LG will announce its 5-camera V40 on October 3

LG sent out invites to its next launch event on October 3, and it makes no secret of what’s to come: The V40 ThinQ is on the way.

There’s little in the way of details, but the invite cryptically says ‘Take 5,” which suggests that the V40 will indeed come with five cameras as previously rumored.

To be clear, that’s three on the rear and two on the front. While it may seem like LG is just following a trend of adding more cameras, its worth noting the company was actually one of the first to adopt a multi-camera setup way back with 2015’s V10.

In fact, that phone was the first to use two selfie cameras before it decided its efforts were better spent on the rear. LG has since only used one front-facing camera, but it seems it’s now returning to its roots.

Granted, we don’t know yet how LG will implement all of these cameras. Traditionally, the company has paired a ‘normal’ wide-angle camera with a panoramic ultra-wide-angle. This setup remains fairly unique in the industry, so if I had to guess, I’d say LG will keep the ultra-wide and normal, but add a telephoto lens to compete with everyone else in the industry.

At least, I hope that’s the case. While we have seen three rear cameras on the likes of Huawei’s P20 Pro, that third camera was used to improve low light performance rather than provide an additional perspective.

I think a camera that could switch between wide-angle, wide, and telephoto would make for a much more versatile shooter. That’s especially notable given the V-series’ cinematic aspirations; last year’s V30 features a nifty feature that smoothed the transition between cameras for a smooth zooming effect during video recording. It’d be a lot more useful with a telephoto camera too.

Meanwhile, a second camera on the front could make for better depth detection on portrait mode selfies, or it could enhance the cameras wide-angle capabilities.

But then, that’s just my own speculation. I just hope LG wows us with its cameras, as it’s been lagging behind the best for a couple of years now. It won’t be too much longer until we find out more.