The Android battlefield is starting to heat up in a serious way. Both Samsung and HTC have recently dropped their new prize smartphones into a busy market and LG isn’t going to be left out.
At a press event in New York, the electronics company revealed its LG G4 smartphone. Granted, there wasn’t as much fanfare and buzz around the event as the company had made it clear weeks in advance that it was the G4 announcement. LG isn’t prone to keeping its devices under wraps in the hopes of delivering a big surprise but rather chooses to be more upfront in advance about what it’s planning.
The Specs and Design
The G4 is a little bigger than before with a 5.5” screen and 2560×1440 QHD display. Under the hood it’s running Android 5.1 Lollipop with a new version of LG’s custom user interface (UI). It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, 32GB storage, and 3GB RAM. It’s powered by a 3,000mAh battery but it doesn’t support built-in wireless charging.
The display of LG’s centerpiece phone has been built upon with this iteration too. LG revealed its IPS Quantum display technology for sharper displays that it claims will improve colors on your screen by 20 percent as well as improving brightness and contrast.
It also showed off Advanced In-Cell Touch, which allows for accurate finger swipes and pushes when the screen is wet.
Phone makers have been tinkering with lots of different designs to set themselves apart too. Whereas the Samsung Galaxy S6 made a splash with metal and glass and the Edge design, the LG G4 will also be available with a leather-clad back exterior. Plastic backs in silver, bronze, and white are available too.
The LG G4 also has a slight curved design but not to the same extent as the LG G Flex 2
A Pro Camera for the Everyday User
The camera though is one of LG’s biggest selling points here. Recently it teamed up with professional photographer Colby Brown for a short teaser video about the phone’s camera features such as the 16-megapixel camera that comes with an F1.8 lens aperture (compared to the iPhone 6’s F2.2).
New camera sensors more accurately determine if you’re shooting indoors or outdoors and helps capture more accurate colors, says Colby Brown, “no matter what situation you’re working in.” The LG G4 also comes with manual control over ISO, white balance, and shutter speed.
Most users will probably opt for the automatic mode favored by the majority of smartphone users but the new pro-like camera features of the G4 will appeal to users that care a little extra about theit smartphone photos.
As for the front, the LG G4 comes with a front facing 8-megapixel camera.
The company boasts that this is LG’s biggest and best smartphone to date. The impressive camera features certainly give it an edge while LG claims that its GPS and location services are twice as accurate as its competitors.
Pricing and Carriers
There was one thing during LG’s press event that it was tight-lipped and secretive about—the price.
No details were given but it did say that most US carriers will support the phone and a release is expected around the end of May or possibly early June.
The first couple of buyers for the LG G4 will also get 100GB of free Google Drive storage for two years. A second partnership with Volkswagen will see the phone being compatible with the car’s driver display.