LG’s V30S ThinQ is basically a clone of its predecessor with a smarter camera

Earlier this month, LG revealed that it planned to follow up its immensely capable V30 handset from 2017 with AI-powered camera tech. Now, it’s unveiled what you might call new wine in an old bottle.

Unveiled at MWC 2018, the LG V30S ThinQ is almost indistinguishable from the V30, save for blue and platinum gray finishes, and upgrades to its RAM, storage, display, and camera software. That’s fine for the few people who just didn’t get around to buying a V30 last year, but it’s hard to understand why LG didn’t bother to make a new phone. Oh, and here’s the kicker: the AI camera app is coming to the original V30 too.

The V30S ThinQ comes with 6GB RAM (a 2GB bump up) and up to 256GB of storage (double what the V30 offered), and Vision AI, which analyzes objects in the camera’s field of view and determines the ideal settings to get a good shot. For example, if your point the shooter at a plate of pasta, the camera will adjust to ‘food mode’, and increase the color temperature for warmer colors, and boost sharpening.

The tech was developed in partnership with visual platform EyeEm, which claims that the AI was trained with more than 100 million images.

There are a couple more features that sound interesting, but your mileage might vary depending on how much you care to use them. QLens analyzes real-world objects using your camera to help you find out where you can buy them – or related products – online. As Engadget noted, this is usually hit-or-miss, so I can’t say I’m dying to try it out.

There’s also Voice AI, which works alongside Google Assistant to help you launch apps and change settings using voice commands.

Ultimately, there’s certainly not enough in here to convince V30 fans to upgrade, but if the price is right, the V30S ThinQ could offer formidable competition to upcoming phones through 2018.

Follow our MWC coverage this week here.

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