Check out our review of the LG G Pro 2 smartphone.
LG on Monday officially announced the LG G Pro 2 phablet and confirmed rumors of a February launch, though didn’t offer a specific date. Most observers expect it to debut at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona at the end of next month.
The news came via its Korean website, though the company declined to offer up any details regarding specs. However, the device is expected to come with a display as large as 6 inches, incorporating its new pin-sharp 2560 x 1440 pixel panel. By comparison, its predecessor, the Optimus G Pro, has a 5.5-inch display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution.
It’s also suggested that the device, which is expected to run Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box, could be the first in its mobile range to follow in the footsteps of the iPhone 5S with the inclusion of a fingerprint scanner.
A Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor and 3GB of RAM could also be part of the package, though with LG apparently set on holding back the details till the big unveil, we’ll have to wait a little longer to have all this confirmed.
The Korean tech giant is also gearing up to launch its LG G3 handset – possibly in mid-May – which could also feature its new 1440p screen as well as a fingerprint scanner.
Expanding market
LG, like most mobile companies today, are increasingly looking toward the phablet market to score sales, with new data from Juniper Research suggesting global sales of the large-screen handsets could top 120 million by 2018, a huge increase on last year’s estimated 20 million sales.
The phablet, generally considered as a handset with a display of between 5 and 6.99 inches, is expected to sell especially well in Asia’s emerging markets.
Commenting on recent research revealing the growing popularity of the phablet in Asia, Melissa Chau of research firm IDC said the large-screen device began as a trend driven by mature markets like South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
“What’s changed now is the added pick up of phablets in emerging markets like China and India, not just the plethora of big-name vendors competing head-to-head with Samsung, but instead the low-cost local players who have swooped in to offer big screens for less money.”
As for LG’s soon-to-launch offerings, we’ll keep you posted as soon as we hear the details.
[via Pocket-lint]
