On a wing and a prayer? LG 'Wing' shows it is willing to give anything a try to see what sticks

LG has been desperately trying to see what will stick when it comes to gaining market traction with its smartphones. Although it has released many very good smartphones in recent years and introduced some ground-breaking innovations multi-camera set ups and enhanced audio, it hasn’t had a hit smartphone in sometime. Of late, it has been focusing dual-screen accessories and its most recent reboot, the new LG Velvet looks like it will be another miss thanks to some overly aspirational launch pricing.

A fresh report out of its home market of Korea says that LG is working on a new smartphone codenamed ‘Wing’ that would adopt a unique approach to its current dual-screen fetish. The design mock-up shows a smartphone that twists or pivots to the left shifting the main display into a horizontal viewing angle. Underneath, however, is an erstwhile hidden second screen that remains in the vertical position. In one propose use case, this would allow the content from the main display to cascade or extend on to the secondary screen.

Another mock-up proposes using the second screen as a keyboard in the portrait position while viewing the content in landscape position on the main screen. Although LG has the technology to create foldable devices, it has avoided that approach to creating additional screen real estate likely because of the expense. The only advantage to adopting this approach rather than using a second screen accessory is that it will be lighter and more compact overall. It will be interesting to see if it makes the light of day as a shipping product.