The LG V60 and VELVET Review: A Classic & A Design Restart
by Andrei Frumusanu on July 15, 2020 9:00 AM EST
It’s been a few months since LG has released the LG V60, and since then the company has also finally managed to launch the new Velvet phone to western markets outside of Korea, such as Germany. The two new 2020 phones are quite contrasting devices for LG – representing what one could say the company’s classic design philosophy versus a newer, more refreshing design language. They’re also contrasting devices in terms of their specifications and positioning, with the V60 being a successor flagship devices with a high-end SoC, whilst the new Velvet is a “premium” design with the new Snapdragon 765, coming at a lower price point and some compromises in terms of specification – but not too many as to call it a mid-range phone.
Both phones are overdue a closer look, and that’s precisely what we’ll be doing today.
| LG 2020 Flagships | |||
| V60 | Velvet | ||
| SoC | Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 1x Cortex-A77 @ 2.84GHz 3x Cortex-A77 @ 2.42GHz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.80GHz |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 1x Kryo 475 (CA76) @ 2.3GHz 1x Kryo 475 (CA76) @ 2.2GHz 6x Kryo 475 (CA55) @ 1.8GHz |
|
| GPU | Adreno 650 @ 587MHz | Adreno 620 | |
| DRAM | 8 GB | 8 GB | |
| Storage | 128 GB UFS 2.1 +microSD |
128 GB UFS 2.1 +microSD |
|
| Display | 6.8" FullVision OLED 2460 x 1080 (20.5:9) |
6.8" FullVision OLED 2460 x 1080 (20.5:9) |
|
| Size | Height | 169.3 mm | 167.2 mm |
| Width | 77.6 mm | 74.1 mm | |
| Depth | 8.9 mm | 7.9 mm | |
| Weight | 218 grams | 180 grams | |
| Battery Capacity | 5000 mAh (Typical) | 4300 mAh (Typical) | |
| Wireless Charging | Qi | Qi | |
| Rear Cameras | |||
| Main | 64 MP 1/1.7" 0.8µm f/1.8 w/OIS |
48MP f/1.8 w/OIS |
|
| Wide | 13 MP 1/3.4" 1µm f/1.9 117° super-wide angle |
8MP Super-wide angle |
|
| Extra | ToF 1/4" 14µm f/1.9 117° super-wide angle |
5MP Depth |
|
| Front Camera | 10 MP 1/3.1" 1.22μm f/1.9 |
16MP | |
| I/O | USB 2.0 Type-C 3.5mm headphone jack Under-screen Fingerprint reader |
USB 2.0 Type-C 3.5mm headphone jack Under-screen Fingerprint reader |
|
| Wireless (local) | Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.1 |
Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.1 |
|
| Cellular | GSM, CDMA, HSPA, 4G/LTE, 5G | ||
| Splash, Water, Dust Resistance | IP68 | IP68 | |
| Dual-SIM | nano-SIM | nano-SIM | |
| Launch OS | Android 10 | Android 10 | |
| Launch Price | $899 | 599€ | |
In terms of specifications and the brains of the devices, as mentioned, the LG V60 is a familiar phone as it’s simply sporting the best of the best. The Snapdragon 865 features four Cortex-A77 cores, one of which clocks in at up to 2.84GHz and three others at up to 2.42GHz, paired with four low-power Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8GHz. We’ve seen excellent performance and power efficiency out of Qualcomm’s latest chipset in other 2020 flagship devices, and the LG V60 is pretty much in line with the pack in terms of performance and efficiency.
The LG Velvet on the other hand is amongst a smaller number of devices which make due with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 765 SoC. This “premium” model functionally has the same level of features as the flagship Snapdragon 865 SoC, but just comes at lower performance levels. In terms of IP, we find two Cortex A76 cores, one up to 2.3GHz and another up to 2.2GHz, paired with six low-power Cortex-A55 cores at 1.8GHz. The GPU in the form of the Adreno 620 is also smaller than the bigger brother’s Adreno 650 configuration.
What’s special about both these SoCs is that they’re 5G enabled. The LG V60 makes use of an external X55 modem for connectivity, while the Velvet integrates its modem capabilities inside of the Snapdragon 765.
Both phones feature 8GB of RAM (LPDDR5 for the V60 and LPDDR4X for the Velvet), and feature 128GB of storage, expandable via microSD slots.
In terms of designs, both phones are very different to each other. The one thing they share in common is the display specifications; both phones feature 6.8” 2460 x 1080 OLED displays. The resolution doesn’t surprise too much for the Velvet as it’s a lower priced phone, but it is quite weird to see LG go backwards on the V60, offering a downgrade from the 1440p resolutions of previous, smaller, V-series phones. There are battery life considerations here which we’ll discuss in more detail later, but it does stretch out quite a bit for displays of these sizes.
