When Phones (Could Be) Fly

Although this review comes on the heels of LG's final breaths, it's worth taking one more look at what is perhaps the brand's most innovative mobile phone—the LG Wing.

Whereas the world occupied itself with a safe, familiar status quo in the design of smartphones, LG decided to take a step in a different direction by launching the Explorer Project in September 2020. The goal was simple—to produce "devices that deliver distinctive and yet unexplored usability experiences".

Unfortunately for LG, and us consumers, it looks like many of those usability experiences may very well continue to go unexplored. However, before going under, the Project did showcase two unique concepts. One was a smartphone with a rolling expandable display, that could double up as a tablet, on the fly.

The other is the LG Wing, which thanks to the folks at Verizon I was able to get a hold of.

This phone could be considered a modern reboot on one of their most iconic phones—featured in Marvel's first MCU film, Iron Man—the VX9400.

Powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 765G CPU, 8GB of RAM, 128GB-256Gb of storage, a 6.8-inch OLED display and second 3.9-inch OLED underneath accessible with a flick of the main screen, the Wing provides enough power to be a proper multitasking tool, but at a hefty price—$999.

To be honest, if you're willing to pay that much for a phone, more often than not, you're better off opting for a flagship from a competitor, which I suppose is your only choice now. But if you're willing to sacrifice some performance for sheer physical functionality, then this might actually be the phone for you.

Multitasking Powerhouse

The main flaw that many smartphones have when it comes to multitasking is that they're limited by their screen real estate. Sure you can open two applications at the same time, but when one requires you to do something like enter text, the keyboard will pretty much take up most of the display leaving you with a 50-10-40 App-App-Keyboard ratio. In some cases, they keyboard will cover the second app entirely.

With the Wing, you don't really face this problem. Just flick the screen up, set up your two apps side-by-side, and enjoy using the keyboard on the smaller screen underneath. Optimal multi-tasking at a moment's notice. Such a set up is ideal for someone who is referencing text while taking notes.

But perhaps you multitask a different way. Maybe you want to watch a YouTube video while texting your friends. Just open up YouTube on the main screen and chat away on the secondary one.

If you're someone who uses Google Maps in the car, but don't want to go back and forth between that and your Spotify playlist, the LG Wing can be your friend. Or say curiosity got the best of you and you wanted an impromptu instrument cluster or heads-up display (HUD) for your Model 3/Y, there's a way to use the Wing for that too. Trust me, I've tried.

Even after entertaining the possibilities of what things can simultaneously be done with the Wing, you're left with significant trouble in that multitasking paradise. Why? Well, it's the lack of support for many apps.

For example, if you're someone who has a preferred on screen keyboard you use (for me it's GBoard), then you're fresh out of luck making full use of the dual screen functionality. Only the stock keyboard is supported for multi-display tasking. Additionally, there aren't very many apps that are designed for viewing or use in horizontal. You can work around that by turning your phone but then you're left gripping the phone uncomfortably.

There is potentially some good news. With LG promising to continue pushing updates to existing phones, including the Wing and Velvet lines, we might see an update that allows for added support, but given the brand's history with pushing out updates... I wouldn't hold my breath.