Check out our full review of the LG Optimus G Pro cell phone.
If you’d given up hope of hearing anything more about the 5.5-inch LG Optimus G Pro this side of Mobile World Congress, we’re about to make you very happy, as LG has provided further information on the new big-screen device, including its release outside South Korea.
Compared to most other new phones, the Optimus G Pro has had a complicated start in life, so here’s a quick refresher. LG announced the first Optimus G Pro at the end of January, confirming its release in Japan and a feature list including a 5-inch, 1080p screen and a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chip. Then, late last week LG announced a second version, which has exactly the same name but a slightly larger, 5.5-inch touchscreen with a 1080p resolution and a 400ppi pixel density.
At the time, very few other details were made available, so we took a wild guess that besides the screen, the rest of the specification would be the same as the Optimus G Pro headed for Japan. Now, LG has provided a little more information on the 5.5-inch Optimus G Pro, and its spec includes the first appearance of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 600 processor.
Next generation Snapdragon
Revealed during CES 2013, the Snapdragon 600 is an evolution of the S4 Pro, but not quite as powerful as the forthcoming Snapdragon 800 chip, also announced at CES. Qualcomm says we can expect a 40 percent performance improvement from the Snapdragon 600 over the S4 Pro, along with better power efficiency too. It’s capable of running at speeds of up to 1.9GHz, but in the Optimus G Pro it’ll have a clock speed of 1.7GHz.
Otherwise, the spec is identical to the 5-inch version, with a 13-megapixel camera, a 2.1-megapixel video call camera, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, Wi-Fi Direct, 32GB of storage and 2GB of RAM, plus Android 4.1.2 as the operating system. A 3140mAh battery will power the Optimus G Pro, which is near-as-makes-no-difference the same as the Samsung Galaxy Note 2’s 3100mAh cell. It’s also a little lighter than the Note 2 at 172 grams rather than 183 grams.
The Optimus G Pro will go on sale in Korea before the end of the month, but the good news is it’ll be coming to North America before the summer, although no exact date has been stated. The Optimus G Pro will be on display at Mobile World Congress, so we should learn more not only about the phone, but also its release in the U.S., plus a potential European or UK launch at the same time.
