Flashback: the LG V10 had unique second screen, rugged design and a fatal flaw

15 January 2022
This was a phone designed for serious, demanding users and could have been the start of something great.

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  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • gPf
  • 05 Feb 2022

Anonymous, 18 Jan 2022Technically, the LG V10 did not use the ESS SABRE DAC. It u... moreYou are wrong about that. The LG V10 used the ESS ES9018C2M, which featured a companion headphone amplifier.

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    • Sorin
    • pL5
    • 22 Jan 2022

    Too bad .. they truly were innovative compared to the competition... They lacked focus though. Feels like the smartphone division was lead by an R&D engineer that wanted to put out the latest crazy technology without considering normal people or even properly polishing the new technology. LiDAR and time of flight cameras come to mind, almost useless on LG phones but a very nice feature and still very common in top of the iPhone range.
    They had me for almost 10 years... Lg nexus 4, LG g flex 2 and LG v30 and I loved them with all the over heating issues, late updates and unpolished features... And than I moved back to the pure Google pixel 6... And realized LG was pretty polished :D
    I am going to miss them and as a massive fan I hope they will come back, if not for the normal users, at least for the enthusiastic, and bring back all of the LG crazy features!

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      • GG
      • va7
      • 21 Jan 2022

      Mateyo, 20 Jan 2022I was a diehard LG fan for years, till they started disappo... moreStill using a v40. Bought the pixel 6 pro but it sucks big time when it comes to music quality.

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        • Mateyo
        • fu%
        • 20 Jan 2022

        I was a diehard LG fan for years, till they started disappointing me, 1st was the g4 that would eventually get stuck to the boat screen, then the v10 and v20 which just switched off and never worked again.... Really wished they would have come back.😓

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          • Anonymous
          • qaK
          • 18 Jan 2022

          Technically, the LG V10 did not use the ESS SABRE DAC. It use another manufacturer for the DAC and headphone amp. Still plenty of juice to run a good pair of headphones though. The LG V20 was the debut phone to support and run a ESS SHARE base qDAC with a 2Vrms headphone.

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            • Yorgan
            • 4bt
            • 18 Jan 2022

            Meddy, 16 Jan 2022Can you find one of this now days? I want one.Remember its usb mini so the charging port will eventually go bad...

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              • Anonymous
              • gDf
              • 18 Jan 2022

              Anonymous, 18 Jan 2022I'm rocking the v30 myself. What is she replacing it w... moreZenFone 8, Xperia 5 III would be my choices. ZenFone 8 Android 12 Beta has some issues still, but overall it's a nice phone, study with a nice a nice screen, great speakers and a headphone jack, although without any fancy DAC

                Have been using LG g7thinQ Verizon for 2yrs now without android 10 update

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                  • pauliusb
                  • n}c
                  • 18 Jan 2022

                  LG V-series was life saver. Owned all of them from V10 to V60 but not V50 (which was not available in Europe.). Still happy owner of V60 and V40 lays on the shelf as a backup phone. R.I.P LG Mobile...

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                    • Anonymous
                    • 0cu
                    • 18 Jan 2022

                    Anonymous, 17 Jan 2022My sister is still rocking the 128gb V30... but it is going... moreI'm rocking the v30 myself. What is she replacing it with? Hard to find better replacements.

                      Anonymous, 17 Jan 2022I use 810. It is not that bad. People need to stop demo... moreI mean yeah it's not unusably bad from my experience too. I've used the Xperia Z5 and Nexus 6P and it heated up but not to a scalding degree. Probably some are worse than others.

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                        • Anonymous
                        • nYE
                        • 17 Jan 2022

                        My sister is still rocking the 128gb V30... but it is going to be replaced soon but sadly LG is gone.

                          RishiGuru, 17 Jan 2022LG's last management had slowly been diverting away fr... moreI see. Thanks for your input bro.
                          But as long as the DSD problem was with Android version 10, I don't see how LG's last management played any role in it. Its more of Google's control. I think Google knows that while Phones can't replace DSLR's for obvious physical reasons, they can definitely replace dedicated music players so they just killed the support to let music industry live on, although it makes no sense.

                          But of course LG were equally in the market as Samsung, ultimately they needed a fluid UI too, so even if there was a bias, its sort of understandable in my opinion.

