The new LG G5 was announced at MWC today and it was made clear that Canada will be getting the device in the Spring when it is released. No specifics are ever given at the conventions, but it is safe to assume that Canada’s Big Three – Bell, Telus and Rogers – will add the device to their line up as well as some regional carriers, such as MTS, SaskTel and Eastlink. Even carriers with no LTE network, such as Wind Mobile, will probably carry the LG G5 as well.
Like Samsung’s complete redesign on the Galaxy S6 last year, LG provided us with a complete redesign on the LG G5 – with one huge exception – LG seemed to think about the redesign, thought about how it would affect its customers and came up with some really innovative designs and it shows in the final product. The LG G5 is totally different than its predecessor, the LG G4. The LG G5 is an all-metal body, yet it retains memory expansion and a removable battery, something that Samsung seemed unable to accomplish…although they were able to add expansion to the Galaxy S7.
The display went down to a more manageable 5.3-inch, always-on display, but is still kept its IPS LCD QHD resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels, which bumped up it up to 555 PPI and protection is provided by Gorilla Glass 4. It is sporting the newest Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 quad-core to handle the processing and an Adreno 530 GPU to handle the graphics. It is packing 4GB of DDR4 RAM and 32GB of internal memory that can be expanded via a microSD card to 200GB. The camera area also changed from its prior 16MP sensor to a dual camera setup – 16MP for the main camera and an 8MP wide-angle secondary camera for special effects. It still retains its aperture of f/1.8 on the 16MP and f/2.4 on the 8MP, laser autofocus, LED flash and OIS. The battery dropped from 3000mAh to 2800mAh, but is removable and uses Quick Charge 3.0.
LG did away with the buttons on the back of the G5 – well, sort of – the fingerprint sensor is now there, but you can also press in to click the device on or off. It also features the newer reversible Type-C USB port that Google is pushing and that Samsung did not include on its new Galaxy S7 series. LG promises a line of accessories that work with the G5 and take advantage of its removable battery. It should be an intriguing device and should sell very well in Canada, although with the exchange rate, it may be closer to $800 rather than the $700 when the LG G4 debuted.