The LG G7 will have an extra physical button positioned beneath its volume keys alongside the left edge of its case that’s meant to be functionally similar to Samsung’s Bixby button, South Korean outlet ETNews reported Monday, citing industry sources. The information is in line with a dozen of newly emerged renders of the next Android flagship from LG which show both an additional hardware button and a conventional side-mounted power key that the Seoul-based company usually installed on the back of its high-end offerings. Sources claim the so-called “AI button” will be used for launching the Google Assistant and LG’s Q Voice and Q Lens solutions offering voice controls and machine vision functionalities.
The development also appears to be in line with LG’s recently growing focus on AI technologies that started with the revival of the ThinQ lineup at the latest iteration of the Consumer Electronics Show in January and continued with the debut of the V30S ThinQ two months later. The latest report also states the G7 will match the f/1.5 aperture of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus with one of its two rear-mounted lenses. The device is still expected to debut with a 6.1-inch MLCD+ screen, though recent rumors also suggested LG may launch an OLED-equipped variant of the phablet in certain markets. Industry sources now claim the South Korean phone maker is planning to officially announce the G7 late this month and start retailing it in mid-May in its home country. Consumers in other markets will likely have to wait at least several more weeks until they’ll be able to purchase the handset following its debut in the Far Eastern country, as is usually the case with ultra-premium products from LG.
The company is likely to once again follow the dual-model and region-specific feature strategy with the G7, offering a base model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal flash memory, as well as a more expensive version of the device with twice as much storage and 6GB of RAM. Certain markets may not receive variants with wireless charging or a quad-DAC setup, with that fragmented product strategy already being employed by the last several Android flagship releases from LG.