Gadgets: New dual screens take cellphones to next level

For several years, cellphone design was kind of stagnant.

Phones from almost every company started looking alike — a rectangular slab of glass with rounded corners and no buttons on the screen.

Samsung was the first to really change things up with the Galaxy Fold, the first phone with a folding screen.

LG is hot on Samsung's heels with its G8X ThinQ, which also folds, but not quite the same way.

Its only con is that its third-party app support for the dual screens is limited.

The G8X ThinQ is a rectangular glass slab with rounded corners, but LG has added an optional second (and third) screens in the form of a dual screen case.

You slide the G8X ThinQ into the case (it resembles a wallet case) and it doubles your screen size and it adds a third screen on the front of the case.

But having one app on each screen is nice.

The phone's screen and the screen in the dual screen case are both OLED displays, and they look great.

The phone slides in and out of the case easily. The phone's battery powers the screens in the case through the phone's USB-C port, which is covered when the phone is in the case. The case has a magnetic adapter for charging.

The G8X is a nice phone but it doesn't have any standout features when you look at it alone.

The main camera has two lenses — a 12-megapixel 27mm (standard) and a 13-megapixel 9mm (ultrawide). The selfie camera has a 32-megapixel sensor with a 26mm (wide) lens.

Considering the Galaxy Fold costs almost $2,000, the G8X and dual screen case are an incredible value.

Kudos to LG for coming up with the dual-screen phone and making it so seamless. More phone companies should consider it.

The G8X doesn't quite have the cool factor of the Galaxy Fold, but I got more than a few people asking questions when I was using it. It did tend to attract attention.