There’s been an interesting of events that has unfolded this evening. An LG G4 “microsite” has been uncovered that looks to give us a legitimate look at what the upcoming LG G4 will look like.The image and the URL to the microsite was originally discovered(or at least passed around) by Evan Blass on his Twitter account(@evleaks). The tweet reads “say hello to the LG G4″ and it includes a link to a South Korean website(which is titled LG G4 MicroSite). So let’s take a look at the website and see what is going on.
When we go to that URL, we can see some interesting things here. Firstly, the woman holding the alleged LG G4 stands out on this page. The image doesn’t seem to be very high quality but that is probably because it’s just a microsite. A microsite is like a demo area where developers can put up a rough draft of what a full-page could look like. This is generally not known to the public but for some reason or another this URL was leaked out. Scrolling down and we get a look at more of the LG G4.
This first image shows us that the front is going to have some sort of texture. I can only imagine that this textured look is only that, a look, and that it will be under the front piece of glass. This texture goes all around the bezel of the alleged LG G4 and I’m not quite sure what I think about it right now. I mean, it doesn’t look bad at all but it takes away that ‘slab of glass’ look that I enjoy in a smartphone. I’ll have to see how it looks from different angles before I can form a complete opinion about it. What do you think about this texture?
In this first screen on the microsite we can also see some of the advanced camera controls of the upcoming LG UX 4.0 that I recently told you about. We see another confirmation of the F1.8 aperture, some autofocus settings, ISO controls, AWB(whatever that is) and a few other things. I’m just not an expert in cameras and photography so I don’t know what most of that stuff is. If there are any readers who know more about this I would be very eager to learn about it. Jump down to the comments below and let me know what these mean.
After doing a little more research, it seems that AWB is the setting for Auto White Balance. This is something that gives you more control over the camera quality and helps to adjust the white balance. Changing this setting would change how ‘cold’ or ‘hot’ your photos look. If you notice that photos are looking a little more ‘blue’ than you would like, you can use this setting to make them look more natural. For anyone interested .
Infrared Sensor
Something interesting I saw was the back of the alleged LG G4 had what I assumed to be a dual-LED flash. After digging through the microsite though, it turns out that underneath the LED-flash was an infrared sensor. The microsite said that this will scan whatever you are taking a photo of(before it takes the photo) and use that data to have the image as color accurate as possible. The LG G3 had an amazing camera considering that they removed 90% of the features the camera application had in the LG G2. As with most of the other stuff here, I’ll reserve judgement about just how useful this hardware will be, but it certainly has piqued my interest.
LG G4 Revealed
In the next panel, the website gives us a much higher quality image of the alleged LG G4 and it focuses on leather. We see rolls of various different types of leather behind the alleged LG G4 and they are highlighting this specific style up front. This looks to be the same leather that LG has been teasing in their press invites lately and again, I’m not really sure what I think about it. At first glance, I’m not a fan and it looks like a football. Motorola has shown us that leather can be a popular style choice for some customers and LG just might want to utilize this.
The last panel shows us someone holding the alleged LG G4 and helps us to get an idea of how the device will look like in the hand. In this image it actually doesnt’ look half bad. The leather looks fairly premium and leather is actually a popular style for a lot of people. We see leather in things all the time from phone and tablet cases to phone books and a whole bunch of other products. This view of the alleged LG G4 might not look half bad because the hand is covering up the stitching.
The Website
Now, since we have focused and highlighted the LG G4, I wanted to get this website out-of-the-way. When I first finished looking at these panels, I started to look at the website as a whole. If you notice, both the header and the footer are nothing more than images. It is not a functioning website and this set off ‘fake’ alarms in my head when I first thought about it. Then I start to think about it being a microsite and that it is nothing more than a mockup.
Fake Specs
This is why some parts of the website, like the specifications page, are ‘fake’. They aren’t really fake though. . .but they are for the LG G3. Again, if this is just a staging site then it makes sense not to have it fleshed out completely. So when you look through the site, make sure to keep that in mind. The colors section though, that seems to be more accurate than the specs.
LG G4 Colors
As you can see from the images above, there will allegedly be a lot of colors to choose from with the LG G4. First of all, we might have six various colors of leather to choose from. Leather Brown, Leather Black, Leather Red, Leather Skyblue, Leather Beige and Leather Yellow. When we talked about the LG G4 recently, I doubted that LG would only offer the LG G4 with a leather back. In the first colors image here, we can see three different version of the alleged plastic LG G4. Metallic Gray, Ceramic White and Shiny Gold. For some reason these don’t look to be ‘flat’ but instead have some square/diamond type of texture to them. If true, I am curious to find out why LG decided on this instead of the brushed metal style texture that is on the LG G3 and the LG G Flex 2.
When I was looking over the ‘features’ page, at the very bottom there is an image that shows how the alleged LG G4 will look when you remove the back cover. If true, it also confirms that the device will have a 3,000 mAh capacity removable battery along with a micro SD card slot. It actually says SD card slot, but I can’t imagine they would opt for the larger ones over the micro size.
Conclusion
I have to say that this looks very, very legit. I don’t know what website this is and I’m not seeing any relation from xfb.kr to lge.co.kr(domain record wise). Either way, it looks like LG is getting things everything ready so they can go live with the LG G4 website as soon as they would like. As long as the stuff doesn’t get removed from this xfb.kr website, we’ll probably see things like the specifications and such be fixed over time.
I can’t say that I’m as excited about the LG G4 as I was for the LG G3. I currently own the G3 and I still have no plans of upgrading. I do think this is a great step forward for LG though. Hopefully they will stay away from the Snapdragon 810(and opt for the rumored 808). I like that they are offering so many colors with the G3’s successor. I only hope that all of these colors will be available worldwide. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them became exclusives for certain retail outlets(which I hate).
Assuming that the LG G4’s photo quality can at least get close(if not surpass) the Galaxy S6’s, then I think LG has yet another winner on their hands. I like the direction they are going in with their software(even though I flash CM12), I like how they are focusing on their hardware. It looks like the G4 might be improved on every aspect from the G3 but of course, we will have to wait and see how things turn out once the device has been released.
What do you think of all this new information though? Are you digging the leather? If not, are you happy with the plastic variants? I know there has been a big push away from ‘evil plastic’ but I actually still prefer it over both glass and metal. Use the comments section below to tell me what you think because I am very curious to see what the general consensus is.
