LG G4 Beat: A mid-tier phone with a flagship heritage
LG has launched the G4 Beat, a stripped down variant of the top-of-the-line G4 aimed at the more budget-conscious smartphone user.
The LG G4 is a flagship smartphone, packed with flagship features. It has a quad-core processor, a 5.5-inch, 2,560 x 1,440-pixel Quad HD display and it even has a high-grade leather rear cover. Of course, all that adds up to a flagship price: around $600/£450/AU$929. So what if you're after a phone with similar style and features, but you're not keen on paying a premium price?
Enter the LG G4 Beat, a mid-tier variant of the G4 that's been designed for more budget-conscious users.
The newly announced Beat is more compact than the standard G4, sporting a 5.2-inch, 1,920 x 1,080-pixel LCD screen, tipping the scales at 139g or 4.9oz. It's running a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor and has 1.5GB of RAM, half that of the G4.
Other key differences are a smaller battery -- 2,300mAh compared to 3,000mAh -- and just 8GB of storage. It won't have a leather option, but you do get three colour choices for the Beat's plastic case: silver, white or gold.
The rear camera is 8-megapixel unless you're in Latin America, which gets the same 13-megapixel as the G4 for some reason, but it's a 5-megapixel front camera no matter where you're shopping. The rear camera has the same Laser Auto Focus that LG has put in the G4 and the G3 before that. Manual Mode also makes an appearance for anyone who likes to get a little more control over their smartphone photos. Video-wise, you can record in Full HD 1080p.
The G4 Beat will come with Android Lollipop (5.1.1) installed, and it offers 4G LTE connectivity. You're also getting the standard run of 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1 and NFC.
The G4 Beat is shipping this month to some very select markets in Europe and Latin America "including France, Germany and Brazil" according to LG. After that, the company will begin rolling it out to other markets, such as Canada, India, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and Turkey.
We don't have any pricing or exact dates yet, with LG saying that it will announce those details "locally at the time of launch."
