Dual OLED screens and 5G, oh my! LG’s V50 ThinQ lands in Australia next week

Revealed at MWC 2019 back in February, LG's most advanced flagship phone to date, the LG V50 ThinQ, will be available to purchase in Australia from Tuesday June 11, 2019.

Boasting the latest Snapdragon 855 chipset (7nm) and an X50 5G modem, the V50 ThinQ also sports an Adreno 640 GPU, 128GB of onboard storage (a microSD slot allows for up to 2TB of additional space), IP68 water and dust resistance and a 6.4-inch QHD+ (1,440 x 3,120) OLED display.

Audio purists will also be pleased to hear that the V50 ThinQ once again supports 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC and DTS:X 3D surround sound, and the increasingly rare 3.5mm headphone jack is also back.

In terms of its photographic capabilities, the LG V50 ThinQ features a triple-lens (16MP super wide + 12MP standard + 12MP telephoto) setup on its rear, and a dual-lens (8MP standard + 5MP wide) front-facing camera for selfies and group-shots.

A different kind of foldable

Along with being LG's first 5G handset (we witnessed a speed test that saw the device reach download speeds of 1.258Gbps and upload speeds of 70.4Mbps), the V50 ThinQ's biggest selling point comes in the form of a snap-on folio case that sports an additional 6.2-inch FHD+ (2,160 x 1,080) OLED screen, allowing for powerful dual-screen multitasking. The secondary display communicates with the V50 via three small contact pads on the phone's rear, which align with three pins within the case.

We got our hands on the device at its Australian launch in Sydney and were suitably impressed with how simple it was to launch independent apps on each display and switch between the two screens.

In order to test this functionality, we used the top display to watch movie trailers on YouTube while browsing the Google Play Store, checking tweets and sending messages to friends from the bottom display.

We were also able to expand the device's keyboard to full-screen, making the V50 ThinQ resemble an adorably-tiny laptop. It's worth noting that this functionality is only available with LG's built-in keyboard, and won't work with Google's Gboard or other third-party keyboard apps.

Later, we launched LG's new virtual gamepad on the bottom display and used it to be play Sonic the Hedgehog and Lineage II: Revolution without our hands getting in the way of the action.

In our experience, controlling the LGs V50 ThinQ across two screens quickly became second nature. That said, the phone felt quite hefty and thick with the second screen attached. Thankfully, detaching the second screen is as simple as taking a phone out of its protective case.

LG's V50 ThinQ will be available from Telstra at the outright price of $1,728 – quite reasonable for a flagship 5G phone that boasts top-of-the-line specs and a second OLED display in the box.

Of course, Telstra will also be offering the device on 24-month plans starting at $114 per month for 3GB of data – which, just for what it's worth, you could burn through in less than 3 seconds on a 5G connection – and ranging all the way up to $199 per month for unlimited data.