Last year LG released its first phablet, the G Pro, and now it’s ready to follow-up that fairly successful design with something a little bit new and a little bit borrowed. Taking the overall design of the LG G2, the G Pro 2 looks like something between the G Flex and a Galaxy S3, albeit not being curved like the G Flex is. We’ve seen a number of leaks for the device over the past few weeks and it looks like pretty much everything turned out to be true, even those leaked images of the device from the end of January. Taking a look at the provided press shots you’ll see the hardware is downright beautiful, with a screen that takes up 77% of the front-face of the phone, and the same super unique back-facing power and volume buttons that debuted with the G2. The G Pro 2 features all the latest hardware goodies including a 1080p 5.9-inch IPS display, meaning you’ll be seeing the same incredible visual fidelity that the G2 shows, just with a slightly larger screen. You’ll also notice there’s no physical home button as there was on the original G Pro, as LG has gone full-force with the software buttons that Google has been pushing with Android since Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
LG looks to be attempting to take cameras to a whole new level on the G Pro 2 as well. The camera is a full 13MP with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and ups the ante with a whole bunch of new video recording modes. 4K video is now recordable on the G Pro 2, as well as full 1080p 120FPS video for 4x slow motion. The flash is deemed “natural flash” and features some sort of color correction to help eliminate that nasty harsh look that flash usually gives to pictures. LG is also touting a brand new post-processing focus mode called “Magic Focus” that takes a bunch of images and then synthesizes the best parts together for the clearest picture possible. We’ll have to see that one in person but it sounds like something that could be a real game changer if done right.
LG is also packing Android 4.4 KitKat inside the G Pro 2, making this the first phone LG will ship with KitKat; if you don’t count the Nexus 5 of course. The G Pro 2 ships with a new user interface from LG, and although they haven’t shown it off much in these press shots of the device we expect a full demonstration very soon. The new UX includes many features like enhanced privacy, allowing you to password lock content on the phone like notes, pictures and other media, as well as featuring a new version of LG’s awesome Knock On feature that debuted with the G2. Instead of just knocking the front of the device twice to turn it on, LG is now allowing you to set “knock passwords” that will give you the ability to create thousands of different password combinations all while not having to press any silly letters. This also keeps people from correctly guessing your combination since they can’t see you physically pressing number keys. LG is looking to rock your world with new 1W speakers which include enhanced bass and volume without distortion. LG is bringing a lot to the table with the G Pro 2, and we expect to get some more hands on time with it in the near future. For now there’s no price or release date, but it’s currently rumored to hit shelves sometime in late February or early March.
