Meet the LG G5 – the first mainstream modular phone! There have been attempts in the past, the most recent being Google’s Project Ara, but none has found mainstream success.
Sleek body, functional addons
The G5 has a “fluid metal” body and beveled glass on the front; not even antenna slits spoil its perfect lines. There is a single seam, which separates the bottom part.
That’s the modular component – it can be removed to access the battery and card slots, and one of several add-ons can be inserted (this requires a reboot though).
The first add-on is a camera grip, the LG Cam Plus. It adds 1,100mAh battery and hardware controls – a hardware shutter key, a video button, zoom dial. Then there’s a Bang & Olufsen DAC for even better audio quality. LG will open the standard for third-party manufacturers to create even more add-ons.
One of a kind screen, unique dual camera
Back to the LG G5, it has a 5.3″ LCD with an always-on mode. It features a dedicated memory and a power-sipping secondary chip so that the main chipset can go to sleep while the screen remains on 24/7. The bespoke chip sips just 0.8% of battery per hour.
The dual selfie camera idea from the V10 has migrated to the G5 too, but as a main camera. One camera has 75° Field of View (FoV) and 16MP sensor, the second camera is much wider, 135° and 8MP sensor. Images from both cameras can be merged with various effects and a real-time preview.
Finally, the “regular” specs. The LG G5 is powered by a Snapdragon 820 chipset wtih 4GB of RAM. It has 32GB storage on board and a microSD slot. It’s 7.5mm-8mm thick and packs a small-ish 2,800mAh battery. Below the dual-camera is the fingerprint sensor.
The LG G5 will launch in early April in the initial group of countries.