nifty forefinger gesture can nudge apps between the two displays. Lg also has this control panel to let you spread a single app over both screens a little jarring, considering the giant hinge in the middle but potentially useful, or you can mirror a single app across both displays. What's more by disabling one of the screens, you can essentially turn the dual screen into a glorified kickstand. Lg also has its own custom browser called whale which can allow you to easily juggle tabs across both displays, while viewing multiple pages side by side, LG's keyboard software, too, can transform the whole package into a comically, tiny little laptop or thanks to the LG game pad feature, you can dedicate the whole second screen to a game controller with button presses map, two taps or swipes for apps- that don't support physical controls, nice idea, but it was a little buggy on the early firmware here. These concepts aren't as ridiculous as they might first seem, and there's definitely potential to this thing, though.

Obviously the trade-off is a far bulkier device in your pocket compared to a phone with a truly foldable display. Besides, since there's no extra battery in the dual stream expect a significant battery life hit when it's plugged in since the 4000 million power cells has to power to 6.4 inch panels. Overall, though, LG software does a decent job of managing the transition between the larger and the smaller form factor, the firmware itself is based on Android 9pi still and given LG's dismal record for platform updates. Don't hold your breath for that Android 10 OTA anytime soon. The company has at least given its interface a facelift with the new LG UX 9.0, which, let's be generous here and say it's heavily inspired by Samsung's one UI. There are, of course, more dubious uses of the LG G X and dual screen.

Besides gaming, multitasking and productivity, the dual screens selfie shooting mode lets. You hold the dual screen out and see yourself in a frame, as someone else takes your photo, and that's fine that obviously the trade-off here is quality. You need to use the weaker selfie camera for your photo, which kind of defeats the point of involving another human being, whether with one screen or two, though the LG G X does offer some new photo features, though it's definitely behind the curve for a flagship camera with only two rear sensors standard and ultra-wide. The auto eyes can now zoom out even further for a nor fish eye effect that has a little more distortion but captures a unique field of view. There's a new stabilization mode called Steadicam and a dedicated video mode for taking ASMR videos, because, of course there is.

The camera overall seems decent much like the original LT g8, but we'll reserve judgment until we get a review device into play with LT is continuing to focus on its strengths with moving pictures. However, with a new 4k time-lapse mode along with other video enhancements. So, like anything new and unusual, the LG G 8x and the dual screen are easy to make fun of whether this phone is a good product or not. Is going to have a lot to do with the execution and that's something? That's not easy to judge in just half an hour or so with the phone in a briefing at the very least, it's LG back to being wacky and inventive, and after a couple of years of pretty boring, LG smartphones, that's something that I am very much here for that's it for now stay tuned subscribe for more from P for 2019 in Berlin. Thanks for watching, and I'll, see you next time you.

Source : Android Central