We already know that one of the big announcements that will be made at MWC in a few weeks’ time will be the LG G6. The G5, launched a year ago, was initially lauded for its novel module design, but that praise was short-lived and the phone sold badly. Going back to the drawing boards, LG have dropped the module design but are attempting a number of different changes to the G6.
What do we know? The G6 will be launched on 26 February. The invite above suggests that the phone will have a tiny bezel. The image below is taken from a Chinese site, supposedly showing a G6. The bezel is certainly small, but it isn’t as small as the image in the invite would suggest.
Another area the company is focusing on is the quality of the phone. This isn’t simply in hardware terms (the Samsung Note 7 experience…) but in software: many of LG’s previous handsets have been known to suffer from endless bootloops – just check out pages on various fora and you’ll see myriad complaints. Another invite, shared exclusively with Android Central highlights this:
The phone itself, regardless of bezel depth and software reliability, has various rumoured specifications:
- 2880 x 1440 resolution
- 5.7″ screen
Other than that, precious little is known. The battery is thought to not be removable, but there’s no sense of capacity; similarly, it is assumed that the phone will be waterproof, but no indication of which level waterproofing.
Perhaps the most exciting news, at least for audio buffs, is that the G6 will include quad DACs. For those of us who like and appreciate music sounding good on a smartphone, and who have not been able to get hold of a V20 (which has not been officially released in Europe), then the G6 will be a welcome addition. And this news is no rumour but comes courtesy of the LG Newsroom. The announcement was in Korean, so here is a Google Translate version in English:
LG Electronics will upgrade its next-generation premium smartphone ‘LG G6’ with a quad DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter). The new Quad DAC is supplied by ESS, a company specializing in high-performance audio chipsets.
The new quad DAC features fine control of left and right sound, enhancing sound balance and reducing noise.
The DAC is a device that converts digital sound signals consisting of 0 and 1 into analog sound signals that can be heard by humans. The better the performance, the more the sound distortion and noise are reduced more effectively, resulting in a clean sound quality. The quad DACs implement four DACs on a single chip, reducing the size by a factor of four and noise by up to 50% when using one DAC.
LG Electronics plans to launch the LG V20, which has the world’s first quad DAC built in last year, and will continue to lead the luxury smartphone sound market with the LG G6.
■ Exceptional sound balance provides a sense of depth
The new quad DAC applied to the ‘LG G6’ effectively controls the left and right earphones separately to control the left and right earphones separately. Also, by adjusting the balance of sound, listeners can feel the stereoscopic feeling of listening to music directly at the concert scene.
■ Get rid of noise and deliver vivid impression
The LG G6 eliminates noise from loud as well as loud sounds, providing crisp, clean sound.
The new Quad DACs have increased circuit integration, lowering the negative distortion to 0.0002% of the luxury audio level and minimizing the loss of acoustic information. As the loss of information is less, the listener can hear a clean sound close to the original sound.
The path for transmitting sound signals inside the chip has also been widened. The ability to process large, high-quality sound sources quickly and accurately allows listeners to enjoy high-volume 32-bit hi-fi sources without interruption.
Lee Sang-gyu, managing director of Korea Mobile Group at LG Electronics, said, “We will deliver new value to consumers with the best smartphone sound we have not experienced before.”
The audio characteristics alone would make me ditch my S7 Edge in a heartbeat! No word on when the G6 will be made available or on pricing, but we should know more in a few weeks.