LG teases V40 ThinQ’s cinemagraph feature

LG is announcing a new flagship this week. It's called the V40 ThinQ. These things we know for sure. We also now know that the handset will sport a cinemagraph-style feature called Cine Shot. How? Because LG says so. Also, we had occasion to see the feature in action

If you're a company like LG, there's value in pre-announcing features, and Cineshot is right in the sweet spot, in that it's interesting without giving too much of the phone away.

For those are uninitiated, cinegraphs are still images with pockets of looped motion. They essentially split the difference between a still and animated Gif. In the case of the V40, the phone merges still and video into one file. The user can then highlight the portion of the photo they want to add motion to by essentially painting it in with a finger. The feature also works with all three (!) of the phone's rear-facing camera.

It's gimmicky - but it's cool gimmicky. There's a good chance it's the sort of thing you'll use twice out of the box and then never return to, but it's an interesting and fun way for LG to help distinguish itself from the competition.

More info on the V40 later this week.