LG shuns cold steel for leather with new G4 smartphone

LG has shunned cold steel, going for a big phone with a leather back for its 2015 flagship, the G4.

Juno Cho, President and CEO of LG Corp., introduces the LG G4, Tuesday, April 28, 2015 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

LG has shunned cold steel, going for a big phone with a leather back for its 2015 flagship, the G4.

And like its competitors it is claiming technology that improves low light photography — in this case an f1.8 aperture lens that it says lets through 80 per cent more light than its predecessor, the G3.

The new flagship, which was announced overnight in New York, boasts what LG calls an IPS Quantum display. It’s a variant of the QuadHD display on the Samsung Galaxy S6, but LG says theirs has a 20 per cent wider colour range and is brighter.

It’s a rather large 5.5 inches display, the same size as iPhone 6 Plus and the G3. It is a high end 1440 x 2560 pixel display with an extremely fine 534 pixels per inch density, very close to the G3’s.

Neither feature is a surprise; LG has been teasing both features in promo videos leading up to the launch.

Instead of pumping a metal case, LG has gone for a full-grain leather back cover that’s available in six colours. If you must, you can choose fantastic plastic instead. LG says the G4 is “a refreshing change from the uniformly flat, full metal designs seen across the industry”.

The G4 boasts 16 and 8 megapixel back and front facing cameras. The cameras have an updated version of optical image stabilisation which LG says expands the range of stabilisation from one to two degrees on the X and Y axis.

There’s a manual mode for experienced photographers, and a colour spectrum sensor that LG says will improve colour accuracy.

LG has continued the recent trend of upping the resolution of front facing camera to 8 megapixels. Indeed, the selfies revolution has reborn front camera photography. This camera will take four shots spaced two seconds apart to get a better composition.

Last year LG was the first company to use gestures for triggering a selfies shot and this year you open and close your hand twice in front of the camera to trigger the shutter.

The G4 has a fast 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor rated at 1.8 Gigahertz with a feature called X10 LTE. With LTE advanced carrier aggregation available from some telcos, the phone can support download speeds of up to 450 megabits per second, making it suitable for displaying 4K streamed movies.

It has a removable 3000 milliampere hour battery and a slot for a microSD card which puts it ahead of the S6. In the past Samsung Galaxy smartphones came with these features and LG’s didn’t.

LG says the G4 supports wireless charging and fast charging of 60 per cent in 30 minutes.

LG’s G4 user interface called UX 4.0 includes a quick shot mode that lets users take photos by double tapping the phone’s rear key. Samsung’s S6 similarly lets you double tap the home button to quickly access its camera.

The G4 comes with Google Office pre installed and G4 owners will get 100GB of Google Drive storage for two years.

LFG says owners of certain Volkswagen models can view a car-friendly version of the G4 interface on their in-dash display with contacts, navigation and music integrated on the smartphone.

Australian pricing and availability is yet to be confirmed.