LG makes great high end smartphones and has recently become a pioneer in the design area as well thanks to smartphones like the LG G2 and G3 which have arguably started the thin bezel craze. Like any other successful Android OEM, LG has always targeted the low and mid range sections of the market as well since they of course know that this market is their bread and butter. However, LG seems to have seriously improved the quality of these devices recently as can be seen in their Optimus F6 and L9 devices. LG seems to be remaining committed to creating a solid low and mid range line up with the announcement of the L Fino and L Bello low end devices which will be unveiled at IFA 2014 in Berlin and released some time this month.
As mentioned before, LG’s designs have become top notch and they will be taking these successful designs to their low to mid tier devices as well. This means that budget minded shoppers will get to have great looking devices from LG with innovative features such as the rear mounted volume buttons, Touch & Shoot which helps to capture special moments quickly and intuitively by letting users tap anywhere on the display to focus and shoot in one single step, Gesture Shot which enables users to simply open and close a hand in front of the lens to start a three-second countdown before triggering the shutter, Front Camera Light which reduces the size of the preview screen and adds a bright white background for softerlighting in self-portrait mode, and even the Knock code and Quick circle case. LG also mentions that they included the floating arc design. The floating arc design is LG’s way of saying that the sides of the device was made thin and the back was curved in order to create a very ergonomic design allowing users to more easily handle a large device like the G3 one handed.
The floating arc design seems to have worked out very well for the LG G3 which should mean that the decision to use them in the designs of the L Fino and L Bello which both have smaller screens than the G3 should make them more comfortable to use. I use a certain 6.4 inch android device which I at often times wishes was designed a little more ergonomically since it is so large. Since we are talking about screen size let me give you a run down of the specs of these devices. The Lfino has a 1.2GHz Quad-Core processor, a 4.5 inch WVGA IPS display with a resolution 800 x 480, 1GB of RAM, a 1900mAh battery and runs on Android KitKat 4.4.2. The dimensions are 127.5×67.9 x 11.9mm. This sounds pretty good considering the fact that they are targeting the low end market with this device. The only downside was that given the release date LG could have updated the version of Android that the device will be running at launch.
The L Bello seems to be a step up from the L Fino as it will also feature a Quad-Core processor but will be a whole 100MHz faster! It will also feature a higher resolution screen coming in at 854×480. Though the resolution has been bumped up, though I’m not sure why only that much, the screen is much lager coming in at 5.0 inches. This means that the ppi on the L Bello will be lower than that of the L Fino. The L Fino has 207 pixels per inch while the L Bello has a ppi count of only 196. They are both pretty low but maybe LG could have tried to squeeze in a qHD screen on the L Bello considering its size. The L Bello also has a relatively large battery when considering the specs, coming in at 2540mAh. The device also sports 1GB of RAM and also runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat which should give users a decent experience since KitKat was built with devices like this in mind. The L Bello measures 138.2×70.6x 10.7mm.
Both these devices also sport an 8 megapixel camera on the rear but the L Fino features a VGA camera at the front and the L Bello, being the “higher end” device, features a 1 megapixel front facing camera. Though these cameras come in at only 8 megapixels, we have to remember that these are extremely low end devices which target emerging 3G markets in Latin America and countries in Europe, Asia, and CIS. So these devices are meant to combat devices such as the Moto E, which on paper, they do quiet well. According to LG, consumers in these markets do pay attention to the cameras on their smartphones and LG claims to have put in a lot of work into both cameras to offer the best camera shooting experience at their price range. LG seems to have high hopes in both these devices helping them to conquer the emerging 3G markets.
