When LG announced the G2, they unleashed a pretty great phone onto the world. One that broke the rules a little with the rear-facing buttons and bought some of the best specs to the table with a Snapdragon 800 and an excellent display. At 5.2-inches though, the device could be considered too large for a lot of users, despite the slim bezels. As you’ve already guessed by now, LG’s answer to this is to simply introduce a smaller version of the G2, dubbed the G2 Mini. Recently, we saw Sony release a device that was smaller than they main flagship with the Xperia Z1 Compact. Called Compact and not “mini” for a reason, the smaller Xperia featured the same Snapdragon 800, 2GB of RAm and 20.7-megapixel camera. Unfortunately, LG didn’t get Sony’s memo.
The G2 Mini looks very much like the G2 and even features the same innovative button arrangement on the back, and features the same colors, too. From there though, is where the similarities end. The 4.7-inch display features a resolution of 960 x 540, and the CPU has been downgraded to a choice of either a Snapdragon 400 or Nevidia’s Tegra 4i, as for the camera that’s been taken down to 8-megapixels and there are variants available without LTE. So, unfortunately it looks like the G2 Mini is a G2 in name only. Which is a real shame after we saw what LG did with the fairly impressive G Pro 2. There is a silver lining to all of this, as Android 4.4 KitKat is listed onboard and a lot of the software features that LG has packed into their other phones will be making the jump down, too.
LG’s smaller device however, is meant to be a lower-cost device, which is normally what comes with the “mini” tagline. A 2,440 mAh battery and just 8GB of onboard storage further gets LG’s point across. The device is launching in Russsia this March and will then be making its way to Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. There’s no word of an American launch just yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised if a carrier or two picked this little guy up.