After days, even months, of leaks, there was not much left to the imagination heading into LG’s Mobile World Congress 2016 press conference to announce the LG G5. That doesn’t, however, mean LG fans have gotten to see the phone in action.
"Until now consumers have been forced to choose between an elegant design and the enhanced convenience of a removable battery," said LG President & CEO William Cho "The G5 doesn’t compromise beauty or convenience."
Touting a smartphone that mixes convenience and a stylish design, the LG G5 is as a modular phone that will work with other LG products. The removable “magic slot” battery can not only be changed out with another battery, but the slot also serves as an entry into modular options for LG.
The main modular feature/option showcased at MWC was the LG Cam Plus. Remove the battery and insert the Cam Plus to turn your smartphone into a powerful digital camera. Once active the Cam Plus can be used with one hand to adjust the aperture, zoom in and out and switch to video. When its active, LG said the Cam Plus increased your phone's battery by a third.
The LG G5 features a sleek full metal body design, dual rear cameras with LED flash, a fingerprint scanner, a near bezel-less design and USB Type-C port charger. Rear cameras on the G5 take enhanced 135-degree video that LG says is closer to what users want in the picture.
"The zoom in and out feature [helps] you use the wide-angle lens really intuitively," said LG Director of Marketing Frank Lee. "We believe instead of just getting you the best picture quality, (the G5) result is close to what human eye can see."
The G5 also features an always-on display on the main screen. Despite being “always on,” LG said the battery drain is minimal as only 0.8 percent of the hourly battery usage comes from this feature.
"It's smart enough to reduce the brightness automatically," Lee said.
Other modular features or "LG Friends" shown off at MWC include a LF 360 camera and a VR headset.
The LG G5 features a 5.3 quad HD display (554 ppi). Its rear camera has 16MP while the front-facing camera is 8 MP. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor powers the G5 and the device runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
The battery, which is replaceable, is 2,8000mAh. G5’s other features include 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.
LG did not mention a specific release date or price point for its latest flagship device.
Stay with iDigitalTimes for updates from MWC throughout the week.
