Skip to main content

LG G6 is coming to the U.S. on April 7, a month after South Korea

LG G6
LG G6
Very little remains unknown about the LG G6, the company’s 2017 flagship smartphone being unveiled on February 26 ahead of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.And thanks to planning material reviewed by VentureBeat, one of the last pieces of the puzzle — the release timeframe — is falling into place.
Consumers in LG’s home country of South Korea won’t have to wait long to get their hands on the all-metal, IP68-compliant handset, with sales set to begin on March 9. U.S. residents, however, will need to wait for another month before carriers begin offering the device, on April 7.
LG is in a tough position this year for several reasons. While the G-series has proven popular in years past, G6 comes on the heels of a rare misstep for the line, the poorly selling LG G5. Lack of interest in the so-called “modular handset,” with its handful of clip-on accessories, forced LG to pivot away from modularity with the G6.
But the biggest problem for LG, the one that is surely keeping executives up at night, is that G6 lags behind its main competitor, Samsung’s pair of Galaxy S8 phones, in specs and functionality.Very little remains unknown about the LG G6, the company’s 2017 flagship smartphone being unveiled on February 26 ahead of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. And thanks to planning material reviewed by VentureBeat, one of the last pieces of the puzzle — the release timeframe — is falling into place.


Consumers in LG’s home country of South Korea won’t have to wait long to get their hands on the all-metal, IP68-compliant handset, with sales set to begin on March 9. U.S. residents, however, will need to wait for another month before carriers begin offering the device, on April 7.
LG is in a tough position this year for several reasons. While the G-series has proven popular in years past, G6 comes on the heels of a rare misstep for the line, the poorly selling LG G5. Lack of interest in the so-called “modular handset,” with its handful of clip-on accessories, forced LG to pivot away from modularity with the G6.
But the biggest problem for LG, the one that is surely keeping executives up at night, is that G6 lags behind its main competitor, Samsung’s pair of Galaxy S8 phones, in specs and functionality.
It’s true that, like the S8, G6 will also dedicate more of the face of the device to its display than ever before. (Both handsets utilize nonstandard aspect ratios in the neighborhood of 18:9 to achieve this feat.) But whereas Samsung’s 5.8- and 6.2-inch AMOLED displays are of the extremely popular curved variety, LG is utilizing a flat 5.7-inch LCD.
And, even more critically, the G6 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 — which, although a fine system-on-chip, is a generation behind the Snapdragon 835 in most Galaxy S8 units. (Samsung reportedly snatched up Qualcomm’s entire production capacity for the 835 for some time.)
On the plus side, G6 should be priced competitively enough with respect to the S8 models — which won’t hit retail until April 21 — that it will provide good value. And with Samsung having yet to prove its global flagships “safe” again following the Note7 fiasco, LG will likely benefit from some degree of consumer wariness, as well.

Popular posts from this blog

Why SpaceX wants to put 4,425 internet satellites into space

Elon Musk is not one to let setbacks slow him down, even when setbacks involve the explosion of a rocket containing cargo precious to fellow tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg. As of this week, SpaceX, where Musk is CEO, is back in the business of launching rockets. And Musk is pushing ahead on his outsize ambitions for the company. After 17 successful launches between 2012 and 2015, SpaceX initially planned to launch 20 rockets in 2016. Largely because of the aforementioned explosion — the company’s second rocket loss in two years — it managed only eight. On Twitter, Musk called the Sept. 1 incident “the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had.” But if last year ended on a sour note for SpaceX, 2017 is starting off with more promise. After spending months investigating and resolving the issues that caused the September explosion, the company launched a Falcon 9 on Jan. 14, deployed 10 satellites, and successfully re-docked the rocket booster at sea. The satellites are...
Read more

Lenovo Chromebook N22 review

Chromebook N22  Chromebooks have been rising in popularity for quite a while now. They come in many different form factors and specs, but can all achieve essentially the same thing. Running Chrome OS, these notebooks can surf the web, use Chrome applications, and use Google apps in the specialized dock to do many of the things you would be able to do on a Windows or macOS notebook. Because of this, Chromebooks have become increasingly popular over the last couple of years, which is why they’ve made their way into the education sector, something that the Chromebook N22 was designed for in particular. This is the Lenovo Chromebook N22 review. Body The Lenovo Chromebook N22 is made of a thin black plastic material, and weighing just 2.7 lbs, can be thrown in a backpack without having to worry about ruining your back. It uses a clam-shell form factor which houses the keyboard and screen, which is relatively recessed into the top half of the notebook. One thing to note – this...
Read more

Xiaomi Mi A1 review

If you’ve been tempted by Xiaomi’s often well-designed smartphones, but put off by the custom MIUI “theme” layered over the Android software; then the Xiaomi Mi A1 is the answer to your problems. There are no software tweaks from Xiaomi because the Mi A1 runs Android One  — the Google operating system designed for low- and mid-range phones. It promises regular software and security updates, like a Google Pixel smartphone, plus all the usual Goo gle apps including the Google Play Store pre-installed. In our Xiaomi Mi A1  review, we explain how it’s not just the software that’s a winner, but the hardware too. There is one glaring flaw we should mention first: The lack of 4G LTE support in the U.S. The Xiaomi Mi A1, even the so-called Global version, won’t connect to GSM 4G networks in the U.S., meaning you’ll have to make do with 3G speeds. Buyers in the U.K. and much of Europe will be fine. We’ve had ours running on the O2 network in the U.K. without issues. Great specs,...
Read more