LG has unveiled a new line of midrange smartphones that will be demoed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, next month.
While the techno buffs are salivating over Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus or Samsung's highly hyped Galaxy S6 to be revealed next month, part of LG's strategy is to focus on a market where customers don't care about fancy features such as a fingerprint sensor, an extremely thin profile, a display beyond high-definition, or all the bells and whistles that come with a smartphone that costs $700 and up.
"LG's new midrange collection continues our legacy of offering amazing smartphones at reasonable prices," says LG president and CEO Juno Cho in a statement. "For millions of consumers around the world, the deciding factor on which smartphone to buy isn't how fast or how big it is but how balanced it is. With our new midrange smartphones, more and more customers will be looking to LG for their next handsets."
LG has made no word yet about the price of its four newest phones -- the LG Magna, LG Spirit, LG Leon and LG Joy -- but these devices are sure to be a whole lot more affordable than its own high-end devices or its rivals' flagship smartphones. And for an affordable price, customers can get pretty decent smartphones that strike a balance between price, design and functionality, while stripping them of the trappings they don't really need that add several extra hundred dollars to the price.
Each of these smartphones is LTE-enabled and sports a metallic back cover to provide a premium feel. There are also 3G versions featuring patterned plastic backs to distinguish from 4G versions.
The 5-inch Magna, 4.7-inch Spirit, and 4.5-inch Leon all feature a 1.3 GHz Quad-Core processor and a single-layer in-touch display to allow for the phone's thin profiles. The Spirit, which is the slimmest of all four smartphones, is 9.9 mm thick, which is 3 mm thicker than the iPhone 6.
All three smartphones feature an 8-megapixel rear camera for the LTE versions and a 5-megapixel camera in the Spirit and Leon for the 3G versions. The entry-level Joy, which runs on a 1.2 GHz Dual-Core chip, has a 5-megapixel camera. The Magna sports a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, while the Spirit has a 1-megapixel front shooter. The Leon, like the Joy, has a VGA front camera.
Battery life also differs for the four devices. The Magna runs on a 2,540 mAh battery, which should be slightly better than the Nexus 5. The Spirit touts 2,100 mAh, while both the Leon and Joy have 1,900 mAh.
All four smartphones will run on the latest Android Lollipop, while the Joy 3G version will have Android KitKat out of the box. Magna, Spirit, and Leon will offer 8 GB of storage and 1 GB of RAM, while Joy has either 8 GB or 4 GB of space with 1 GB or 512 MB of RAM.
True to the LG form, the smartphones will also have features that debuted in the company's high-end devices. These include selfies activated by gestures up to 1.5 meters away to accommodate selfie sticks, and quick access to information such as time, messages, and missed calls without unlocking the screen.
