What may be an official US variant of LG’s G6 Plus flagship has now been spotted on LG’s open source website. It is, of course, worth noting that there has been no official announcement that the manufacturer’s moderate update to the original G6 would ever officially be brought to U.S. carriers. Bearing that in mind, the model number associated with the device does appear to be, at very least, tied in with the original LG G6 at AT&T. The model number for that device is H871, while the newly spotted device bears the model number H871U. Meanwhile, variations on that theme also appear to be present for other major U.S. carriers, including Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile, although those have not been officially verified by LG either.
For those who may not recall, the LG G6 Plus is effectively an improved version of the original device that was launched earlier this year to various parts of the globe – more recently in Canada, among other regions. The Plus variant sports the same body design and the same 5.7-inch screen as the original, set at the same resolution and aspect ratio. It’s also powered by the same Snapdragon 821 SoC, backed by 4GB of RAM. In fact, the similarities run down nearly the entire set of specifications for the original LG G6. Having said that, it does come with substantially more storage space, shipping with 128GB of onboard storage, and an updated audio DAC that U.S. customers didn’t get with their original G6. Namely, the device ships with a 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC, while the original did not. Both of those enhancements arguably make the Plus variant a better choice for audiophiles since it provides more storage for music files, in addition to a better listening experience overall. Aside from those differences, the LG G6 Plus also ships with more color options, including black, blue, and gold.
The model numbers here do seem to imply a separate device from LG’s original G6 and to point to a variation on that device. However, it bears repeating that the accuracy of that assumption remains to be seen. As such, until LG comes forward with some kind of official announcement, it is probably a good idea to take the news with a grain of salt. In the meantime, all that can really be confirmed is that the firmware in questions points to Android Nougat.