Ahead of tomorrow's launch, LG has confirmed you'll be able to nab its new flagship smartphone - the LG G6 - outright through Telstra for $1,008. The aggressive outright price is in-line with Telstra's 24-month plans, which in many cases undercut the iPhone 7 and Samsung's Galaxy S7.
If you're after an LG G6, Telstra will be the only place to pick one up for now, but LG says it's hoping to bring the phone to retailers in the coming weeks. Notably, Australia is the second market in the world where the G6 will go on sale, following a launch in South Korea.
For those not familiar with the device, the LG G6 is LG's flagship smartphone for 2017. Key features include an extra tall display with an 18:9 aspect ratio (or 2:1), a design light on bezels, and water-resistance. While LG's been one of the few flagship manufactures clinging on to removable batteries, that's ended with the G6; the G6's battery is sealed, and the modular design introduced with the G5 is gone too.
The G6's 5.7-inch extra tall "FullVision" display is the star of the show, running at a resolution of 2880x1440 pixels. Even though a 5.7-inch screen is distinctly phablet territory, the G6's lack of bezel and the screen's added height mean the phone is just slightly larger than a 4.7-inch iPhone 7. Essentially, it's small enough to still hold and use in one.
The G6 is also notable in the sense that it's the first Dolby Vision ready smartphone, allowing it to play back Dolby Vision high dynamic range (HDR) content. HDR ready displays - such as the one found on the LG G6 - have a higher contrast ratio; essentially the difference between how bright and dark they can go. This also results in a wider colour space, and as such a truer to life image.
Dolby Vision's claim to fame is that it's a dynamic solution capable of providing instructions as to how a movie or TV episode should be coloured on a frame-by-frame basis, while other formats just have one set of instructions for the entire duration of the video.
So why bring HDR to a smartphone? Dolby Labs Technology Vice President Patrick Griffis told WhistleOut that people are increasingly watching movies and TV shows up on their smartphones, with recent research suggesting that the average American watches four of hours of content long-form content on their smartphone per week.
"Premium long-form video is a growing use case," said Griffis. If you're going to take the time to watch an hour-long episode or two-hour movie on your phone, you want to have it in as good a quality as possible."
In addition to enhanced colour, Griffis says they've found that Dolby Vision encoded video is less demanding on the G6's battery, thanks to its dynamic nature. Rather than blasting the phone's backlight at full for a predominantly white image, Dolby Vision instructions would instead tell the phone to change contrast to achieve a similar effect, for example.
Dolby Vision enhanced content for mobile devices will be available through Netflix and Amazon Prime Video soon.
Other key specifications include a Snapdragon 821 processor, IP68 water-resistance, a rear-facing fingerprint reader, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of expandable storage, a 3,300mAh battery, and Android Nougat. The G6 also touts two-rear facing cameras: one conventional 13MP camera, and one wide-angle 13MP camera with a 125-degree lens.
If you're after the LG G6 on a plan, Telstra's plans are as follows.
If you purchase a G6 on a Go Mobile Plus, Go Mobile Swap, My Business Mobile Plus, or My Business Mobile Lease 24-month contract worth $95 per month or more, you'll get a bonus 43-inch 2017 Full HD LG Smart TV (model 43LJ550), valued at over $1,000.
Alex Choros
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