Powerful And Stylish Curved ‘Arc’ LG G4 Makes Debut
With an ‘arc’ curved build, 5.5 inch Quad HD screen and Snapdragon 808 processor, the LG G4 looks to break the Android mould
LG has unveiled its latest flagship smartphone, the G4, ending weeks of speculation(and a number of unfortunate leaks.
The new device features a curved ‘arc’ body that sits neatly in the palm of your hand, so you can enjoy the 5.5in AMOLED QuadHD 2560 x 1440 pixel display, and is 20 percent more durable than other devices, meaning it should hopefully stand up to those accidental drops.
It’ll also come with an optional real-leather back panel (or textured metallic, if you want to be boring), making it one of the most stylish smartphones on the market today.
Power up
Power up“Into the early years of smartphone design, there were only a few design option,” president & CEO of LG Mobile communications company Juno Cho told media at an event in New York. “Now, every phone looks the same – with LG, we began to ask ourselves, how can we give the smartphone character and originality?”
Under the hood, there’s a Snapdragon six-core 808 processor especially optimised for the G4, alongside an X10 LTE modem which can support superfast download speeds.
There’s also 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage (which can be upgraded to 128GB via microSD) and 100GB of free Google Drive storage, all powered by a removable 3,000mAh battery.
There’s also an Adreno 400 GPU which is 20 percent faster than its predecessor, meaning it’ll show off your games and videos in greater detail than ever before – and the G4 is also able to capture 4K video.
This Snapdragon/LG optimisation also means that the device will get more than a full day’s battery life on a single charge, with the phone telling you which apps are draining power when your screen is off, so you can kill them off – a function which LG says increases battery life by 11 percent.
There’s also sensor-assisted positioning thanks to Qualcomm’s IZat technology to help with super-accurate GPS locationing – meaning that even if you’re indoors or near tall buildings, the phone should be able to detect where you are.
Snappy
As for the camera, LG has built on the powerful lens in the G3 with a new 16 megapixel rear sensor which packs a laser-guided and brighter f/1.8 lens along with improved image stabilisation to show off your photos on an IPS Quantum display. The lens also features the world’s first colour spectrum sensor, which can process images the way our eyes do and automatically adjust settings for more natural images.
The laser focus function allows the lens to focus in just over half a second, but if that’s not fast enough for you, LG has also introduced a new quick shot function that takes a photo just by pressing the rear button twice.
There’s also an 8 megapixel front camera for capturing the perfect selfie – something that LG hopes to help with thanks to an improved ‘gesture shot’ function which allows you to make a movement to take multiple images.
Made for you
As far as software goes, the G4 runs Android Lollipop 5.1 alongside LG’s newly-launched UX 4.0 0 a ‘human-centric UX’ which it describes as helping build a “simpler and smarter experience for users”.
“The purpose of a smartphone should not just be to show off new technologies….more than ever, the user is now the focus of the G4,” Cho said.
Among the range of improvements and upgrades are a new gallery feature that sorts through all your photos to make viewings memories easier, a smart notification display which collects alerts together so that you don’t spend ages trawling through separate apps, and an upgrade to the home screen Smart Notice feature, which will now display more helpful and in-depth advice.
The device will be available in a variety of designs, with customers able to choose from a selection of five different shades of real leather cases.
There’s no information yet on price or release, but so far O2, Vodafone, Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk have confirmed they will be stocking the LG G4 in the UK. However LG did confirm it would be launching the device in the US in late May or early June, so a UK release probably won’t be too far behind.
What do you remember about the smartphones of 2014? Take our quiz!
