LG focuses on visual experience with G6

Industry

Published: 26 Feb. 2017, 19:16

LG focuses on visual experience with G6

Left: Models present LG Electronics’ X Power 2 and K10 smartphones, and Watch Style and Watch Sports smartwatches at Park Guell in Barcelona, Spain ahead of an event to unveil their G6 flagship smartphone. Right: Visitors to the 2017 Mobile World Congress try out Samsung Electronics’ renewed Gear VR headsets. [LG ELECTRONICS, SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS]

LG Electronics on Sunday took the wraps off its highly anticipated G6 flagship smartphone, which emphasizes an enhanced visual experience and safety.

The 5.7-inch Android phone boasts a screen with the world’s first 18:9 aspect ratio and thickness and display proportions optimized for grip, despite its large size.

“Based on the stability and usability made possible by the full-vision display and optimal grip, we will deliver a value that exceeds the expectations of consumers and spearhead smartphone innovations,” said Cho Jun-ho, head of LG’s mobile communications division, at a launch event in Barcelona, Spain, a day before the start of the 2017 Mobile World Congress.

LG also announced that the successor to the G5, which was unveiled a year earlier at the same venue, will be equipped with LG’s own mobile payment system, LG Pay. It will be available in June through a software upgrade and will initially cater to customers in Korea. The payment system will make it possible for the user to pay offline just by touching the phone to ordinary magnetic credit card terminals — similar to Samsung Electronics’ Samsung Pay.

As had been revealed by LG before the launch event, the G6’s 18:9 aspect ratio — unprecedented for any smartphone — can be evenly divided into two squares, allowing users to do two tasks such as watching a YouTube video and checking their calendar at the same time. The full-vision screen also has the highest resolution density ever for an LG smartphone, at 564 pixels per inch, meaning it can deliver clearer and more dynamic images.

The phone has been designed to support two types of high-dynamic range video technologies — HRD10 and Dolby Vision — which are known to promise better resolution so that users may watch more diverse formats of video. Previously, smartphones have been compatible with either one, but not both.

Cho also noted that LG has performed thousands of safety tests to confirm the safety of the phone’s hardware and software functions in response to concerns over battery overheating problems with smartphones in the wake of Samsung’s recall of several million units of its Galaxy Note7 smartphones and discontinuation of the model after reports of the device overheating and exploding.

As a preventive measure, the G6 has been embedded with a so-called heat pipe that will lower the application processor’s temperature by 6 to 10 percent. The phone has also relocated the application processor to the center from the side to evenly distribute heat.

The new device has two cameras on the back. One has a wide angle that can take photos at 125 degrees, similar to the visual field of a human. The phone can remain intact underwater for 30 minutes at depths of up to 1.5 meters and has fingerprint recognition for security.

The unveiling was live-streamed on YouTube and was attended by some 1,500 journalists and telecom business insiders. It attracted greater attention than before, given that Samsung broke its tradition of introducing its Galaxy S series phone at the Spanish tech trade fair this year. Samsung instead introduced three types of premium tablet PCs under the Galaxy brand and its Gear VR with Controller, a virtual-reality headset that comes with a motion-recognition controller.

BY SEO JI-EUN [seo.jieun@joongang.co.kr]