LG W Series First Impressions: Hands On With the LG W10 and LG W30

LG has unveiled a trio of phones in the new LG W series, which the company says has been designed for the Indian market. The three new models in the LG W Series – LG W10, LG W30, and LG W30 Pro – will go up against well-received phones from the likes of Xiaomi and Realme in the budget market. The LG W10 is priced at Rs. 8,999 and the LG W30 is priced at Rs. 9,999, and both will go on sale on July 3. The price and availability of the LG W30 Pro have not been announced yet. LG claims that the LG W series phones offer reliable hardware, appealing design, good cameras, and reasonable pricing. We got a little hands-on time with the LG W10 and W30 at the launch event, and here are our first impressions.

The LG W10 screams budget from the get-go. The phone has a curved polycarbonate body, but its design isn't new or unique. It comes in Tulip Purple and Smokey Grey colour options, both of which look rather sober. Thankfully, the phone appears to be built solidly, and the slightly tapering design with curved edges provides a good grip.

The LG W10 sports a 6.19-inch HD+ display with a wide boat-shaped notch at the top and a thick chin. LG has not specified whether it has used a protective material. The display looked vibrant and adequately bright in the indoor venue of the launch event, but viewing angles could have been better.

LG W10's curved profile provides a comfortable grip, but it offers nothing much in terms of aesthetics

The LG W30 is the more premium offering of the LG W series duo, and flaunts an eye-catching gradient finish with parallel lines running diagonally across its glossy rear panel. On closer inspection, we could make out a dotted pattern that looks similar to the one on Vivo V15 Pro (Review). The effect was subtle on the Platinum Grey variant that we used, but this phone will also be available in Thunder Blue and Aurora Grey options.

There is no Gorilla Glass protection on either the front or rear panel of the LG W30. This phone is on the bulkier side, but it feels premium, thanks to the solid build quality and the metallic rim running around the edges, which LG claims is made from aircraft-grade Aluminium.

The LG W30 packs a slightly larger 6.26-inch HD+ display with a waterdrop notch. Thanks to a notch customisation feature in the software, one can choose between a U-shaped or V-shaped notch, or even mask it completely. Again, the chin on this phone is quite thick, and the glossy rear panel is a fingerprint magnet. As for display quality, colours looked fine, but the panel is quite reflective.

Both the LG W10 and W30 are powered by the MediaTek Helio P22 processor paired with 3GB of RAM. On the software side, the LG W series phones run stock Android Pie and the units we used had the May security patch. The software was zippy, and navigating through the UI was smooth, but we'll soon put the two phones to the test and find out how capable they actually are in the real world.

In the imaging department, the LG W10 features a 13-megapixel primary camera assisted by a 5-megapixel depth sensor, while selfies are handled by an 8-megapixel camera. The camera UI is pretty barren and offers just a handful of features such as bokeh, AI beauty, and time lapse. We captured a couple of photos and noticed that the camera app struggled with locking the focus. The shots we took ended up looking a little hazy.

The LG W30, the more expensive of the LG W Series Duo, has a solid build quality

The LG W30 packs three rear cameras – a 12-megapixel low-light camera, a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. Selfies are taken care of by a 16-megapixel front camera. The camera UI of the LG W30 is quite different from that of the LG W10, and it offers more features such as portrait mode with blur control, slo-mo video recording, live filters, and a dedicated night mode. We took a few sample selfies which turned out to be bright, but there seemed to be a fair bit of artificial smoothening.

Going by their specifications on paper, the LG W10 might have a tough time competing against the Realme 3 (Review)and Redmi 7 (Review), both of which seem to offer better hardware and performed well in our reviews.

The LG W30 is the more interesting of the duo, thanks to its three rear cameras and appealing design. However, we'll save our verdicts about both LG W series phones for the in-depth reviews, in which we will test aspects such as camera output, performance, and battery life

Do stay tuned to Gadgets 360 to know whether the LG W series phones are worth their price.