LG to take on Samsung directly with G5 launch at MWC 2016

Last year we couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed that LG didn’t launch their 2015 flagship at MWC, and though it was a brilliant contender, it felt like it lost a bit of steam as compared with Samsung’s Galaxy S6 range which launched in March, ahead of LG’s April/May launch.

This year, we know that LG is holding an event on MWC Press Day (21 February) and we had speculated — fairly safely — that the LG G5 would make an appearance at MWC this year. We’d even called on LG to do this, and not lose market share to Samsung merely by virtue of time, and it seems as if those calls have been heard.

An LG executive, cited by the Korean Times has said that while previous company flagships have been pushed back “months after the release” of Samsung’s premium offerings, this year (2016) will be different, and “LG Electronics is ready to take on Samsung”.

From what we’ve seen, the LG G5 rumours are heating up, suggesting the phone will include (at least) the following:

• 5.3″ to 5.6″ QuadHD display with Gorilla Glass 4, perhaps with secondary ‘ticker’ display ala LG V10
• Snapdragon 820
• 4GB of RAM with 64GB storage
• MicroSD slot expansion
• 16MP to 20MP main camera with 1.2″ sensor, laser autofocus, OIS etc.
• Removable/replaceable battery

I’m not sure how much stock I have in the 4GB / 64GB part of the rumours; 4GB is a lot of RAM, and we’ve not seen that in many devices thus far. Equally, 64 GB storage as standard seems a bit unlikely, given that manufacturers have only really just (and barely) taken on 32 GB as a sensible starting point. Just a couple of months ago, LG’s Nexus 5X still came in 16/32 GB configurations, suggesting that a jump to a baseline 64GB might be a bit much. If we see 32GB as the new baseline, that’ll certainly be a welcome enough improvement.

There are some other suggestions that LG may move away from its signature rear-mounted power/volume buttons, opting for a side-mount to thin down the device leaving just the camera and fingerprint reader on the rear (as with the recent Nexus designs).

MWC is only just over a month away now, and the lack of clarity around these rumours, and the varying of key details, suggests that there aren’t really too many people outside LG that really know what’s going on. Hopefully we will all know soon enough, and we can look forward to one of my / the most anticipated launches for MWC.

I’ll be there on the ground covering this and other events, so as soon as we know more, you will too.