Removable batteries are becoming increasingly rare in the smartphone world, but LG has been sticking with them, offering them on flagship phones like the G3, G4, and V10. The rumor mill suggests that that’ll continue with the LG G5, but a report says that LG may have a unique way to swap the G5’s battery.
According to CNET Korea, LG has developed a way to pop off the bottom of the G5 and pull the battery out that way, rather than popping off a rear cover. In the render, we can see that there are a couple of buttons on the sides of the phone, right above where the detachable bottom portion is. Presumably, you’d press these two buttons at the same time to release the detachable bit.
This design would let the LG G5 have a unibody-style design, but retain the removable battery feature that LG has been pushing so hard with is other recent flagships. It’s definitely a unique design, and it’ll be interesting to see how it works and how durable it is if it ends up actually happening. The removable battery is one of the biggest ways that LG is differentiating its phones from other flagships, and this leaked design would let LG keep that feature will also giving the G5 a unibody look that’s been popular with other flagships.
A previous report claimed to shed some light on the LG G5’s specs. It’s said that the G5 could feature a 5.3-inch 2560x1440 display — slightly smaller than the 5.5-inch screen found on the G4 — a Snapdragon 820 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 2800mAh battery, a rear-mounted fingerprint reader, and a “Magic Slot” that allows for adding hardware expansions like special cameras or a physical keyboard. All of those features are said to be wrapped in a full metal body.
Interestingly, the render created by CNET Korea shows the G5’s volume buttons on the side of the phone, rather than on the rear where they’ve been for the past few models. It’d be kind of strange to see LG abandon that feature after using it to differentiate its phones for several years, but if today’s rumor comes true, the detachable bottom portion and removable battery would help the G5 to stand out instead of the rear-mounted buttons.
