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LG's new superphone has two screens and two selfie cameras

LG's renaming its powerful flagship smartphone series, here's the V10 and it marks a new smartphone start, with some notable features all on the front of the thing. The company is literally doubling down on features, with two five-megapixel cameras for selfie sufferers and a curious second screen that's connected to the first one. That extra display is right above the 5.7-inch QHD main display, but works separately. You'll be able to keep it on constantly to show weather, time date and battery status "without impacting battery life", according to LG. Turn on the entire phone however, and you can then use that top display for app shortcuts even when you're in the midst of another app -- or anywhere that's not the home screen. Now about those cameras...

The thinking is that two cameras (taking separate images at the standard 80-degree angle) is a better idea than a wide-angle lens, and that fish-bowl effect that happens at the edges. Self-portraiture can come in two flavors: the standard 80-degree kind, or the cram-everyone-in 120-degree option which stitches the two images together. (The lenses are apparently "just far enough apart to provide two different points of view"). LG's most baffling new feature this time around is "Multi-view Recording" which engages all three cameras on the V10. We don't know why you'd do that.

Less pointless, however, is manual video recording mode. Now that smartphones are capturing 4K video it makes a huge amount of sense to offer up more controls to those that can handle the added complication. Shutter speed, frame rate, ISO, white balance and focus can all be tinkered with, and movies can also be recorded in a cinematic 21:9 ratio. Other notable features here include and wind noise filter and audio monitor to adjust the sensitivity of all three mics during recording. You can even meddle with directional audio recording. Get ready to power-use like it's 2012 too, because the phone has microSD card storage expansion and a removable 3,000mAh battery, something that's probably a necessity if you're a a burgeoning 4K film auteur. The phone launches this month in Korea in two kinds of blue (doubling up), black, white and beige. It's set to roll out elsewhere (including the Asia, Europe and the US) later.