LG's smartphone partitioning is in an interesting position right now. They are continuing to produce decent handsets with innovative additions each year, nevertheless the company tin't become much traction in the market in the face of strong competition from other brands. The G6 was LG'due south all-time phone design in years, launching equally one of the first with a small-bezel display, but sales accept not rocketed as expected.

The V30 is in a similar position. Occupying the flagship large-screen phone position in LG's line-up, the V30 is packed with interesting features, top-cease hardware and enough good stuff to lucifer this yr'due south competitors. Merely it's once again up against some massive new devices, especially the Samsung Milky way Note 8 and Google Pixel 2 Twoscore, leaving LG with an uphill battle to ensure the V30 remains in the conversation.

The engineering team has given this phone every hazard to succeed. The 6.0-inch p-OLED display dominates the front panel, with slim bezels and a massive 81% screen to body ratio. Different the G6, the internals are all current generation: a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM, 64/128GB internal storage, Gigabit LTE support, microSD expansion… I could go along. The dual camera system from the G6 returns too, with a slight specification crash-land to kicking.

The V30 is a gorgeous handset. The G6 was a massive leap frontwards in LG's premium smartphone design, only the V30 takes things to the next level with what might exist the most attractive handset on the marketplace. Most of this is downwards to the expansive half dozen.0-inch eighteen:9 brandish on the front, which feels like it occupies nigh every square inch available to information technology. I've used plenty of modest-bezel handsets this year, but information technology'southward the V30 that seems like it has the largest display crammed in.

Despite the enormous display on the front, LG has crammed the essentials into a tiny sliver of bezel at the top. It'due south there you lot'll find the front-facing camera, speaker, and several sensors. In that location's no notch to adjust these items, which is the all-time upshot for content viewing. The downside hither is the V30 does not have front-facing speakers, which are found on the Pixel ii Xl. There'south merely a unmarried bottom-firing speaker of average quality.

The rest of the phone'due south build is premium besides. The edges are a gloss-coated metallic, while the rear is a clean, incredibly shiny drinking glass panel. The use of these materials gives the V30 a top-end await that rivals any flagship, and complements the beautiful Gorilla Glass 5-protected brandish on the forepart. The contrast betwixt the silver rear and deep black forepart is fantastic, too.

Despite the metal frame and glass on both sides, the V30 is slimmer (vii.3mm) and lighter (158g) than other big-screen phones similar the Galaxy Notation 8 and Pixel ii 40. It's also supposedly very durable: the V30 is both IP68 water resistant – good for submersion in up to 1.5m of fresh water for 30 minutes – and MIL-STD-810G certified.

I still have a few concerns over the V30's immovability despite its solid ratings. Glass on both sides, especially glass that is curved along its long edges, presents a much larger surface surface area susceptible to nifty than a phone without a drinking glass dorsum. It is Gorilla Drinking glass five, merely and so is the extremely fragile Milky way S8. The V30's utilize of glossy metal sides and a glossy glass back makes the telephone adequately slippery too, at least compared to the similarly sized Pixel 2 XL. This isn't ideal for more impuissant users; y'all might be best off with this phone's beautiful chassis inside a example.

As is the case with virtually big-screen handsets, the V30 is less usable in one paw than the smaller G6. While its xviii:9 6.0-inch display isn't equally large as a traditional 16:ix six.0-inch screen, the brandish is nonetheless massive and the upper corners tin can exist a challenge to reach single-handedly. With that said, I plant the V30 to exist very comfortable to concord and operate for its size; the curved edges assistance a lot in this regard. Users with smaller hands should probably steer clear though.

LG is one of a scattering of companies left who refuse to remove the iii.5mm headphone jack on their smartphones. The V30 proudly includes one along the pinnacle edge, and then there'southward no dongle life pains here. There'south a standard USB-C connector on the bottom, with support for USB 3.1 speeds, plus a microSD card slot forth the right border. Yous won't find a power button on the edges, though, equally the fingerprint reader on the rear doubles every bit a clickable power button in typical LG mode.

1 big omission that will annoy some is the lack of a removable battery. LG's 2022 smartphone collection, consisting of the G5 and V20, both included removable batteries to the joy of users that love this feature. The V30 ditches the removable battery entirely, catastrophe LG's standing in the market place as ane of the last companies to offer hotswappable batteries in flagship devices.

The benefit, though, is a larger battery in a smaller chassis. The V30 is smaller in every dimension, resulting in a 12 percent reduction in overall volume compared to the V20. Despite this, without all the associated removable bombardment housing, the V30 bumps the battery capacity up to 3,300 mAh, a three pct increase. Combined with a more efficient SoC and the V30 offers better battery life.

You might have also noticed there is no secondary display on the V30. While a signature feature of the V20 and V10, LG correctly decided a more expansive brandish is the meliorate selection. Don't worry, though, as the V30 still supports many of the same always-on features on the larger display, should you lot choose to enable them in the settings. You lot tin can view the time, notifications, quick setting toggles and media controls all on the OLED screen with the always-on brandish enabled (it's disabled past default).