I'm going to likely have to the an L on the V40 if I decide to move it. Maybe I just retire it fully instead of selling.
Haven't done a true long-term review, eh? Now's a good time to share some thoughts in transit.
Design - I'm an old fart these days, so I like it. It's got a functional feel overall. The notch has always been irrelevant to me, as Essential still did it the best the first. Not a fan of the off-centered speaker, but it's not that bad. Wished it was dual stereo speakers (V50 is). I'm used to the lighter weight from LG - doesn't make it less "premium" , in fact it makes the engineering more impressive. The rear FPS is a plus, and with the old school knock code, works just fine for me. It's narrow enough and wide enough were dual handed use doesn't have my mitts stepping on each other as I type.
Screen - quite nice. I appreciate whenever I use other screens. I thought LG did a nice job going from the Pixel 2XL and V30 screens to the V35 and V40 models. The G7 screen was super good too - I do have the same complaint as the tech reviewers as I feel the screens arent as energy efficient in their tuning as they should be. It's why while I like the G8's panel, it feels more of the same to me. I run it on 1080P and it does the job for me. It's a flat screen, which is a boon for me as a daily driver.
Audio - the DAC is still the DAC, nice and tasty forward listening. My gripe will be that I wish the Bluetooth game was just strong, it's just OK. The acoustic loudspeaker setup is solid.
Camera - so, it's solid. I enjoy shooting in manual. I'm liking the auto mode a bit more, but there's still work to be done here. Especially poorer low lighting. The trip camera setup is nice, but I wish there was access to all three cameras in manual mode (telephoto is missing). The camera app is busy as hell, but once you know where what you want is located, it's solid.
Battery - got mixed feelings here. My unit isn't new, so I don't expect Mate 20 Pro run time here. Still, a bigger battery and better software optimizations are welcomed. Plus, LG's radios are...OK. They're not bad, but it doesn't feel like much moment is happening here. Standby is solid enough, but once you start to push it, it drains power faster than a gold digger with a black AMeX in a closing high end store.
Software - I still like MIUI over the LG skin. Feels like HTC Sense - quick but dated as hell. I see the LG G8X UX and go "that's kinda a start" but more needs to be done here. Usually, it's unobtrusive, but I'm never the type to use the stock launcher or keyboard.
My beef here is security patches. I wish they just went with a quarterly release schedule for all their handsets. I never expect LG to move fast with larger OS drops, but they really need to be better at security patch management.
Misc - I do get random reports with this thing. It happens often enough for me to mention it. Nona fan of that.
Overall, it's a good device. The G7 has been a good device (outside of the battery management), the V35 is a good device and the V40 is a good device. I think the V50 refines some of the smaller gripes I have with both the V35 and V40 models. Having used all three, I still like the V35 the most.