Note 21 Smartphone

Someone at LG must have thought: "Leather is so last-year, let’s do something nobody has done – or long quit trying." And here we have the LG G5. It has the looks of a brand new flagship, the heart of a dragon and an adventurous dual camera setup suited for every occasion. But there’s more than what meets the eye, the Magic Slot. The LG G5 is a modular smartphone, which lets you plug a handful of external add-ons: a semi-pro camera grip with shutter buttons and a bigger battery, or an external sound amplifier by B&O.

How long since you last saw the inside of your phone? It seems like while everyone was busy experimenting with designs and mixing up various alloys, there was something unusual cooking in the LG labs.

Brand new or just well forgotten old, innovating for its own sake or trying to defy the impossible, the modular design won't let you upgrade the processor or the camera, but it certainly offers plenty of options. The add-ons will mostly be sold separately but initial prices don't seem too bad. You might even get a bonus camera grip - LG will throw one in the bundle in select markets. Who knows, we might see the return of the xenon flash or some smart docking solutions along the lines of Microsoft's Continuum.

What you do get right out of the box is the base equipment and in the case of the G5, it's anything but modest. Perhaps the star of the show is the camera combo. The 16MP camera borrowed from the LG V10 does top-notch stills, and the secondary 8MP sensor offers unmatched super wide shots while adding a hybrid zoom of sorts to the package.