LG announced the LG G8 at MWC in Barcelona earlier this year, and it was a pretty typical flagship. The one peculiar feature was AirMotion gestures, which allowed you to control your device using hand-wavey motion gestures over the device's "Z camera." At the same launch, the company also revealed a dual-screen attachment for the LG V50 5G, which allowed you to play games and use your phone as a dual-screen handset. LG has taken that technology and improved upon it, releasing the LG G8X with a Dual Screen display attachment. We went hands-on with it over on the XDA TV YouTube channel, and it's... interesting.

What is the LG G8X, then?

At IFA 2019, LG had multiple dual-screen LG G8X models available for use... but why was there not the regular phone on its own? All of the marketing material mentioned the second screen add-on. When your phone's primary selling point is an add-on rather than the device itself, it's sort of worrying. None of what made the G8 a G8 is here either. There are no AirMotion gestures and the display resolution has been downgraded. It doesn't feel like an iterative improvement at all, even if the attachment is cool.

But that's another thing - the second screen attachment itself is quite strange. I like the idea, but it has a notch on the second display even though it doesn't have any camera or sensors whatsoever. LG has been pushing it as a symmetry thing, but it just looks really, really weird. It's not all bad though, and I did like the second display. When you close the phone, the back of the second display has a small OLED panel up at the top which shows the time and any incoming notifications. When opened up, you can watch a video on one screen and use your phone in landscape on the other. You can also turn one panel into a full-fledged keyboard for writing a message, something which I found surprisingly comfortable.

LG G8X XDA Forums

All in all, the LG G8X is in a weird place where it's not really anything without a sold-separately add-on. It doesn't really have its own identity, which is somewhat worrying for a newly released flagship. Without any pricing information, it's hard to draw a lot of conclusions. The second screen attachment is cool and I can see its uses, but it's not perfect and depending on price, may simply just not be worth it.

Specifications

LG G8X ThinQ

Size

159.3 x 75.8 x 8.4mm, 192g

Display

6.4-inch 19.5:9 FHD + OLED FullVision (2,340 x 1,080 / 403ppi)

Chipset

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855

Memory

6GB RAM

Storage

128GB (microSD)

Rear Cameras

  • 12MP Standard (F1.8 / 1.4μm / 78˚)
  • 13MP Super Wide (F2.4 / 1.0μm / 136˚)

Front Cameras

  • 32MP Standard (F1.9 / 0.8μm / 79˚)

Battery

4,000mAh ( Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0)

OS

Android 9 Pie

Connectivity

Wi-Fi 802.11 a, b, g, n, ac / Bluetooth 5 / NFC / USB Type-C (USB 3.1 Compatible)

Biometrics

In-Display Fingerprint Sensor

Audio

Stereo speaker, 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC, DTS:X 3D Surround Sound, 3.5mm headphone jack

Colors

Aurora Black