LG have had a laclustre couple of years with their devices a little bit “ho hum” so it was no surprise when earlier this year LG scrapped what was going to be the G7 to work on making something better, something competitive. Now the device that was to be the G7 Neo has shown up at MWC.
At a private LG event at MWC an Israeli journalist managed to get hands on with what was going to be the G7 Neo, and of course managed to snap a few pics and even take a video. The G7 shows the dual rear camera setup, in a vertical setup as opposed to the horizontal setup we have seen in recent LG flagships.
LG’s usual fingerprint sensor remains the same — below the camera. The rear device looks to be a shiny glass-covered material which we have seen on their devices before but it may also indicate the presence of wireless charging.
Turning the phone over shows something that it seems so many companies are doing unapologetically at the moment — copying the notch of the iPhone X. While the phone’s software seems to hide the notch in some parts of the software, when the black bar is not present the notch is there for all to see.
The video shot of the device shows even more:
The phone, with the notch included, looks like so many other notched phones we have sen come out of MWC this year. It may well be a good thing that LG scrapped it as it does nothing at all to set them apart from the pack of other phones who have decided to emulate the iPhone X notch. Whether the notch is going to be a good thing remains to be seen — I am unconvinced but will hold my final judgement until I have tried some of them.
The parade of the notches
The Israeli journalist goes on to detail the specs of this cancelled phone — 6 inch OLED display with an aspect ratio of 19:5.9 and a resolution of 3120 x 1440 pixels. 8MP front-facing camera and a pair of 16MP cameras on the rear, one f/1.6 and the other a wide-angled f/1.9 camera. Powered by a Snapdragon 845 and a 4GB/64GB and 6GB/128GB configurations with a 3000mAh battery onboard.
The article was publicised by Evan Blass who added that the device shown was the device scrapped in favour of the phone codenamed “Judy”. He went on to say that he was also told “by a little bird” that in the same venue that the G7 was shown off, a Q7 and a V35 also made an appearance…. along with a new watch.
LG made the first Google Android Wear 2.0 watches, and were considered by many to be a big step backwards in their design compared with their previous efforts. Hopefully this new watch will go back to their previous design language.
It seems that LG have a lot up their sleeve but for theirs, and Android’s, sake I hope that LG do more to differentiate themselves from the pack. Their LG G7 Neo phone that was scrapped seems to have been very much a “me too” device. How about some innovation LG?
What do you think? Are we at a point where hardware cannot be innovated on anymore?
