LG has officially announced its entry into the "mini" smartphone market by launching the not-so-mini LG G2 mini.
In the smartphone world we've been seeing a new trend and it all comes down to size. Companies have been stretching smartphones and calling them phablets or shrinking them down and calling them minis. Samsung can be credited with starting this trend and has been very successful in both areas. When rivals smell success, it's only natural for them to follow. The latest smartphone maker to follow Samsung into the "mini" territory is LG.
LG officially announced its long-rumored LG G2 mini, as Dutch site GSM Info reports. As its name implies, the LG G2 mini is a variant of LG's current LG G2 flagship smartphone. The LG G2 mini retains the look and feel of its larger sibling and actually blurs the lines when compared to other mini smartphones. The LG G2 mini isn't very mini, however, as it ships with a rather large 4.7-inch display compared to the LG G2's 5.2-inch display. In comparison, both the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini and HTC One Mini ship with 4.3-inch displays.
The LG G2 mini's 4.7-inch LCD display comes with a resolution of 540 x 960 and a pixel density of 234 pixels per inch. It's powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor or Nvidia Tegra 4i chip (depending on region) and 1GB of RAM. The smartphone will run Android 4.4 KitKat when it goes on sale and will also include the same LG software customizations found on the flagship LG G2.
Its camera capabilities include an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 1.3 front-facing camera for video chat and selfies. The LG G2 mini will ship with 8GB of internal storage and a microSD expansion slot that will support up to 64GB microSD cards. It will have dual-SIM support and will be offered in both LTE and non-LTE options. The mini smartphone will pack in a rather large 2,440 mAh removable battery.
LG has kept its signature thin bezel display on the G2 mini and the handset also features the same back-mounted Rear Key concept that places the power and volume buttons on its rear for easier one-handed use.
The LG G2 mini is expected to go on sale in March in Russia, with the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Europe set to follow afterwards, but pricing remains unknown at this point. There's no word on when or if the smartphone will hit the U.S., but we'll let you know as soon as we hear more.
