LG Velvet with DualScreen review

Software

The Velvet runs on Android 10 with the company's custom LG UX on top, that one in version 9. It's for all intents and purposes identical to what we had on the V60, save for the green accent color of the quick toggles, which is part of the default theme and can be changed anyway.

The lock screen shows missed notifications, and the dialer and camera apps can be quickly accessed by left or right. Double-tapping on notifications will prompt for your password or fingerprint and you can't even dismiss a notification without unlocking first. Fingerprint authentication is the only available biometrics secirity option, by the way, there's no face unlock.

Setting up a fingerprint

The AOD (always-on display) is highly customizable with lots of different clock styles to choose from, as well as the accent color. It can be set to come on for 10 seconds when you tap the display, or you can keep it always-on.

AOD settings

The interface is clean and simple with no complicated menus or endless list of settings. Built into Android 10 is the universal dark mode, which LG calls Night theme. It blacks out the interface, menus, and core LG apps like the dialer, messages, contacts, etc. Supported third-party apps will also switch to their respective dark modes. As on most other phones, you can schedule night mode to only kick in for a specific time interval, but here you can also schedule it based on the sunrise and sunset times. LG still offers you the option to "hide" the notch, too.

Settings menu • Hiding the notch • Night mode

During the initial setup, you're given the choice of whether you want an app drawer or not. The LG app drawer puts apps in the order they were installed, but its easy to switch to alphabetical. Swiping to the far left will get you to your Google Feed.

Lockscreen • Home screen • Folder view • App drawer • Drawer sorting • Google Feed

The notification shade is opaque with those default green accents we mentioned. Swiping down twice opens up the full list of toggles and brings them all the way down to the bottom half of the screen for easy reach - kind of like OneUI, but LG UX.

Notification shade • Quick settings • Edit quick settings

Users have a choice between the navigation bar and Android's gesture bar. As before on LG devices, if you opt for the button based approach, you can customize the navigation bar with up to five buttons including a screenshot button and a button to pull the navigation bar down.

Navigation options

LG has its own gallery app with cloud support for Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and Box. A basic FM radio app is available with no RDS or recording capability. Going by the official specsheets, that would be a South Korea-only feature, mind you. The HD Audio Recorder, on the other hand, is fully featured and offers an ASMR mode and fully customizable audio (gain + low cut filter + limiter) and recording at up to 24 bit / 192 kHz. It even has a "Studio mode" that lets you record voice over a track you might have on your phone.

Gallery • FM radio • HD Audio recorder

Synthetic benchmarks

The Velvet is built on the Snapdragon 765G platform, one short of the highest numbered chipset Qualcomm has below the 800 series - the 768 is mostly an overclocked 765. The S765 is a capable chip manufactured on a 7nm process and it has a built-in modem (X52), unlike the 865 - with 5G and all that. LG's phone comes in two RAM tiers - with 6 or 8GB of RAM, and a single storage option - 128GB of UFS 2.1. Ours is the 8-gig version.

In CPU testing the two major midrange 5G platforms post mostly the same results under multi-core loads - that would be the Exynos 980 in the Galaxy A51 5G and the Snapdragon 765 that the Velvet and the Moto Edge rock. In single-core tests, however, the Galaxy has a notable advantage. Last year's flagships like LG's own G8X (S855) and the Galaxy S10+ (Exynos 9820) still offer a significant leap in performance when compared against the Velvet, and OnePlus 8 with the current-gen Snapdragon 865 shows the peak performance that can be had for about the Velvet's asking price. Snapdragon 730 midrangers, meanwhile, aren't that far behind the 765s.

GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  3399
• LG G8X ThinQ
  2870
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  2190
• LG Velvet
  1905
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  1867
• Motorola Edge
  1862
• Realme X2
  1750
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  1733
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  1694

GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  919
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  827
• LG G8X ThinQ
  746
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  677
• Motorola Edge
  586
• LG Velvet
  586
• Realme X2
  545
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  542
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  521

In Antutu, the Velvet puts out similar performance to the Moto Edge's, the Galaxy A51 5G ever so slightly ahead. The Snapdragon 730 devices can't quite keep up and, conversely, the true flagship silicon is out of reach for the Velvet, whether it's this year's OP8, or last year's G8X and S10+.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  564708
• LG G8X ThinQ
  411980
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  399901
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  316007
• Motorola Edge
  305989
• LG Velvet
  297372
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  263396
• Realme X2
  257443
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  253271

Top-tier chipsets have much beefier GPUs and it shows in graphics benchmarks with last year's high-end devices outperforming the Velvet pretty much 2:1, not to mention this year's OP8.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  88
• LG G8X ThinQ
  70
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  69
• Motorola Edge
  34
• LG Velvet
  33
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  32
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  30
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  30
• Realme X2
  29

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• LG G8X ThinQ
  58
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  37
• Motorola Edge
  32
• LG Velvet
  29
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  28
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  27
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  26
• Realme X2
  24

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  52
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  42
• LG G8X ThinQ
  42
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  20
• Motorola Edge
  19
• LG Velvet
  19
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  17
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  17
• Realme X2
  16

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  46
• LG G8X ThinQ
  38
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  23
• Motorola Edge
  18
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  17
• LG Velvet
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  15
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  15
• Realme X2
  13

Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  30
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  13
• Motorola Edge
  12
• LG Velvet
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  9.9
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  9.9
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  9.3
• Realme X2
  8.9

Aztek OpenGL ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  31
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  12
• Motorola Edge
  12
• LG Velvet
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  10
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  10
• Realme X2
  9.2

3DMark SSE OpenGL ES 3.1 1440p

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  7290
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4420
• Motorola Edge
  3004
• LG Velvet
  2987
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  2837
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  2467
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  2464
• Realme X2
  2402

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1440p

Higher is better

• OnePlus 8
  6720
• Samsung Galaxy S10+
  4295
• Motorola Edge
  2801
• Samsung Galaxy A51 5G
  2778
• LG Velvet
  2758
• Realme X2
  2263
• Samsung Galaxy A71
  2253
• Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite
  2248

The LG Velvet posted performance numbers predictable for its hardware. It delivers high numbers for a midrange offering, but can't really cross swords with the top-tier devices - for raw performance a flagship from 2019 will be a much better choice. However, to get 5G in 2020 on a non-flagship model, you need to sacrifice something after all. On a more positive note, the Velvet exhibited virtually no thermal throttling under continued load - hardly guaranteed with flagship SoCs.