Both displays still make use of “dewdrop” notch designs and the cut-outs here are virtually identical between the two phones. The Velvet tries to smooth out the bezel corner near the cut-out via blacked out pixels, but other than that I wouldn’t be surprised if these were actually the same display panels.
Of course, the immediately visible difference between the two phones is their bezel designs. The V60 has a very classic look to it; a flat screen with some quite sizeable side bezels and a chamfered metal frame. The Velvet on the other hand is a lot more contemporary, employing a curved front screen design on its sides, with only a thin glossy metal frame.
You could argue that the V60 looks a lot more industrial, but for me the ergonomics of the Velvet are immeasurably better – it’s not only a physically narrower phone, but it just feels much better in hands thanks to its curvatures as well as thinner form-factor.
Despite the fact that the screen diagonals on both phones are identical, and maybe even have the same panels, the Velvet is a much handier phone. There’s also a big weight difference between the two units, as the V60 comes in at a hefty 218grams versus the Velvet’s 180g. Admittedly, the V60 uses a bigger 5000mAh battery whilst the Velvet is 14% smaller at 4300mAh (which is still respectable).
On the camera side of things, besides the SoC, it’s also where we see bigger differences between the two phones capabilities. The LG V60 has a new generation and larger 1/1.7” main camera sensor coming in with 64MP resolution, with a quad-Bayer colour filter layout binning down to 16MP in regular photos. LG uses this module’s high native resolution to achieve lossless 2x zooming – a necessity as the phone lacks a dedicated telephoto module.
The Velvet uses a similar method, albeit with a 48MP primary camera sensor that’s physically smaller in size than that of the V60’s.
In terms of ultra-wide-angle modules, the V60 features a 13MP sensor while the Velvet makes due with a mere 8MP unit. Besides price considerations, I think the Velvet might be limited by the thickness of the phone here and the deployable sensor sizes, as the phone lacks any protrusions with the UWA module sitting flush with the back glass panel (The main camera does have a small bump).
There’s also an extra ToF sensor on the V60, and unspecified 5MP depth sensor on the Velvet – both don’t actually serve as capturing modules but augment the capture abilities of the phones in modes such as portrait mode.
At the bottom of the phones, we see a similar setup of 3.5mm headphone jack, USB-C port and a three-holed bottom speaker setup (The top earpieces also serve as stereo speakers for playback). The fact that these phones still include the 3.5mm headphone jacks in 2020 makes them actually stand out to the rest of the competition who had opted to drop the useful connector in favour of profit making selling wireless audio accessories. Good on LG for sticking with their ethos.
Overall, the phones in terms of design are quite contrasting, and if you wouldn’t be familiar with them nor see their brandings, it would be hard to believe that they’re actually from the same company, released only a few months apart from each other. LG has had considerable trouble with the industrial design over the last few generations and the V60 is pretty much a continuation of that “outdated” look. The new Velvet is a fresh breath of air and I feel it actually belongs in 2020, its ergonomics are substantially better and the build quality is I feel higher than that of the V60, a bit ironic given that the two devices are positioned the other way around in terms of pricing and product categories.
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TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link
How is it qualcomm's fault? Samsung, motorla, HTC, google, asus, none of these brands have the bootloop issues LG had.Quantumz0d - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link
Bootlooping shit is dead long time back, V20 and up no issues of that, I have a V30 thankfully it has the Bootloader community unlock as LG didn't because of their higher up mobile chair changes always and mostly due to the US Carrier stranglehold, Samsung NA market phones also no BL unlock at all.And man my V30 is still running like a champ maybe a little battery deterioration but the Audio performance is almost identical to my desktop DAC+AMP setup (Modi + Alex Cavalli), and the Camera UI is perfect, the phone doesn't have any bullshit notch or deadpixel hole or shit. It just works like how it did out of the box, Oreo is the OS, I have it rooted and removed all bloat like social media bs and installed USB Audio Pro for the bitperfect playback without Android's bullshit 48KHz upsampling trash.
OS updates do not matter to me, when Android 9 ruined the multitasking by copying iPhone (Google is to blame due to their obsession with Apple) and they ruined the DSD playback on 10 and 11, 11 brings that notorious dogshit Scoped Storage which no one mentions because they all are fine with the sandboxed zero user ownership of their own fucking files on their own phone just like an iPhone.
