LG Wing review: interesting design, excellent build quality, and solid performance, but pricey and there are not many uses for its fold-out second display
Context & Ripple Effects
The Wing is the endpoint of a five-year experiment. LG tried a small ticker screen above the main display in the V10, which reviewers called superfluous, then a clip-on companion panel with the G8X ThinQ Dual Screen, praised for multitasking but half-baked in software. The Wing's twist-away second display was pitched as the refined version of that idea.
The verdict closes the loop: build quality and performance are strong, but the second screen still lacks a reason to exist — the same critique as 2015, now on a pricier device. Three years later, the OnePlus Open shows where the multitasking-phone energy actually went: folding the screen rather than hiding one underneath.
First-order effects
- Buyers weighing the Wing are paying a flagship price for a second display the review finds mostly unused — the purchase decision rests on the main phone's merits alone.
- LG's swiveling form factor lands as a finished product after two TBA-announcement pieces, but the review confirms the software case for the second screen never materialized.
Second-order effects
- Rivals chasing the same multitasking differentiation read this verdict against their own roadmaps: LG's slide-out approach fails where software support is thin, pushing competitors toward full foldables like the OnePlus Open instead of secondary panels.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, dual-screen accessories and hidden-panel designs exit the mainstream, and foldable book-style devices become the standard answer to 'one phone, two screens' — with LG's five-year second-screen arc as the cautionary precedent about hardware novelty outpacing software utility.
The trend: Smartphone makers hunting for post-slab differentiation are abandoning bolt-on second screens in favor of full foldables, as LG's V10-to-Wing arc and the later OnePlus Open make plain.