LG G4 Launches Outside Of Korea, But Many Will Continue To Wait

The worldwide release of LG's new flagship smartphone, the G4 has been heavily anticipated for the last several weeks. Last week, the phone was released in Korea, and this week LG will begin to distribute the phone globally, but some may be disappointed.

We previously examined some leaked photos and information to try to piece together the specs that the G4 will have. Though nothing had been officially released at the time of that article, it appears all of our speculations about the G4 were correct.

The primary case for the G4 will be made of handcrafted genuine full grain leather. There are six color options, and three offer 3D patterns on the case. More conventional cases made of metal or ceramic are also available for users who don't want leather.

Naturally, the cameras on the phone were also improved from the last generation. The rear camera shows reasonable improvement, rising to 16MP. The front camera nearly quadruples up to 8MP relative to LG's previous flagship. The lens on the G4 improved significantly more. The G3 had an F2.4 lens, but the G4 uses an F1.8 lens that allows for pictures to be taken faster and with greater clarity in varying light levels.

The battery life and display on the G4 also show substantial improvements over the G3. Although the exact specs aren't given for the display, LG claims the new vivid IPS Quantum display will offer 20 percent greater color reproduction, 25 percent improvement in brightness, and 50 percent greater contrast relative to the G3.

To keep the system powered longer, the battery capacity was increased to 3,000 mAh. Many users will be happy to know that the battery will be removable, and it supports Quick Charge 2.0 when used with a certified 2.0 adapter.

For the SoC inside of the phone, LG has opted to utilize the Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 instead of the more powerful Snapdragon 810. For a competing flagship phone, this might seem counterintuitive, but there is more to consider here than raw performance. With two fewer CPU cores and lower clock speeds, the Snapdragon 808 can make up for the performance drop by running cooler and using considerably less power.

This week, the G4 will leave Korea and first arrive in Hong Kong, followed by Turkey, Russia and Singapore. Other parts of the world will get the phone too, but LG said the G4 won't reach everyone until June or later. Unless you live in one of these countries, you may not see the smartphone available near you for well over a month. After Singapore, it is hard to say what part of the world will get the G4 next.

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