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link
Being limited to carriers with no unlocked version is a huge drag on the V60. I applaud LG for building a simple devvice without silly resolutions and curved screens, instead opting for decent bezels to protect the fragile screen and a big battery for long runtimes, but I'm never buying a carrier locked phone again.The other elephant in the room is the price. $900 is a lot of money. That's almost 2 mortgage payments. Phones like the moto G power have a worse camera, but the same size battery and even longer runtimes, for $250. Sure its only got a SD665, but its more then enough for 99% of use cases and costs a quarter of the V60.
I hope LG has great success with the V60 and it leads them to make more of these simple designs, but I feel it's kneecapped before it even starts the race.
Quantumz0d - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link
I agree, and man no Bootloader unlock on US SKUs either, it's the same old shitshow that US Carriers are having on the NA market, a big middlefinger to the consumer. A shame to be honest, LG hardware is #1 but their BL unlock situation is worse. OS updates is a hot topic many want them for some reason but in reality Android is moving away from it's openness on the OS principles one of it is APK bundling which is mandated by Google to make devs certify their own apps by Google isntead of them, keys to the castle for the apps. Then they have this scoped bullshit storage which ruins the whole Android FS and makes hard for developers to use Java and other POSIX based I/O libs to that performance hog and limited SAF, it destroys Android on a whole another level read on it, It's just Apple type grip. Security updates should at-least have been made mandatory by Google at CTS level for 3-5 years that would be a MUCH simple task than to support mega OS downgrades. It's a sham, they all want money if the phone doesn't stop why will anyone buy a new phone ?WPX00 - Thursday, July 16, 2020 - link
I think LG is among the best at camera performance even with the not very ambitious hardware. For years, from the G2 through the V30, the camera barely changed.G2/G3 - 13MP 1.12um OIS
G4/V10/G5/V20 - 16MP 1.12um OIS
G6 - 13MP 1.12um OIS
V30 - 16MP 1.0um OIS
They squeezed a LOT of life out of those tiny camera sensors, so it's no surprise to me they did well with the much better GM2/IMX686 sensors, even though they should theoretically pale compared to the ultra ambitious HM1 sensor in the S20U, or the IMX689 on the OnePlus.
customdtg - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link
Presentation/View Layer. This layer comprises UI components and UI process components. ...Navigation Layer. ...
Services Layer. ...
Real-Time Updates vs Notifications. ...
Navigation Options. ...
Define User Interface.
thankyou
https://www.customdtgprinting.com/create/T-shirts?...
Revv233 - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link
Bummer it's such a monster. Headphone jack and great battery life.I wish they would go thicker smaller rather than flatter wider and taller.
My s9+ is already at the limit of my hands & pockets.
Maybe Sony's new phone will work but also 170mm tall.
Anand12 - Saturday, July 18, 2020 - link
I don't thin the LG Velvet has OIS in their cameras. I think the reviewer has made an error. This will be reflected in Andrei's performance review and year end bonus.Kind Regards,
Anand
George Allan - Monday, July 20, 2020 - link
It is a great review https://www.anandtech.com/show/15905/the-lg-v60-an...BAllen2782 - Tuesday, July 28, 2020 - link
All i see is a bunch of cry babies in the comment section. Still yappin about the G4 bootloop issue. But, they never say anything about LG's customer service and free 2 year promise with the 1 year warranty already with the phone. Also, you can call LG and send in your G4 and theylle replace the logic board for free. I just got my fixed for free last year. As long as the phones screen isn't cracked and the phone is in good condition, LG will fix it for free. But, poeple have to let the bootloop thing go. It's been 5 years. Get over it. So, anyway i walked into a T-Mobile store to buy a new sim card for my fixed LG G4 and seen the V20 for $900. This was in Jan. 2017. I really liked the look and the only flagship SD820 phone out there with a removable battery was a perfect fit for me. Doing a lot of video content and such. But, i wasn't going to pay $900. So i held on to my G4, and a year later, there was the LG V20 brand new for $200 on ebay (from a reputable seller). I don't mind waiting a year or getting last years flagship phone for almost a quarter of the price. So, i bought the V20 with 2 extra batteries, a true OEM screen replacement for accidents, cause they do happen and a tripod. Also knowing that you do not remove the protective sticker off of the camera lens because it will crack. But, another great thing about the V20 was the phones repairability. With 1 micro screwdriver, the phone can be completely disassembled for repair. Thanks to Jerry Rig Everything for the