While LG is currently taking the wraps off of its new V30 flagship at IFA 2017, it"s been slowly announcing details of the phone for the past few weeks. One of the first things to be announced was that it will include an OLED FullVision display, the first of its kind from the V-series, and the first OLED phone from LG since the G Flex 2.
LG has long been a leader in OLED technology; in fact, if you want to buy an OLED television, it"s probably coming from the company. But still, the firm hasn"t implemented the tech in its phones in a major way. The G Flex 2"s screen was nothing special, so is the V30 going to be any better?
It sure is. The display on the V30 is stunning, and you can probably see it from the image above. It"s definitely the best screen that LG has ever put on a smartphone; the colors are vibrant, and the blacks are black, just as you"d expect from an OLED screen.
OLED works differently than an LCD, in that individual pixels can be turned off, which is why the blacks look so black. LCDs are entirely backlit, which is why you can still tell that it"s on, even when it"s not showing you anything.
And this is a feature that I"ve always wished for in the V-series. The V10 and V20 have LCDs, and when the screen was turned off, you could see the light from the secondary display bleed into the main display. The secondary display is gone now, in favor of the Floating Bar and Always-On Display, but it works nicely with the OLED technology.
Users can change around the settings for the screen if they don"t like the default. There are four presets, including Normal, Best for movies, Best for photos, and Best for Web. There"s also a custom setting that you can use to adjust the temperature, as well as RGB levels.
I found that the screen is hard to see in direct sunlight, which tends to be the case in LG phones. This can be remedied easily by increasing the brightness. There"s also a Comfort View mode, which cuts down on blue light at night to help you to sleep.
The FullVision Display uses P-OLED, or polymer organic light-emitting diode, which is different from most other OLEDs on the market, which are SM-OLED, or small-molecule OLED. Generally, P-OLED screens don"t perform as well as their counterparts, which is why you usually end up seeing them on smaller screens like wearables. I don"t know how long the screen on the V30 will last or if it will degrade, but for now, it"s certainly one of the best-looking smartphone displays on the market, right up there with what Samsung produces.