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LG Optimus G |
LG Electronics said its new flagship smartphone, the Optimus G, will hit the United States in November, putting it squarely in the middle of the holiday shopping season.
LG announced the phone late last month but just formally unveiled its launch plans. The high-end gadget will go on sale in South Korea next week, Japan in October and the U.S. and other markets in November. LG did not reveal any U.S. carrier partners for the device.
LG also offered a glimpse at its smartphone plans. Park Jong-seok, president of LG's mobile business, said that Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android platform remains the company's main focus. According to CNET, he told reporters that LG has "no specific plans for other mobile platforms." This spring LG said that it would focus more on Android smartphones and that Microsoft's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone would be taking a back seat at the company.
Park also said LG is sticking to its 2012 handset sales targets in the hopes that a strong second half, powered by the likes of the Optimus G and LG Intuition phablet, will help make up for lackluster first-half sales. In March LG said it expected to sell 80 million handsets, 35 million smartphones and 8 million LTE smartphones in 2012. Through the first two quarters of the year LG sold 26.8 million handsets.
The Optimus G sports Qualcomm's (NASDAQ:QCOM) 1.5 GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor. LG said the new processor will allow for better performance, battery life and enable more fluid mobile gaming. The Android 4.0 device has a 4.7-inch WXGA True HD IPS+ Display with a resolution of 1280x768 pixels, as well as 13-megapixel voice-activated camera that can be triggered by saying things such as such as "cheese" or "kimchi" in Korean. The device also allows users to complete two tasks concurrently on the same display--for example, watching a video while sending a text message. Additionally, the Optimus G has the ability to display different content on multiple screens wirelessly.
For more:
- see this LG release
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)
- see this Reuters article
- see this CNET article
- see this The Verge article
- see this Engadget article
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