teardown vids. He also gage the V20 an award for the easiest repairability. Also, the V20 is surprisingly durable. LG is the mainstream smartphone manufacturer that gives it flagship phones a MLT-810G transit drop rating. That let you know you can do more with the phone, like climb Mt Everest and when you get to the top and oull out your phone, it wil still work. They did it with the V30. But, enough about the V20. I wanted a newer phone and it Jan 2020. And i'm not paying $1,400 for a smartphone. That's ludicrous. Once again i jumped on ebay to my favorite vendor that's has truly Unlocked phones and not just a GSM unlocked sprint or At&t phone. I came across a brand new fully unlocked LG V40 (QA7) for $250. It was just $200 but, i missed the sale. He had one left and it came with a brand new (open box) $60 Otterbox Defender series (screenless edition) case and a pair of LG Tone Pro's worth $100. Even though, the Unlocked version comes with a pair of decent earbuds in the box. Those can be used for back up. I wanted the V50 but, everyone wanted $450 for'em at the time. They've dropped to $350 now, but, i'm only willing to pay about $300 max for a phone. Like i said, i'm a very patient person and don't mind running last years flagship or the year before that. As long as the phone is new and under $300. So, i'm a bargain shopper, kill me... The SD845 is plenty fast and the Adreno 630 (512ALU's) runs any AAA mobile game out there at 30 or 60 fps or whichever the game is set to run at. Also, another biggie was XDA has gained root on the V40 so, i was able to create a thermal.conf.file and change the thermal throttle temps so that famous LG micro stutter goes away. The V50 doesn't have this problem but, come to think of it, my V40 didn't ever get hot or thetmalw throttle itself. But, I'm a tinkerer and like to set my phone up my way. So i set the thermal throttle temps on the GPU and CPU. Time for modding the kernal or just making one. I got the ASUS ROG phone 1 clock mod and applied it to the my V40. Niw i have a SD845+. The Adreno 630 GPU is running at 725MHz and get about 900GFlops matching a stock Adreno 640 (768ALU's) clocked at 625MHz. The 4 HP A75/Kryo cores are running at 2.96GHz and have no issue doing so. What about the battety, well this specific LG V40 is a replacement phone for lost and stolen phones for LG's 2 year promise warranty. Can't have a extra 2 Year warranty without backup phones to give customers, right. So, when i went to check the iMEI the phone was manufactured on Dec.5th 2109 and shipped from LG's warehouse on the 10th. Making the specific V40 only 7months old. So, the battery is new. Using Acuutebattery after about a month of charge cycles says its health is at 125% and is comparable to a 4100mAh battery. And it's not lying. I get 9 to 10 hours on that little 3300mAh battery, with moderate to heavy use. Plus, i'm running a modified version of Stock Android 10 with some of LG's stick apps in there. That with the overclocks to the CPU and GPU bring this phone up to a SD855 level. Benchmarks aren't my thing but, i had to test it. It gets an easy 400,000 points. 170,000 for the GPU and 130,000 for the CPU. No other SD845 device comes close to that. My V40 was never slow or throttled. The newer silicon definitely didn't hurt matters. But, LG gets put in the shadow for no reason. They are great phones even out the box. I've been with LG and T-Mobile since the first quad core phone that came with the original Transformers movie. The Optimus G. Remember those. Was a great phone. I still have it and it does work.i actually wrote a longer version of this but, didn't want to bore the non-readers with a autophoneagraphy. But, from the manual 4K60 OIS/EIS video recording. Which with ROOT can lift the 6min limit and use both OIS and EIS while doing so. And everyone knows LG has the audio goods. From the ESS SABRE qDAC to the 2Vrms 3.5mm headphone jack that can easily push my 650Ω Senheiser 800HD's with volume to spare. From the V20 and G6 on up. There are great phones. Buying a phone that was released 2 years ago but, built just 7 months ago was a lucky thing for me but, still. A 1 or 2 year old flagship for a Quarter od the price is the way to go for me. Though, i'm might get the V50 or wait for the V70 because the V60 only has a 1080p display. Gotta have my 2K or 3K. The V50 is still $350 right now but, it'll drop. It has a 4000mAh battery and a Vapor chamber along with the SD855 and Adreno 640. Which i know i can turn into a SD855+ with the Adreno 640 pushing just over 1Teraflop of FP32 compute. I never thought i'd see 3GHz CPU's in SOC's that couod have sustainability and thermal issues. But, the SD865+ is here. Though, running a SD845/+ or SD855/+ at 2.96GHz is plenty enough for me. That with a 1 Teraflop GPU. Anyway, i herd there was going to be a LG Velvet with a SD845. That, i wlukd buy. Once it dropped in price. Well i'm tired and i gotta get back to this online money. This was a good but, somewhat a little off review. Anandtech isna great site and they do awesome work.PS. This was typed on a LG V40.