LG has revealed a phone that takes wide-angle selfies and an updated 4G smartwatch, now running on Android.
The high-end V10 phone has not one but two front-facing cameras allowing the device to take 120-degree shots.
It also has two screens – one as an inset display above the main one, which can show information such as the date, weather or battery life at all times.
An Android smartwatch, the first to feature 4G connectivity, has also been announced.
The V10’s dual cameras on its front each has a five megapixel sensor.
They are capable of capturing 80-degree selfies or wide-angle ones, of 120 degrees, with one shot. For this, the phone actually takes two pictures at once which are then stitched together by an algorithm.
“The ability to take group selfies without a selfie-stick has never been easier,” LG said in a statement.
The smaller of the two screens on the V10 has a 2.1 inch (5.3 cm) display designed to show useful information such as battery life or the current time even when the main screen is turned off.
The V10’s rear camera boasts 16 megapixels and users will also be able to make use of the video app’s manual controls for tweaking shutter speed, frame rate and white balance among other settings.
Connected watch
In a first for Android Wear smartwatches, the new Urbane 2nd Edition watch will be able to connect to 4G, 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth.
A previous Urbane watch also featured similar connectivity but ran a different operating system.
The watch includes a 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, four gigabytes of RAM, a 570mAh battery and a 480 x 480 P-OLED screen.
Android wearables still have a way to go in attracting buyers, according to the latest figures from analysts IDC, however.
Research suggests that Fitbit and Apple watches accounted for nearly half of the market in the second quarter of 2015.
When it comes to smartphones, LG has seen a decline in market share in recent months. The firm is likely pinning its hopes on the potential for the high-end V10 to regenerate interest in its products.
LG ‘stepping up’
Indeed, the latest products indicate a hardware company keen to stand out from the crowd, said Ben Wood, a consumer electronics analyst at CCS Insight.
“LG certainly appear to have stepped up and look very keen to try and secure a good space in the market,” he said.
However, Mr Wood added that the challenge of pinching any market share from Apple’s iPhones remained formidable.
“LG clearly with the second screen has something that will catch people’s attention – that doesn’t make it any easier to sell than the iPhone,” he commented.
He also suggested that mobile connectivity on smartwatches might be seen as “a solution looking for a problem”, but they would be likely to appeal to mobile operators keen to sell more devices alongside a data contract.
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Source: BBC