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Not to be outdone by longtime rival smartphone maker Samsung, LG has announced a superphone of their own today, and although they didn’t have a flashy multi-million dollar stage, or Philharmonic orchestra to present it, they did manage out-spec Samsung’s Galaxy S3 in some areas. The LG Optimus LTE 2 is the first ever smartphone to include 2GB of RAM in its boxy housing — a spec that has somehow managed to elude this generation of “superphones” like the HTC One X and Samsung Galaxy S3.
The Optimus LTE 2 also goes on to boast a LG’s own “True HD IPS” display, 2,150mAh battery and wireless charging capabilities. No word yet on the processor, but we expect a more than capable S4 or even a Tegra 3 (if they hope to stay competitive in the “core wars”). Not gonna lie, I kinda prefer the LTE 2’s design a little better over the GS3. I also like that they’ve given their old custom UI a complete overhaul in Android 4.0, and find it a tad more appealing than TouchWiz.
LG says the LTE 2 will hit Korean carriers in the middle of May with no word on pricing or availability outside of their homeland just yet. Tell me, would a device featuring 2GB of RAM tickle your wallet? Or do you find 1GB more than ample so far?
[LG Press Release (Translated) | Via Engadget]
1gb is more than enough TODAY but two years down the road when your still on contract, i might be needing more in the 1.5gb -2.0gb range… it is what it is though.
I think I would rather have FASTER RAM, not just more of it. Read something a few weeks back that there’s a new kind that should be making its way to phones soon :D
this is true… DDR is great for PC’s but mobile needs something more specialized
Mobile is more specialized. ;)
“Did Samsung just get LG’d?” Haha! I like that CC. Well done.. creative. :)
@Gamercore:disqus It’s called Wide IO Interface. It will support about 8x memory bandwidth compared to present LPDDR2. But we are still 1-2 years away from that to be used commercially.
Some details here:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/memory/display/20110222201121_Samsung_Develops_Mobile_Memory_with_Wide_I_O_Interface_Extreme_Bandwidth.html
There must be a performance benefit. I would imagine that is why the went though the trouble.
Looks great….phones and girls. ;-)
Love everything but the brand. LG just has a bad mojo… specially after their G2x catastrophe.Although, I’m totally for having more tabs, more multitasking and less slow downs and apps I’m using getting killed because my phone is starving on memory.
The only thing bad about LG’s phones is their build quality, which is note even as bad as Samsung’s.
I hope this phone makes its way to Verizon!
Nice specs,but,why all the wasted real estate on the top & bottom of the display?
I was thinking the same thing, if the space is there why not use it for the screen. Also reduce the bezel all around make the screeen bigger or make the device smaller. Loose the homescreen button and go with on screen soft buttons and it can easily be a 5 incher in a 4.5″ chassis…
Styling is good oh yes cuz its basically the s2.
More ram is definitely a necessity. I already get bogged down sometimes with 1gb. I would definitely consider this is it came to Verizon.
Ram is a pretty big battery drain though. I think software optimization is a much better route.
There’s no reason we can’t have both. Also there’s no reason they can’t optimize the power profile so it only activates the extra ram when it’s needed, or use ram made on a smaller process so it’s more power efficient.
You would notice performance degradation if you just use the second GB of Ram as spill over. The key to maximizing memory performance is to use the ram in parallel. Now they could do a 4x512mb configuration and utilize 1GB in parallel and activate the second 2×512 when needed, but with the amount of software logic to make that work well, you might as well start with other more obvious optimizations. Also 4 memory chips in a phone would take up more space.
I hope you guys know what you are talking about.
Guys, we don’t need 2GB of DDR2 RAM. Just 1GB of DDR3 RAM. More RAM means nothing. You just want the type of RAM to be new.
not EXACTLY true haha but its more of a combination of both
faster RAM always helps but look at how fast android has increased in size over the past few years, bigger RAM is always necessary too
Well, that’s my personal experience… Just thinking about a mobile phone needing that much RAM means that having a fan on our phones is right around the corner! Jk, but who knows! Gotta cool down all those internals!
Right now, phones are practically enclosed all around. A miniature spinning paddlewheel and a couple of air ducts would be quite an improvement!
Unless you want to run Ubuntu on your phone but displayed on a monitor. Then you’ll need as much RAM as possible.
http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android
But yeah, other than that you probably don’t need more than 1 GB of RAM for phones even in 2012. For tablets you might need more for the browser, if you want to keep 20-30 tabs open like on a PC.
