LG has started its usual cycle of announcing features of its upcoming flagship phone before announcing the phone itself, and this time it’s for a pretty significant spec: the G7 ThinQ’s screen. We know from countless leaks that the G7 will have a display notch, but now LG is going on the record about its technology.
The G7 screen is a 6.1-inch IPS LCD panel with a resolution of 3210 x 1440. LG is particularly talking up the screen’s brightness, which goes up to 1,000 nits while supposedly consuming up to 30 percent less power than the G6’s; it's even being branded as “Super Bright Display.” The screen also covers 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut. These specs alone aren’t necessarily groundbreaking, so we’ll have to see how LG’s claim of “the brightest and most vibrant display on the smartphone market today” shakes out.The announcement also has some details on the G7’s design. The aspect screen’s aspect ratio is 19.5:9, which is the same as the iPhone X’s and taller than last year’s 2:1 G6. The bottom bezel is said to be “almost 50 percent slimmer” than the G6’s, and of course there’s that notch at the top in place of a top bezel. LG says it’s using curved tempered glass on the G7, though it doesn’t sound like the screen itself will curve, which may have something to do with the use of LCD technology.
The G7’s LCD is actually a little surprising given LG’s much-vaunted return to OLED with last year’s V30. That phone’s screen wasn’t exactly well-received, however, and LG Display’s OLED chops came further under fire with the Google Pixel 2 XL’s mediocre panel. Still, given that LG is reportedly making serious efforts to become a big OLED player, the G7 might have been expected to serve as an indicator of the company’s progress. The LCD is all the more conspicuous given that the G7 apparently has an option to black out the display notch, a feature that works a lot better with OLED’s ability to “turn off” individual pixels.