LG has become the latest to join the 5-inch 1080p smartphone party, revealing the new Optimus G Pro over in Japan last night. The new phone joins the likes of Sony’s Xperia Z and HTC’s Droid DNA in having the latest tech trend; a Full HD screen.
While most of the world, including the UK, is still waiting for LG’s powerhouse Optimus G smartphone to go on sale, the Korean manufacturer has slapped an even bigger and better screen on the phone and ‘Pro’ to the name and launched something somehow more impressive.
The star of the show is obviously the screen; a 5-inch Full HD display with a crisp pixel density of 440 pixels per inch – a marked improvement on the Optimus G’s already great 4.7-inch 312ppi display. This obviously makes the phone overall larger in terms of width and length, and it’s also 2mm thicker than the original.
That thickness is likely a trade-off for the larger battery that has been jammed in, presumably to better deal with the huge display. The G Pro uses a 3,000 mAh battery whereas the Optimus G made use of a 2,100 mAh cell.
Elsewhere inside the phone you’ll find a powerful quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon Pro chip clocked at 1.7GHz along with a healthy 2GB of RAM, which will combine to make the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean OS fast and smooth. LG has added its own skin to the Android OS which adds a host of applications and clever widgets, which we’ve been a fan of on previous Optimus smartphones like the 4X HD.
On the back of the phone you’ll find the same impressive 13-megapixel camera as on the Optimus G, with a front facing camera on the front for video calling. There’s a unique camera feature on the phone that will allow you to simultaneously record through both the front and rear cameras, giving a sort of user POV while also recording what you see, which sounds pretty cool.
Unfortunately for the time being the Optimus G Pro will only be available in Japan on the NTT Docomo network. Given the distinct lack of availability of the now three month-old Optimus G in the UK, we’re not holding our breath for any availability here.