Korean consumer technology giant LG Electronics has been on a product launching spree of late. It was just a couple of days ago that they had launched their new flagship smartphone, the G4. But that doesn’t mean they are ignoring the mid-range either. On the same day they launched the G4, they also launched LG Magna in India (announced last month), a mid-ranger with a curved display, listed for around $250 in that Asian country. There were also reports of the Magna and another mid-ranger, the G Stylo being picked up by T-Mobile. Those reports were later confirmed by the carrier. Now, LG India has listed on their website, the 3G variant of the LG G Pad 8.0 tablet to be available for sale at an MSRP of Rs. 21,000 ($330). The Wi-Fi only variant of the device has already been on sale in India for over a month now at a price of Rs. 17,999 ($290).
The G Pad 8.0 comes with an 8-inch IPS display with a 1280 x 800 resolution. A quad-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC powers the tablet, and it features 1 GB RAM and 16 GB storage. As for the cameras, a 5-megapixel one on the rear and a 1.3-megapixel one on the front are what LG chose for the device and it comes with Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box. The battery is rated at 4200 mAh. The G Pad also includes a feature called QPair 2.0, which makes it convenient to answer phone calls, receive notifications, and send text messages – all via Bluetooth. The tablet also includes software features like Touch and Shoot, Gesture Shot, Smart Keyboard and Knock Code, all of which we have seen in LG’s previous releases in some form or another.
LG has been proactive of late in launching devices at various price points and in various product categories to appeal to a wider array of consumers. For the past few years, they have been facing intense competition from not just their homegrown rivals Samsung, but also aggressive upstarts from China who seem only too eager to challenge the dominance of the Korean incumbents. It remains to be seen how much of an impact their latest strategy can make in an increasingly competitive market.