LG confirms UK release date for the V20

LG launches the V20, the first Android Nougat smartphone out of the box. Marie Brewis reports

LG has unveiled the LG V20, successor to the LG V10, as the first Android Nougat smartphone out of the box. The firm also announced that it will go on sale in the UK on 23 September. (Interestingly, that means it will launch before Google’s Nexus Sailfish and Marlin, which are now widely tipped to be the Pixel X and Pixel XL and launch on 4 October.)

It’s important to note that the LG V10 was not officially sold in the UK, and LG has not confirmed that its successor will make it over here either.

Price

At the time of writing no official price had been announced, though it’s thought that it will be available for between £500 and £550.

Features

The V20 is a good-looking smartphone, built using a combination of aluminium at the rear and tough silicone polycarbonate at top and bottom to protect it from drops. It’s intended to be more durable than many phones of its class, and has passed the MIL-STD 810G Transit Drop Test that sees it repeatedly dropped from a height of 4ft. The V20 will come in ‘Titan’, silver or pink. Several details about the phone were confirmed by the company ahead of the launch, so we already knew it would be the first Android Nougat phone, and that it would have a stellar audio experience shipping with a 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC and B&O earphones, plus feature Google’s new In Apps search function.

Contrary to some reports, the V20 isn’t a modular phone, however, the 3200mAh battery is removable, which will please many users. It also supports Quick Charge 3.0 over USB-C. It’s powered by the flagship-level Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM. There’s 64GB of storage, plus up to 2TB expansion possible through microSD.

Interestingly, the phone has a two-screen feature, with a secondary always-on display