LG announces its palm-reading G8 ThinQ smartphone

MWC has delivered some weird and wonderful mobile tech so far this year, mainly a variety of folding phone variations. But LG has taken a… different route with its latest flagship, the G8 ThinQ. It’s a flagship that can read your palm.

No, LG hasn’t launched a pocket-sized soothsayer. But you’ll be able to unlock the device by placing your palm in front of it. The G8 offers a new type of biometric security with its ‘Z Camera’ set in the not-so-unexpected notch. The Z Camera ‘reads’ the haemoglobin (that’s a fancy word for blood) in a user’s hand-veins to recognise them and unlock the device.

As wacky as that sounds, the feature is actually part of a wider range of gesture-based controls built into the G8. A user can navigate the phone without actually touching it. Instead, users can make motions in front of the camera to move between screens, play and pause video and navigate through pages. From the few hands-on reviews we’ve seen, it seems the feature isn’t completely, um, fleshed out yet…

But isn’t that what these trade shows are about? Trying out the wacky tech that might not necessarily work? Yeah, LG gets it. The question is, will anyone other than chefs, mechanics or the other routinely dirty-of-hand want a phone they can gesture at?

Other than that, the LG G8 ThinQ is fitted with a spectacular 6.2in OLED screen, a welcome upgrade from the LCD on the G7 ThinQ, and a triple rear camera system. Qualcomm’s newest flagship processor, the 7nm Snapdragon 855, is inside along with 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM. On paper, it’s certainly got the requisite specs for a flagship.  

The G8 also launches with Android 9, but LG always seems to gum up the works with its mobile OS overlay. Hopefully it’s been less heavy-handed this time around. We’ll need to get our hands on (or near) one to really test out the new features and see what the G8’s all about. If the G8 tells us we will soon meet a tall, dark stranger then we’re probably going to… be quite impressed, actually. That’s some classic palmistry. Also, we could do with more tall, dark strangers in our lives. Though maybe that’ll just mean a review Sony tall phone will be coming our way.

The LG G8 ThinQ was announced alongside another device, the ‘foldable’ V50 that we’re also amped to get our mitts on. If LG plans to launch it locally, that is. The V40 ThinQ only made it here last month, so we might have to wait a while for its new devices. We’ll update you once the company lets us in on its plans either way.