The next big Android flagship of 2015 has arrived: the LG G4 is official.
LG today revealed its next big thing, the G4. The next member of LG’s G-line of smartphones features a genuine leather backside that’s available in six different colors. LG went on to highlight the leather as a feature that’ll age and become unique the more that you use the phone. The G4 is also available with a patterned "ceramic" rear in three different colors.
In addition to the leather back, the LG G4’s camera is one of its main features. The rear shooter on the G4 has a 16-megapixel resolution and an f/1.8 aperture, allowing it to take in more light than the f/2.4 aperture on the LG G3’s camera. The G4’s rear camera also includes Laser Auto Focus, optical image stabilization, and a Color Spectrum Sensor that recognizes colors and objects. On the software side, LG has included a manual mode to allow users to tweak camera settings like ISO, white balance, and shutter speed. Meanwhile, the front of the G4 boasts an 8-megapixel camera (with an f/2.0 aperture), which is quite a jump from the G3’s 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera.
Speaking of the front of the G4, it’s home to the phone’s 5.5-inch IPS Quantum display that has a resolution of 2560x1440 and is said to offer improved color reproduction, more brightness, and more more contrast. Powering the G4 is a Snapdragon 808 processor, and Qualcomm says that it worked closely with LG to get improved sound quality and call quality with the 808. Also included with the G4 is a removable 3000mAh battery, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a microSD card slot.
On the software side of things, the LG G4 is powered by Android 5.1 running beneath LG UX 4.0. LG has included lots of unique features with the G4, including Quick Shot, which will let you quickly take a photo just by double-tapping the volume down button on the phone’s rear. There’s also Gesture Shot, which will take a sequence of selfies and let you review them when you’re done; Smart Bulletin, which gathers notifications from multiple apps and displays them on a single page; Event Pocket, which’ll gather appointments from multiple apps and show them together; and Quick Help, which will answer any questions you might have about using your phone. LG also revealed that it’s teamed up with Google to give G4 users 100GB of free Google Drive storage for two years.
LG hasn’t announced any pricing or launch details for the G4 yet, but it has confirmed that its new flagship will launch on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and U.S. Cellular in the U.S. Following the announcement of the LG G4, the carriers started to come out and spill some of the beans on their release plans. Sprint says that it’ll launch the G4 in June in Metallic Gray and Black Genuine Leather options, and U.S. Cellular confirmed that it’ll launch the G4 in June as well. T-Mobile’s release will be in “spring,” and it’ll sell the Metallic Gray and the brown leather versions of the phone, adding that it’ll be the only U.S. carrier to have the brown leather version. T-Mo’s also holding a contest that’ll let winners try out the G4 before it’s launched to the public.
So now that the LG G4 is official, what do you think? Is it going to be your next smartphone?