                            KiranB, 16 Jan 2022I was an LG smartphone fan and is still now. The good thing... moreAs a music lover I started my journey with LG G6 and used every flagship released henceforth in India.

                            G6 & G7: Great phones, unique very tall 19.5:9 display for G7, QuadDACs. Sold them as the width of the displays were too narrow for my liking, and I don't like phones with small displays. Just destroys the immersive multimedia experience you otherwise get on big display phones.

                            V30/ V30+: The LG flagship with best built quality I have ever used bar the Velvet. Period. Here we only had Sliver & Black variants, I have both. Amazing QuadHD OLED display, B&O tuned QuadDAC. Heavenly looks, very good performance and stellar audio. One of the few LG flagships to have very good battery backup.

                            V40: Loved the phone, hated the notch and pathetic battery backup. Later reveled by Anadtech, LG in order to make the OLED display perform even better than V30+ sacrificed battery life which caused unusual battery drain even on standby. Sold.

                            G8X: This phone is actually the LTE version of LG V50S which is based on it 1st iteration V50. Hence all three looked the same, came in black color only and had the same Snapdragon 855 on the helm. Great phone. Meridian tuned QuadDAC sounded heavenly on Android 10, great performance and awesome battery backup by LG standards. OLED display quality in terms of colors produced improved a lot even though panel was just 1080p. It was not a QuadHD panel because it had to support two displays. In comes LG Dual screen and what a great practical way to perform multi-tasking. Full marks to LG here, even though the phone with dual screen case made it heavy and chunky.

                            Velvet (LTE version): I used my friend's Velvet without dual screen case for a month, and then for same price of around $300 got a Realme X2 Pro. For those who do not know X2 Pro is widely regarded as the best phone ever to adorn a Realme tag. It was so good it destroyed anything in the $300 ~ 400 price bracket and Realme have to cease production else their later plastic built flagships stand no chance. To me in X2 Pro the built quality is what stood out, its V30+ level. And what a monster of a phone. It beats my G8X in every department except four audio quality through headphone jack. Dual stereo speakers of X2 Pro is far superior to anything I have heard on any lg device. Velvet can only be compared to X2 Pro in terms of design and built, everything else X2 Pro is superior.

                            Wing: Never had a thought to buy one, as no headphone jack.

                              Samath N8 808 owner, 17 Jan 2022Indeed bro. Although with Android 10 now, DSD is a no go. I... moreLG's last management had slowly been diverting away from analog audio quality on the software level and instead reutilized those resources on other parts of the software development. Like making the UI look more like Samsung's OneUI.

                              When it comes to audio on LG flagships, Android 9 was the best. My B&O tuned LG V30+ rocks Android 9 and audio quality through headphone jack is slightly better from an objective standpoint using same QuadDAC. And Android 9 had native DSD playback support. My V30+ are priced possessions and quality of exterior material used be it metal or glass is superior than my LG G8X.

                              As long as you keep your G8X on Android 10 its good. Android 11 gives you a slightly better UI user experience on G8X, but the experience upgrade is not that huge. With Android 11, LG has gone one notch lower in terms of analogue audio through headphone jack. I have doubt with 11, they might be passing audio through Android's horrid audio stack rather than dedicated paths which LG previously used to bore through the software from audio player to QuadDAC. I may downgrade my other G8X to Android 10.

                              Their is no way to disable the software upgrade notification while using the phone. The only one way to let it go is to perform hard factory reset on your phone and never check for updates. Once you check its there again.

                                YUKI93, 17 Jan 2022I'd say that you should be better off with V20/G5 or newer.Same here, if you're not going to do anything out of the ordinary it's still a good phone, just a battery change and like new

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                                  • Em
                                  • JKx
                                  • 17 Jan 2022

                                  One of the best phones i ever had, sadly they were known for bad chips and most of them got fryed after 2 years of usage :(

                                    I had the phone. thankfully my model wasn't of the bootlooping model. It was the phone that precedded my Note 10+.
                                    it was an awesome phone to own. with EVERYTHING mentioned!

                                      Pretty interesting, I would've definitely liked it as a phone. if only it didn't have those bootlooping issues

                                        YUKI93, 17 Jan 2022I'd say that you should be better off with V20/G5 or newer.definetely v30