LG has unveiled two new devices: a great-looking Android Wear smartwatch and a quirky smartphone with two screens and two selfie cameras.
First up is the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition, the South Korean company's latest wearable offering. Initial impressions suggest it's definitely one of the better-looking Android Wear watches on the market, picking up style cues from the first generation and improving the fundamentals.
Looks-wise it's rather similar to LG's original Urbane smartwatch, with an all-metal body and an upgraded 1.38-inch P-OLED circular display with a screen resolution of 480 x 480 pixels and 348ppi pixel density.
Internally there are a number of significant upgrades, the biggest being a 4G LTE chip and cellular connectivity. This is a first for any Android Wear watch and a big deal in the world of wearable tech because the option to connect via 4G, 3G, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth means you don't have to have your phone with you to use all of the awesome features on your wearable or even rely on it to accept and receive calls. The battery has also had a boost from 410mAh to a huge 570mAh to accommodate the smart new tech inside.
Running on a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and 768MB of RAM, the new Urbane also comes with 4GB storage -- a standard for Android Wear devices.
The bad news? The added specs mean bigger casing. The second edition of the Urbane is 14.2mm think, which is 3mm chunkier than the original Urbane and won't be discrete -- especially if you have small wrists.
The new smartwatch is expected to land in the US first and then will likely come to the UK and European markets a few months later. Although we've got no official word on pricing just yet.
But that's not all LG had up its sleeve this week. It's also lifted the lid on a rather unusual phone designed for the Snapchat generation.
The V10 is the first in the brand's V-series of smartphones. Its USP is that it's got a second screen, which sits right above the main 5.7-inch display and is always on.
When the main screen is off, the additional 2.1-inch display serves up information about the weather, date and time. When it's on, the second screen is becomes a space for your top apps to live. If you're watching a movie or video it'll be where notifications pop up.
As well as two screens, the V10 also has two front-facing cameras with separate lenses, which LG unashamedly admits were added for one sole purpose: selfies. Their positioning means they'll allow you to capture standard 80 degree selfies or wide angle selfies -- if that's your thing.
Double screen and double narcissism aside, the phone has everything you'd expect from an Android handset. It's running on a Snapdragon 808 processor with 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage (with a microSD), as well as a removable 3000mAh battery and a fingerprint sensor.
Like the watch, we've got no official pricing details on the V10 yet -- they're likely to be announced locally as the devices launch. But we do know the V10 will be available in black, white and blue and is likely to arrive in November.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
