Already on sale in its native Korea first, of course, the G4 will land in Hong Kong, before coming to Turkey, Russia and Singapore. Thereafter, LG said the phone will hit “most of Europe, North America, CIS, Southeast Asia, Middle East/Africa and South/Central America” over the next month — although it didn’t provide more specific timing for those releases.
President and CEO of LG Mobile, Juno Cho, said in a statement that the G4 is “unlike any other flagship mobile phone on the market today.” While today’s smartphones are becoming fairly commoditized in terms of features, there’s plenty to be optimistic about with LG’s latest offering.
The screen uses new “quantum display” tech, which apparently makes for better color reproduction, there’s a redesigned camera which now sports a larger sensor — a 16-megapixel rear camera and eight-megapixel front camera — and a 64-bit hexacore CPU Snapdragon 808 processor to power the show.
Added to that, the G4 includes a hand-crafted leather back, and subtle curve for improved feel in the hand. On the software side, there are some nice tweaks for serial Android owners — Google’s productivity apps come pre-installed, Chrome is the default browser, and there’s Chromecast support baked right in.
All of that leaves just one more question: what price The price will vary worldwide, LG said, but early reports suggest it will retail for around $600 without a contract, or near $200 as part of a U.S. carrier deal.
That comes in around the same price as Samsung’s Galaxy S6, while the Galaxy S6 Edge is around $100 more expensive. These three are certainly the Android phones to watch this year, so far (considering Xiaomi continues to operate in Asia only) — however Apple’s larger iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ are increasingly appealing to new audiences and have won the U.S. firm additional marketshare, particularly in China and other parts of Asia.
By Jon Russell / TechCrunch
