Fly like a G6: Does LG finally have what it takes to beat Samsung and Apple?

After a myriad of leaks and rumours, LG’s G6 was launched today in Barcelona, Spain. The company has ditched the modular design, ditched the removable battery and ditched the weird plasticky metal body of its previous flagship. So, what’s left?

Well, you’ve got a bigger display, for one. It sits at a massive 5.7 inches and boasts a near bezel-less frame with a unique 18:9 aspect ratio. The screen is LG’s own LCD panel and it pushes a QHD+ resolution of 2880×1440 pixels. This new aspect ratio is designed to fit more screen into a slimmer body and LG also claims that it would provide 11.3% more display area than conventional displays. The G6 is also the first smartphone with Dolby Vision and HDR 10.

To take full advantage of this new aspect ratio, LG has introduced a brand new interface called UX 6.0 that’s designed to take full advantage of the extra real estate. This new UI was already teased by LG earlier and they have said that they will push to have more apps, games and videos to be developed for the new ratio. Though, looking at their track record with the G5’s modules, we’re not putting too much hope on this.

LG’s new smartphone also comes with a brand spanking new body. It’s made up of brushed metal and the whole device is sealed in meaning you won’t be able to remove the 3,300mAh battery. But, this new body does come with benefits — it fits a lot better, for one, and it also gets IP68 dust and water resistance. For enhanced audio, it also comes with HiFi Quad DAC like its multimedia-centric LG V20.

Inside, the device is powered by a Snapdragon 821 processor with 4GB of RAM and a choice of either 32GB and 64GB of internal UFS 2.0 storage. If you need more, it also accepts microSD expansion up to 2TB. It’s also got USB Type-C that supports QuickCharge 3.0 and a headphone jack for connectivity.

LG has also improved on the G5’s camera setup with the G6. This new flagship handset still sports two cameras at the back, but this time they both have 13MP sensors. One is a wide-angle shooter, capturing images in a 125-degree angle, while the other is a narrower shooter that covers a 71-degree angle. However, since both sensors have the same resolution, the images from both the wide and narrow cameras will be equally detailed. In front, the G6 sports a wide 100-degree 5MP f/1.9 aperture selfie camera so it’s easier to get more into your frame.

The LG G6 runs on Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box and it also comes with Google Assistant which was previously exclusive to Google Pixel. There’s no word on its availability for our region yet and we hope LG Malaysia won’t take too long this time round.

Photos shot on Sony RX100 V.