LG’s Latest Flagship, the LG G5, Promises to be One of the Top Smartphones of 2016

LG has timed the launch of its much-hyped G5 smartphone perfectly. The company announced its exhibition on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress that was held in Barcelona from 2^nd-5^th March, 2016. LG has striven hard to reinvent its G line of smartphones and the G5 is the result of that labor. The G5 embodies the makeover LG has done with the G series and in the process has done away with some signature and typical attributes that LG smartphones have come to be associated with.

More from iSpyPrice: Check out the expected India price of the LG G5 mobile

G5 is expected to be priced Rs. 55,000 or above, which unmistakably puts it beyond the reach of most smartphone aficionados and enthusiasts. When viewed from the perspective of its features, specs, and design, is the G5 worth its  high price tag? Let’s take a sneak peek at the latest smartphone offering from LG.

Specifications – LG G5

The form factor of LG G5 is stunning and has certainly taken a quantum leap from the LG G4. Its all-metal unibody design gives the phone its classy look and unlike other phones with a similar unibody framework, the G5’s panel can be slid up or down to reveal a detachable battery and a slot for a microSD card, along with the proprietary ‘magic slot’. The front panel is removable but not the back sheet that also does away with the combo of power button and volume knob. Now, you’ve a fingerprint scanner in its place and apart from that there is only the rear-end camera.

You get to choose from four distinct colors – silver, charcoal, gold, and pink but your choice will ultimately be dependent on the varieties offered by third-party sellers.

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Humming under the hood of the G5 is the Snapdragon 820 – Qualcomm’s latest offering – whose graphic processing capacity receives a fillip courtesy a 4GB RAM and Adreno 530 GPU. An inbuilt internal storage of 32 GB can be expanded to a gargantuan 2 TB via a microSD card. LG has cut down the screen size to 5.3 inches, a shrinkage of 0.2 inches from its predecessor G4, but the QHD resolution remains unchanged at 2,560 x 1,440 pixels with a pixels per inches (PPI) rating of 554. So, you can expect images and representations to have the same exceptional clarity, brightness, and sharpness as LG’s previous G-series phones.

However, one noteworthy feature that the South Korean tech behemoth has added to the G5 is the ‘always-on’ attribute that enables you to see the notifications and time round the clock. Fortunately, this feature drains away only 0.8% of battery charge every hour. The cameras embedded into the G5 will surely appeal to photographers, both the professionals and amateurs.

There are two cameras at the back, one of 16 megapixels and another of 8 megapixels that come with wide-angled lens of 135˚. So, now you have more leeway in capturing bigger shots without having to cut corners and make them appear realistic. You will now be able to effortlessly switch from the normal to the extended-angled lens just by activating the zoom meter on the UI or by pinching the zoom. The 8 megapixels camera at the front is ideal for clicking selfies and groupfies as well as for video-enabled chatting.

G5 is supported by Google’s Android Marshmallow 6.0 that not only makes the interface look fetching but renders it highly user-friendly as well. Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4 encasing offers comprehensive protection to the handset’s display. G5 also gets a boost because of the removable 2,800 mAh Lithium-ion battery that can be charged up to 80% in approximately 35 minutes courtesy the Quick Charge 3.0 feature.

Apart from the conventional features and specs of LG G5, there are some unique tweaks that LG has introduced in its current offering. You’ll find a fingerprint scanner in the back panel, that secures your phone from untoward accesses. A type-C USB comes in handy when you need to charge your phone in a jiffy while you’re on the move.  Nevertheless, the ‘Magic Slot’ is a proprietary add-on that helps in setting up the G5 with digital modules of other brands and is another striking feature that smartphone users will be able to make good use of.

The UI is less gaudy and cleaner compared to its predecessor and the settings have also been restructured to a single column with the icons looking more down-to-earth.

LG G5 price and commercial launch

With regards to the price and the expected launch, LG is being pretty secretive. The South Korean company, it is anticipated, will reveal the price towards the end of March but grapevine has it that it’ll be upwards of Rs. 55,000. The phone will be up for grabs from the first week of April and is expected to give the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge some tough competition.