Any Android mobile manufacturer worth their salt these days has got a 5-inch 1080p smartphone in their stable – and now LG has joined that ever-increasing number.
Japanese carrier NTT Docomo has announced LG’s latest phone, the Optimus G Pro. The device, which is intended to compete against the likes of the HTC Butterfly and the Sony Xperia Z, includes a number of upgrades over the Optimus G that we saw released last year.
The first, of course, is that wonderful screen. LG’s 5-inch 1080p panel has a much higher pixel density at 440ppi compared to the earlier 4.7″ panel’s 312ppi and there look to have been improvements in brightness and colour balance too.
Interestingly, with most mobile manufacturers looking to provide dramatically thin phones – most notably the 6.45 mm thin 5-inch 1080p Huawei Grand S – LG has bucked the trend and come up with a phone that is 2 millimetres thicker than its predecessor. At 10 millimetres in all, that’s a significantly thicker phone than what we’ve seen from other manufacturers.
Of course, there’s a good reason for the increased size – LG have packed in a massive 3,000mAh battery that offers a considerable upgrade over the 2100mAh capacity of the original LG Optimus G battery.
The other hardware that makes up the Optimus G Pro is fairly standard – a slightly up-clocked 1.7 GHz Snapdragon S4 quad-core CPU, 2 GB of RAM and up to 64 GB of internal storage – which can be augmented via micro SD cards. The rear camera is a 13.1 megapixel affair, while the front-facer is 1.9 megapixels. The phone supports LTE, of course. Surprisingly for a Japanese device, the Optimus G Pro is neither dust-proof or water-proof.
In terms of software, LG have done some interesting things here. Slide apps are simple applications designed to run in resizeable windows above other apps – so you can open a notepad or a calculator and keep it on top of other apps to use when you need. Another interesting addition is the ability to record video from the front and rear cameras simultaneously – which could be useful for making some cool video blogs.
All in all, a strong release from LG and I hope that the additional weight won’t make this handset feel too behind the times. Still, it’s nice to see a company go for that extra battery life and it should prove a good alternative to thinner phones for this reason. While we only have a Japanese release date of April at the moment, I’m sure we’ll see this phone get a sim-free European and American release date at MWC in a month’s time.
Of course, this announcement is particularly noteworthy for Nexus 4 owners. After all, the original Optimus G formed the basis of the widely popular Nexus 4 – might LG also be working to produce a Nexus 5 based on the design of the new G Pro?
We have heard such rumours before earlier this month, so don’t be surprised if such a phone is included amongst the announcements of Google’s I/O event in May.
On another news, LG Electronics Australia has also announced today that the LG Optimus G phone will be available exclusively to Telstra customers in Australia this March.
