LG Electronics brought out the big guns for yesterday’s worldwide launch of its seventh-generation G series smartphone.
What drew the likes of LG Electronics North America president/CEO William Cho and senior marketing VP Dave VanderWaal was the addition of the new G7 flagship to the company’s ThinQ family of AI-infused devices, which includes all 4K Ultra HD TVs and smart appliances.
See: LG Embraces AI
As VanderWaal explained at the New York gathering, the company’s proprietary ThinQ technology allows LG devices to communicate across all product categories, and to provide practical, real-world consumer benefits thanks to its deep-learning abilities.
In the G7, that takes the form of an AI-enhanced camera system that “recognizes” objects and automatically adjusts settings and suggests angles and filters for optimal shots, much like Huawei’s flagship phones. LG’s version can identify 1,000 image categories, like babies and fruit, and offers19 shooting modes to capture them.
Voice control will benefit too, in the guise of a series of custom tasks for Google Assistant that are exclusive to LG and can be activated with a dedicated button along the side.
AI also appears in “a new commitment” to continuous updates and upgrades that will add to the phone’s capabilities, VanderWaal said, which could help consumers break out of their two-year upgrade cycles.
Accordingly, LG itself will be limiting the road map for new flagship launches — for both the G and the top-of-the-line V platforms — and will only bring forth new uber-phones when it’s called for, LG mobile spokesman Frank Lee told TWICE.
Related: LG Unveils G6 Flagship At Mobile World Congress
Here’s a rundown of the G7’s other features:
- Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 processor, supported by 4GB RAM;
- 64GB of onboard memory;
- Android 8.0 (Oreo) out of the box;
- a “super bright” 6.1-inch, 564ppi QHD+ LCD display (19.5 x 9 aspect ratio with an optional top notch) that draws less power from the wirelessly-charged 3,000 mAh battery, but adds white pixels to help produce a peak brightness of 1,000 nits;
- a lightweight body in four colors (rose, blue, black and gray) and encased all around in Gorilla Glass 5
- an 8MP front camera and dual 16MP rear shooters, including a dedicated wide-angle lens;
- IP68 water- and dust-resistance;
- extended far-field voice recognition;
- an interior baffle that produces “boom-box” bass; and
- quad-DAC audio for enhanced headphone sound, and a 3.5mm headphone jack for those who shun Bluetooth.
LG didn’t disclose a price for the G7, which will be available in carrier-specific and unlocked versions in June.
