LG Wing review

The LG Wing is definitely… out there. A strange and kind of wacky device — LG has again shown that it doesn’t shy away from experimenting. The Wing looks like a phone that someone just came up with during a brainstorming session, and it was accidentally greenlit.

But don’t get me wrong — it’s definitely nice to see that companies are trying to stir the pot a little, see what’s possible, and what the future of smartphones might shape up to be. It is LG’s willingness to experiment that has earned it the respect of a ton of smartphone fans out there.

But respect doesn’t always translate into sales. And, I feel, the LG Wing will be that “enthusiast” phone — the kind of device that you only see in stores and in reviews. Maybe some dedicated phone enthusiasts will buy it. And they’d only use it to get reactions from the cool swivel mechanism.

A “regular” smartphone user will most probably choose to spend their $1k towards a conventional phone with better specs, functionality, or popularity.

LG Wing design and display

Before we get to the part about the swivel — how’s the LG Wing when in its “normal” form? Well, it feels and looks pretty much like your regular, upper-tier smartphone. It’s a bit thick and a bit heavy, that’s a given, but the body is narrow and the phone itself is easy to hold in the palm.

The back of the phone is covered in matte glass, but it does show a fair bit of fingerprints — at least the Illusion Sky color that we have here does.

The LG Wing feels extremely solid and the swivel mechanism is very tight. There’s no rattling during normal operation and the swivel screen does not budge under the pressure of regular taps and slides.

Once you need the two-screen experience, you need to apply a bit of pressure on the bottom of the screen and swing it out leftwards. The main screen now turns to landscape orientation, and a new — almost square-shaped — screen is revealed underneath.



Swiveling the display out is super-satisfying and I can just sit there, clicking it over and over again, annoying everyone at the office. It’s a tight mechanism, which feels smooth and solid to operate, with a satisfying “click” at both ends of the swing. There’s even a software “click” sound effect, which you can mute if you choose. The mechanical one is good enough, though.

The LG Wing’s main screen is a 6.8-inch P-OLED panel with a resolution of 1080 x 2460 pixels (20.5:9 ratio) and curved edges. The side bezels are super-thin, but the phone does have just a bit of a chin and forehead. The secondary screen is a 3.9-inch OLED panel with a 1080 x 1240 resolution.

As expected, the OLED panels allow for infinite contrast as well as very punchy colors. The LG Wing’s main screen does have a slight cold hue to it — either bluish or greenish, depending on what mode you set it in. I did manage to kind of negate the cold cast by adjusting the screen to taste in Custom mode.



You can set the color profiles of both screens individually, or have them synched to each-other's settings.

What do you use the LG Wing’s secondary screen for?

It’s a two-screen phone made with multitasking in mind. The 3.9-inch screen is mostly meant for you to run “backup” apps on — you know, the kind of app that doesn’t always need to be stretched across a huge 6.8-inch display. Like Spotify or your recent texts, or the settings app when you want to make a quick adjustment, or your calendar. You can even have your notifications show up on the tiny screen, so your media experience doesn’t get disrupted. You can make shortcuts to your favorite app pairs, so they open up on their respective screens with a single tap.

There's a Naver Whale browser onboard which is specifically made to work with the Wing's two screens. It'll automatically play video on the main display and let you keep scrolling around in different tabs on the bottom screen.



Additionally, some apps can use both screens to enhance your experience. For example, if you are playing a YouTube clip, the secondary display will hold your media controls. So, you can fast-forward or change brightness without touching the main screen and disrupting the video in any other way.

The same goes for gaming — you can have the Game Launcher and its optimization settings shown on the tiny screen, while you game on the big one. LG has partnered up with the developers of Asphalt 9 to show how the secondary screen can be used to expand gaming — you can race your car on the main screen, while the minimap and other UI elements can be away on the secondary screen, just to leave more real estate on the big display.

In all honesty, it kind of felt weird to play this way, as the phone’s weight and ergonomics get really unbalanced — you need to control the game by holding the super-thin swivel-out screen, while the phone’s body weighs you down and doesn’t let your fingers rest comfortably.

This would work fantastic for action games that need virtual joysticks — if the developers let you place said joysticks on the small screen. Then, you’d have a good grip on the phone and full view of the big display.

Also, I’ve found it works quite well for the now super-popular game Among Us. Since this game involves a lot of chatting and writing (something that’s hard to do in landscape mode), the LG Wing’s keyboard, which will open on the small screen whenever it’s unfolded, was perfect for me.

Does that sound like a limited use case? Well, “niche” is pretty much the LG Wing’s entire schtick. Its rather awkward interpretation of the dual-screen concept can be useful — really useful — to a select few people. I’ve heard stories about Uber drivers or food delivery people often needing dual phone setups — one for navigation and one for apps and calls. The LG Wing might be helpful there since its dual-screen form is still very friendly to car mounts.

The LG Wing and cases