LG has been churning out high-quality mid-range handsets for the last couple of years. Their L Series line has been instrumental in building the companies profile with customers around the world, the phones often carry high-end software features from the flagship G Series adding benefits for customers all over. The latest phones to launch do carry high-end features at mid-range pricing with the LG Leon and Spirit handsets set to launch in Australia.
The handsets are decent when it comes to the hardware side of things, but they’re also competitively priced. The handsets carry the same hardware design as the flagship G3 from last year, and from what we’ve seen of the G4, there’s some similarities there too. The LG Spirit and LG Leon are both 4G compatible as well, with support for the 1800MHz band, as well as Vodafone’s refarmed 850MHz LTE network.
| LG Leon | LG Spirit | |
|---|---|---|
| Display: | 4.5” FWVGA | 4.7” HD |
| Processor: | 1.2GHz Quad-Core | |
| RAM: | 1GB | |
| Storage | 8GB with micoSD card | |
| Camera | Rear 5MP / Front VGA | Rear 8MP / Front 1MP |
| Connectivity: | Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n (single band), Bluetooth 4.1, GPS | |
| Radios: | 2G: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz 3G: 850/900/1900/2100 Mhz 4G: 1800/850 MHz |
|
| OS: | Android 5.0 Lollipop | |
| Battery: | 1,900mAh | 2,100mAh |
| Dimensions: | 129.9 x 64.0 x 10.9mm | 133.2 x 66.1 x 9.9mm |
Both handsets come with Android 5.0 and include all the goodness of the animations, security updates and overall good looks of the Android update. The Spririt and Leon also include a number of LG customisations such as Gesture shot for taking selfies with ease, and Glance View, a quick way to access missed notificatons such as the time, messages and missed calls, with a quick downward swipe.
Lambro Skropidis, General Manager of Marketing at LG Electronics Australia, said of the new smartphones
We’re really proud of what we’ve achieved with our G3 flagship smartphone in the last year, but I’d also say that it’s really indicative of our heritage in the mid-range smartphone market in general. After all, with consumers at the heart of everything we do, LG understands that the more premium model is not always going to be accessible to everyone. So that’s why we’ve created the LG Spirit and LG Leon – they’re packed with an array of the G3’s acclaimed features but at a price that will be sure to please. We’re immensely pleased with both smartphones. I suspect both the LG Spirit and LG Leon are going to be an absolute revelation for our consumers.
LG has announced that the LG Spirit will be heading to Vodafone in late April to join their pre-paid range, where it will be priced at $199. It will also be available from Mo’s Mobile, as well as selected retailers including Big W (from May 2015).
The LG Leon will be heading to Optus pre-paid where it will be priced at $149, as well as being available from retail stores such as Kmart, Dick Smith, Harvey Norman, Big W and Australia Post
You can see the LG Leon and Sprint on the LG Australia website right now, and should be able to check them out in person and in-store in the coming weeks.
The Leon is LOW end LG not mid range
Battery on the Spirit doesn’t look to be so good based on capacity, too small. The G3 got battery capacity correct.
It should have had 16Gb on board storage. 8Gb on board does NOT cut it at all today, even with microSD support. This is because some of the on board storage capacity is set up as an emulated version of SDcard0. Apps look at SDcard0 before looking at the storage location of the physical microSD card.
Otherwise, not bad specs for a mid tier device.