Still I’d rather have more hardware capability of any kind instead of more effort into a half baked UI on top of Android.
man …. really feel like skipping this generation. Maybe will purchase the gs 4 or htc x 2
Nothing LG has ever made has appealed to me aesthetically. Just look at that phone. It doesn’t stand out at all in any way. I wouldn’t be able to tell what it was if I saw it in the street. Everybody else (Motorola, Samsung, HTC) makes attractive phones, but not LG.
2GB serves absolutely no purpose for a phone. Now a mobile device running a desktop OS on a monitor or acting as a game console — that is a different metric altogether.
Eh, even though this phone will probably match the SG3 in terms of raw power I find it to be a bit ugly.
I’m also more a fan of Samsung than I am of LG, all things equal I would take a Sammy phone any day.
After the Galaxy S3 , I’ll take this phone any day :)
lg shoulda brought back the chocolate phone to compete with all the razrs. hurrah 2006!
I just remember how much of a pain in the ass my wifes LG ally was to root an rom. No way I go through that again.
Same could be said of Samsung with the Behold II. Now look at ’em! I wouldn’t write LG off just yet. Their phones look good. Good specs. Now they just gotta bring ’em to the US.
Wonder if this was the phone verizon was rumored to be carrying to combat the sgs3?
That would actually be pretty great. Specs-wise, this is now the phone to beat.
LG, nty. 2GB ram, nice, but LG’s name on it? nty.
Whoa, is that a Meizu?
Looks like we’re getting spec’ed.
Another ploy to attract people attracted by numbers, similar to the whole megapixels debate. 2gb of RAM, yes very nice and all that, but really, why would you need that much on a phone?? I understand future proofing etc, but currently there is nothing on the play store that would need anywhere near 2gb. It’s unnecessary and purely aimed at people who are only interested in having the highest amount of numbers their phone.
Some people dont look at this as a “phone” anymore. A lot more look at them as mobile devices. The stopped being true phones a long time ago. Sure they make calls and people expect them to but they also expect the web and a camera and everything else. So MORE ram isnt a bad idea at all.
No program currently uses 1 gb or more on a phone, but what about 2 years from now when I am still on contract? What if Jellybean takes up more active RAM than ICS? What if I am playing a ram intensive game, something awesome or adorable happens and I need to switch to camera quickly, and don’t want to have to restart my game because there wasn’t enough for both it and the camera? What if I’m browsing TVtropes in Chrome and have 10 tabs open at once along with Twitter and an IM client in the background? XD
Why 2Gb of ram?
With docks like Moto uses that use Webtop and the Asus Padphone….it should help.
Some of you must be out of your minds, 2 Gb too much RAM, on my HTC EVO 3D, I’ve got 800Mb, 400 gets sucked up, after using task killer, then you open the browser. Then you open webpage one, do you like reading, you have too many windows open, are you kidding me, aren’t you sick of working your guts out, to get even the simplest things done on the web. Give me stock vanilla Android, not skins and apps that suck RAM in the background, my new motherboard takes 16Gb, at 1.6Ghz, 8X as much, 4X the speed, for $170 retail!! Using Android specific apps saves RAM, but sometimes you want to go surfing the web.
More memory = more apps open at the same time.
All this will melt down to is horrible battery life and users will blame LG.
How does an inactive app use battery?
I’m running my galaxy s (vibrant) with ics euphoria rom and it has proved more than capable to run with just 512mb of ram. why would you need 2 gb of ram to run programs… What combo of programs would take up that much ram?
Very good point. Actually, why would anyone need more than 640k?
To run Android 5.0.
Why would you need more than 512 on a computer? The cell phone is the computer of the future just in case you have not realized it yet.
Gaming. That’s the only thing I can think of when it comes to all the RAM. And other heavy apps. I’m guessing you only use lite apps. You don’t really do anything hard on your phone. That’s probably why YOU can be satisfied with that. For me, 1GB is great, and more won’t hurt.
Seems like the physical home button is making a comeback lmao
If Samsung did this with their phone fewer people will say that it is not need and that it was a game changer. But if LG did it then nope it is unless. We should call you game iSung or something like that because you guys are as bad as iSheep now
LG JUST OUTDID SAMSUNG!
LG lol.
I like the LG’s Design but somehow fits in with the 2011’s smartphone
Samsung Galaxy S III is a leap, and looking back in time we will see that clearer. Curved is the new look of next gen smartphones.
Very nice specs, but I’m still going for the SGSIII unless LG can demonstrate they’re able to come up with a phone that’s not too ugly to look at like the above and also that their batteries can last long and lastly that they can actually make phones that work. I refuse to buy an expensive brick.
For now, it appears they’re just flailing and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. We’ll see what happens… if they’re not able to make any inroad this year I think it just might be over for them in the smart phone business.