At the end of last month LG officially unveiled the G5 to the public, giving users a flagship smartphone from the company that is quite a bit different from what consumers have come to expect from the series of smartphones. While a handful of the same, well-loved features remained, such as the expandable memory via a microSD card and the capability to remove the battery and swap it out for one that’s fully charged, the LG G5 brought forth a semi-modular design that really isn’t present on current devices. It also has a complete metal body for the outer design, another first for LG. While pre-orders for the device have already started at many of the major carriers, the launch is still a little bit further out, but not too much further out as LG has now officially announced that a global launch of the 2016 flagship smartphone in the G series lineup begins on March 31st, starting with devices shipping South Korea on that date.
Following the launch and shipment of the phone in South Korea, LG states that the phone will be shipping in the U.S. on April 1st, a detail that was not too much of a surprise. Beyond those two regions, LG mentions that the phone will follow up with launches in countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and more although they don’t mention specific dates, they do however state that in total there will be around 200 carriers globally that have confirmed to be selling the device at some point.
Aside from the new metal body design and the modular pieces which can be inserted into the bottom of the device, like the cam plus module and the B&O DAC module, the phone also reportedly would be a first for LG sporting a UI without an app drawer. While the device does seem to come with this design out of the box, the phone does apparently come with an option to enable the app drawer for users that wish to have it. When it comes to exact pricing for the LG G5, that will be determined by the carrier from which consumers choose to pick up the device, as each carrier is likely to be slightly different from one another.
