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LG’s newly announced G7 ThinkQ flagship has been polarizing people since it first leaked months ago, but a new interview with Hwang Jeong-hwan, chief of the company’s mobile division, saw the executive insist the cutout had been planned before Apple’s iPhone X was announced last year. The interview, conducted by The Korea Herald’s Investor, yielded several key statements, including a reiteration of LG’s insistence that the notch at the top of the display is not seen as such by the company as that would imply something is missing; instead, LG thinks of it as a secondary screen. When questioned about whether the cutout was an attempt to copy Apple and its latest iOS flagship, Mr. Hwang said that despite the design appearing similar to those of its competitors, LG had planned it before Apple unveiled the iPhone X.
With respect to the idea of “missing” Animoji or AR Emoji-type content, the executive suggested such features will be coming in the future, both to the G7 ThinQ and the company’s older models. When asked about the sales prospects for the new phone, Mr. Hwang declined to provide specifics but indicated higher sales than 2017’s G6 are expected. Many of the key takeaways from the interview summarized above provide significant insight into what might be seen as a behind-the-scenes look at LG’s strategy. By far the most polarizing “problem” among the G7’s deriders is the oft-maligned notch. And yet, clearly, the Korean conglomerate has decided to use the consumer-friendly term “second display,” suggesting that instead of taking away from what there is to offer, the phone instead offers more than what came before it.
At the same time, this marketing term may strike fans of the V10 and V20 as questionable given how both devices did, in fact, sport a genuine second display that provided bifurcated multitasking. Perhaps equally important, however, is the statement about display technology being a standard differential between the G-series and V-series going forward. Such a comment also dispels earlier speculation and suggestions that the two increasingly similar product lines would, in fact, be merged into one single brand. It would seem that, at least for 2018, there will be a V40 handset released later this year that offers a P-OLED display and presumably other special functions not present in the G7 ThinQ, in addition to the V35 ThinQ that’s expected to hit AT&T this summer.