LG has launched its flagship G2 smartphone in India. The device boasts of the Snapdragon 800 SoC, runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and is priced at Rs. 41,500.
LG today unveiled the LG G2, its flagship smartphone in India. The device has been launched in two storage variants, 16GB and 32GB priced at Rs. 41,500 and Rs. 44,500 respectively. It is available to consumers starting today.
Getting the specifications out of the way, the G2 has a 5.2-inch 1080p True HD IPS LCD display giving it a 424ppi pixel density. It has the Qualcomm MSM8974 Snapdragon 800 Quad-core 2.26GHz Krait 400 CPU coupled with the Adreno 330GPU and 2GB of RAM. The rear of the smartphone has a 13MP shooter that boasts of OIS and the front has a 2.1MP camera. The smartphone doesn’t support expandable storage and has a unibody design, which means that you don’t have access to the battery. A whopping 3000mAh battery powers the package.
At the launch event, LG told us that the G2 smartphone has the ability to last for an entire day of heavy use and still have some juice left. Even though this claim is impressive, we’d like to put it to the test before giving our verdict on the battery.
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Starting with the design of the G2, in a word, its gorgeous. The smartphone is really slim measuring in at a mere 8.9mm in thickness. The bezel surrounding the display too is thin, so you get a lot more screen real estate space especially on the left and right of the screen (when held in portrait mode). The right side of the smartphone has a slot for the SIM card. The bottom has the microUSB port, headphones jack along with the stereo speakers.
The biggest change to the design has to be with the placement of the power button and the volume rocker. LG has moved the placement of these buttons from the side of the phone to the back, just below the camera. Intuitively, this is where you’d place your forefinger while using the phone. Now, since these buttons are so close to the camera, it is inevitable that your finger will touch the camera. LG says that the camera has sapphire crystal glass, which will protect it from smudges and fingerprints caused due to touching.
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While testing the device, we used the phone in a few natural positions such as near the ear, pulling it out of the pocket etc. and found that it was quite comfortable to unlock the smartphone with the new placement of the buttons. The volume down button on the back of the smartphone also doubles up as the shutter button for the camera. This may not be ideal if you are shooting landscape images but is extremely comfortable while shooting self-portraits with the front facing camera.
LG also showed off the ability to “knock” to unlock the smartphone. All you do us knock on the display of the smartphone twice and it unlocks. We have seen features such as blow or shake to unlock on devices such as the Canvas 4 from Micromax and frankly, knock to unlock felt a bit gimmicky.
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Coming to the OS and the UI of the G2, it is the same that we saw on the LG Optimus G and the G Pro. The UI is identical to its predecessors and the G2 runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean straight out of the box. This is a tad disappointing since we have seen the Samsung Galaxy Note III launch with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean from the get go.
The 13MP camera on the smartphone was quite snappy to shoot pictures with. Although some of the images we captured there were a bit blurry, we will reserve our final comments for the camera of the G2 once we have tested it.
Another interesting feature of the G2 is the Guest Mode. If you need to hand your smartphone to someone else to use, you can put it in Guest Mode. The Guest Mode gives the user access to minimalistic feature such as calling, browsing etc. without access to your personal information.
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The G2 also comes with a built-in IR emitter. You can use the QuickRemote app on the smartphone to control your TV, set-top box, audio system, DVD or Blu-ray player, or even an air conditioner from the comfort of the phone. Pretty cool right?
In the short time we had with the LG G2, we are quite impressed with what the smartphone has to offer. The smartphone has some seriously impressive power under the hood and the design is something that we were skeptical about at first but are impressed with since we got to use the device. The UI overlaying the OS is something we have seen and appreciated on past LG devices. We would however like to reserve our final comment about the LG G2 until we get it in our labs for an in-depth review.
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Sameer Mitha
Sameer Mitha lives for gaming and technology is his muse. When he isn’t busy playing with gadgets or video games he delves into the world of fantasy novels. View Full Profile
