LG Electronics Inc. unveiled its new flagship smartphone V30 in Germany on Thursday (local time), a day before the opening of IFA 2017, world’s leading consumer electronics trade show in Berlin. It is the first time for the South Korean electronics giant to debut its V series smartphone at the IFA.

V30 is slimmer and lighter than its predecessor, but has far advanced camera system. With V30, it is easy to take pictures like professional photographers, said Juno Cho, president and chief executive of LG Electronics` mobile communication division during the event showcasing the new premium phone.

For the professional-like picture taking experience, LG Electronics added F1.6 aperture lens. According to the company, F1.6 aperture camera is 25 percent brighter than the F1.8 lens adopted by its predecessor LG V20. The value of F is an indicator for lens’s brightness. Lower F value means aperture opens wider to take in more light, allowing camera to take brighter and clearer photos and videos.

The new phone also features a dual camera on the back - one with normal angle that uses F1.6 aperture lens and another with wide-angle lens.

The normal angle camera uses six lenses and the first one, which directly absolves light, uses ‘Crystal Clear Lens’ made of glass. Compared to a conventional plastic lens, the glass lens has a high transmittance rate of visible light for expression of detailed color and realistic texture. These high-end lens are commonly used in digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera, said the company.

The wide-angle camera on the back also has been upgraded to reduce edge distortion by a third compared to that of the predecessor V20.

Even with the upgraded camera system, V30 is only 7.3 millimeters thin. Galaxy Note8 that its archrival Samsung Electronics Co. released last month is 8.5 millimeters thick.

V30 is also fitted with Google Inc.’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered voice assistant service ‘Google Assistant.’ It is the first Korean-made smartphone to sport the voice assistant system first unveiled by the global tech giant last year.

The basic V30 model comes with 64 gigabyte (GB) internal storage but the company will also release V3 Plus with greater storage of 128 GB.

LG Electronics will release V30 at home on September 21 at a price of around 950,000 won ($845) and gradually roll out the new premium phone in other markets across the world.

At 10:34 a.m. on Friday, shares of LG Electronics were up 0.61 percent at 82,000 won.

By Oh Chan-jong

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