Most others are taking preorders starting on that date, but in-store availability is all over the place. AT&T will launch the V30 just one day later on October 6th for $810 or $27/month for 30 months. T-Mobile says it’s coming October 13th for $800 or $80 down and $30/month for 24 months. This is the first device to support T-Mobile’s 600 Mhz LTE spectrum, which the carrier is making a big deal about. It’s the sixth device that AT&T classifies as “5G Evolution capable.”
Unlike the other carriers, Sprint will be selling the V30+ model, which comes with 128GB of storage, but at a higher price — either $38/month for 18 month through Sprint’s Flex program or $912 full retail price. The carrier is also offering a “lease one get one free” program for new and upgrading customers too.
LG’s V30 has a 6-inch OLED HDR display with minimal bezels, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor, 64GB of storage, 4GB RAM, a hi-fi quad DAC, dual cameras on back (one of them super wide-angle), unmatched manual camera controls, water resistance, wireless charging, and more. It’s definitely a powerhouse of a flagship phone if you can put up with LG’s software, which was my biggest gripe with an early preview unit.
But despite my complaints about the UX aesthetics, I can say that the V30 has remained incredibly fast through the weeks I’ve tested it — and battery life has also been strong. We’ll have to see whether both of those things still hold true with the final carrier devices, however. The October 5th preorder date is one day after Google’s October 4th event, where we expect to see the debut of the LG-made Pixel 2 XL. That’s likely to have the same display, but it will also likely lack many of LG’s specialties like the DAC and super-wide camera.
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