LG G2 Mini Hardware Doesn't Challenge its Big Brother

By Jane McEntegart
published

The LG G2 Mini is finally official but the specs don't excite.

Mobile World Congress is expected to bring a ton of new phones but LG is kicking things off a little early with the LG G2 Mini. Last week, we got wind of a device that could be the G2 mini when the LG-D620 hit Bluetooth Sig. A few days later, LG confirmed suspicions by teasing the Mini on its Facebook page. What we didn’t have at the time were specifications. Today, LG revealed all.

 

As we predicted, the SoC at the heart go the G2 Mini isn’t quite as powerful as the chip powering the full-size G2. The G2 Mini packs either a Snapdragon 400 or Tegre 4i (clocked to 1.2 Ghz in both cases), as well as 1 GB of RAM (less than we expected), a 4.7-inch qHD 540x960 display, an 8-megapixel camera, 8 GB of storage, a 2,440 mAh battery, and KitKat. There's also support for dual SIMs, which is a feature not a lot of phones have these days, so the G2 Mini has an advantage in that respect.

These specs are not the best. Especially when you consider the fact that LG is adding its all-important flagship branding to this device. The device is due out in March and will be shown off at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. No word on pricing just yet, but this would want to be quite affordable to appeal to shoppers this year.

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Jane McEntegart
9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • InvalidError
    A few weeks/months ago, we had a flood of announcements about future 4k phones and now we seem to have a flood of 1k / quarter-HD models.No mention of an SD slot on LG's models, which might make people miserable on a 8GB device.
    Reply
  • JD88
    This thing better be priced under $200 or it's done for.
    Reply
  • boytitan2
    So its a barely upgraded lg optimus f3. Same cpu,gpu,ram etc.Just slightly better screen resolution a better camera and more internal storage. On one end its lazy, On another end I am mad because I got a off contract f3 on black friday for 80 bucks would have waited to upgrade my phone to see where this is priced. Then again they didn't say if it had a sd card slot, if it has no sd card slot just avoid this thing like fire I have to use things like link to SD and GL to sd to get the most out of my phone.
    Reply
  • PepitoTV
    4,7" and it's called Mini. When will we have a high end device with a manageable size.
    Reply
  • anonymous_user
    Why would they make a mini version of a flagship phone and then give it crap specs? I mean seriously.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    12718648 said:
    Why would they make a mini version of a flagship phone and then give it crap specs? I mean seriously.
    There has been a flood of 'meh' tablets over the past couple of months (companies launching devices with specs that look almost straight out from 1-2 years ago apart for a few updates and lower prices) and now we have the flood of meh-too retro-spec'd phones to match.

    The high-end phone market is reaching saturation and now phone manufacturers are starting to test the mid/low-end more seriously - albeit not seriously enough as to jeopardize their higher-end sales.
    Reply
  • vern72
    The specs for the Mini should be near identical as the full sized one (except for the display size and possibly the battery due to the reduced size).
    Reply
  • randomizer
    It's rubbish and yet it still has a better battery than the Nexus 5.
    Reply
  • JD88
    12721571 said:
    It's rubbish and yet it still has a better battery than the Nexus 5.

    I'm not sure how that's relevant, especially not considering the cost of the N5. Also, benchmarks show that the N5 performs on par, if not better than a lot of rivals in battery life.

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/7517/google-nexus-5-review/3
    Reply