LG just launched the G7 ThinQ, which is the company’s newest flagship phone and the successor to last year’s LG G6. The G7 ThinQ is everything that past renders and rumours have told us and when the company made the phone official, nothing came as a surprise honestly. The flagship packs everything you would expect from a phone in 2018. This includes the latest Snapdragon processor, edge-to-edge display, premium glass design, dual cameras and yes, the notch as well. It’s everything we expected, and that’s the problem.

It’s interesting to see how the past few years have been for LG’s G series. The LG G5 was perhaps one of the riskiest phones from the company as it came with a modular design, which was ultimately panned by most people for being too limited in scope. The next year, LG ditched the modular style and came out with its first 18:9 display phone with the LG G6. In fact, the G6 was among the very first few phones to sport a full-screen display. But the problem was that 2017 flagship used a 2016 Snapdragon 821 processor, which did not go down well with a lot of people. Rumours did the rounds a few months ago that LG was planning to stop the G series line altogether, but of course that’s not the case and here we have the LG G7 ThinQ.

After two pretty disappointing flagships, it seems that LG didn’t want to take any more chances, which is why the G7 ThinQ packs everything one expects to find in 2018. And while it does very much look like a 2018 phone, there isn’t much that really screams out innovative. While the LG G5 tried too hard to look different, the LG G7 ThinQ doesn’t try all that much. There is no doubt in my mind that the phone will perform great thanks to the Snapdragon 845 chip, but that’s not the point. Today, with phones looking more and more like each other, there is a need for that one standout feature.

The problem starts with the design – the LG G7 ThinQ has a notch. Here’s the thing, every Android maker is adopting the notch that was popularised by the iPhone X and not the one introduced by Essential. We have seen it on the Huawei P20 Pro, and some phones from Asus, Oppo and Vivo among others. And we know that the upcoming OnePlus 6 will sport the notch as well. So it’s safe to say that there is an abundance of notched phones already, which is getting really old really fast. The rest of the G7 ThinQ looks similar to past LG phones like the V30 or the G5, the only noticeable change being the vertical placement of the rear cameras.

And I get it that this is something that manufacturers cannot avoid right now. The notch allows for a larger screen real estate and will have to be there until there’s a better place to keep the front camera, earpiece and sensor. But despite the notched design, the Huawei P20 Pro, for example, is still something unique as it’s the first to bear a triple camera setup. And that’s the kind of innovation that is now required moving forward if brands want to set their phones apart from the crowd.

Phones with notches is a thing now and there’s no escaping it. Smartphone are once again starting to look similar from the outside. Even the iPhone X has lost its charm now and it hasn’t even been a year. It’s time for brands to make some serious changes inside. The LG G7 ThinQ has a headphone jack, supports wireless charging, is IP68 rated for dust and water resistance, like most other flagships. Well, maybe if you remove the jack. Also, the G7 ThinQ supports quad-DAC for clear and great audio. But most of these features just don’t excite us anymore.

The LG G7 ThinQ has everything to call it a 2018 flagship, but it’s missing that innovative element. I wouldn’t call a dedicated AI button as innovative since Samsung has a similar Bixby button on the Galaxy S9 already. What is new, however, is that the button launches Google Assistant and Google Lens, a feature no other phone has right now. But I wouldn’t call this revolutionary. There is also something called a Boombox speaker that uses space inside the phone to amplify the sound. This happens through a single speaker, and I wonder how much better that would sound over a dual speaker or stereo speaker phone.

The reason LG added the ThinQ branding to the phone, apart from making the name unnecessarily long, is because it is touting a lot of AI features. In addition to a dedicated AI button, the phone also packs AI features for the cameras. AI CAM can recognise around 19 shooting modes, but again it’s something Huawei and some others have introduced already. The novelty of such AI features tend to wear off pretty quickly.

Perhaps the biggest feature of the phone is its dual camera system that comprises of two 16-megapixel sensors. While the primary gets a f/1.6 aperture that should help with low-ligt shots, the secondary sensor gets a Super Wide Angle lens with a 107-degree field of view, which is something not a lot of phones can brag about. But in a time where Huawei is bringing triple cameras and topping DxOMark ranking, is the G7 ThinQ’s wide lens enough to sell it? Now before you say it, yes the Galaxy S9 looks similar to the Galaxy S8, but the reason that won’t bother people is because Samsung has loaded the phone with some new features including a Dual Aperture feature for the camera, which is actually pretty fantastic.

My thoughts on the LG G7 ThinQ are only based on the announcement and perhaps a hands-on experience may give me a whole new view. I am sure the phone will perform way better than the G6 or the G5, but that’s not my concern. I feel LG should not have abandoned its innovative side altogether and one really good standout feature would have been enough to push the phone into the limelight.