LG V10 Preview

At an event held in New York City this Thursday, LG pulled back the curtains on an all new smartphone which promises a wide array of exciting features including two front-facing “selfie” cameras, impressive internal specs, and a dual-screen layout.

The V10 is the company’s latest attempt at retaining its relevancy in the face of increased competition from the likes of Apple and Samsung, both of whom have handily dethroned the once-dominant phone maker of years past. LG says the V10 was designed with “content creators” in mind, meaning it’s taken special care to be sure that the included cameras are beefy enough to handle any photography fan’s most demanding needs.

Now on to those funky (and hopefully functional) dual-screens. The first is a standard 5.7-inch quad HD (2560 x 1440) display that will cover the lion’s share of any tasks that users might have for it to pick up. The second is a much smaller “info” display, as LG calls it, that will sit just above the first and stay on at all times to alert V10 owners of any notifications or emails that pop in without requiring them to boot up the whole thing and dig in a separate menu to find out who’s trying to get a hold of them.

The dual front-facing cameras will top out at 5-megapixels each, and are designed to give users the option to get a wider field of view for their shots. When only one is activated, the camera will capture an 80-degree image, while with both, that lens range is upped to 120-degrees. This means a greater depth of field for serious selfie connoisseurs, ensuring no one gets cut out of the photo by the time the picture is snapped.

The back camera is fairly standard fare, equipped with a 16MP sensor and capable of shooting up to 4K ultra HD footage for as long as the internal storage has room to store the file. Add to this a whole new suite of internal camera tools that will give users the option to morph, edit, and color correct their captures, and you have a phone that’s been built from the ground up to cater to the creative in all of us.

A removable battery will be encased by the new, self-healing plastic shells that are all the rage in Android devices these days, which can actually re-mold itself whenever it suffers small scratches on the surface or dings to the side. This is a big benefit over competing products like the iPhone, which are still surrounded by the sleek anodized aluminum shell that Apple prefers so heavily over any other material for the majority of its mobile devices.

Powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, under the hood the V10 will be almost identical to its more popular predecessor: LG’s G4 line of smartphones. Every device will ship with a stock build of Android Lollipop 5.1, although there’s been no indication of whether or not the phone will support Marshmallow 6.0 by the time it releases sometime later this year.

Other less-exciting tech specs include the 64GB internal storage with the option to expand via the included microSD slot, as well as a 3000mAh battery and 4GB of onboard RAM. The V10 is big enough to shunk itself in with the big boy “phablet category” thanks to its dual screen layout, actually beating the next heftiest phone; Samsung’s Galaxy Note 5, at 159mm x 79mm as opposed to the Note’s 153mm x 76mm frame.

The V10 will be released in Korea on October 8th, with a gradual global rollout expected not soon after for AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon.

The V10 is currently on sale and can be yours from $300-$400.