LG’s G4 is now official, complete with leather back and sharpshooting camera

After all the teasing LG has been doing lately, they’ve finally taken the wraps off of the G4. There aren’t many surprises here, between the official videos that LG has put out and the numerous leaks we’ve seen over the past few weeks, but that doesn’t take away from what’s looking like a fantastic flagship for 2015.

The design of the device hasn’t changed much from the G3, which is either good or bad, depending on how much you liked last year’s model. This time around, LG is releasing the phone with several different leather-backed options, which LG says takes three months per back to make. Seems a little excessive for something that’s only a removable back, but hey, as long they’re high quality parts, no one should complain.

As far as specs go, everything lines up with what we’ve been hearing. The G4 sports a 5.5-inch QHD screen, just like the G3, but the panel is supposedly 11% more power efficient, 25% brighter, and with 20% more color accuracy. It’ll be interesting to see how the display fares next to Samsung’s acclaimed Galaxy S6.

Other hardware includes the Snapdragon 808 (pouring more fuel on the Snapdragon 810’s overheating controversy), 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of internal storage, plus a removable 3,000 mAh battery and microSD card slot. No wireless charging here, but with the back being removable, LG will be likely offer some kind of solution if you’re willing to buy accessories for it.

The camera has been a bragging point for LG up to this point, and the G4 looks like it’ll give other smartphone cameras a run for their money. The 16 megapixel shooter has an f/1.8 lens and better image stabilization, plus a ton of new software tweaks for professionals and enthusiasts to get their photos exactly how they want. RAW capture and manual shutter speed and ISO settings were among the features LG wants to show off with the G4’s camera. Again, Samsung’s latest flagship offers the biggest competition to the G4, and with the S6 Edge sitting at the top of the heap for smartphone camera quality, LG will have to offer something extraordinary to be able to compete.

As for the rest of the software, you’ll find Android 5.1 with LG’s additional software on board, many of which we’ve already seen. LG claims they’ll only be shipping the G4 with Chrome installed, instead of Chrome and a built-in browser, and they’re bundling in 100 GB of free Google Drive space with the purchase of the device. Most of the native apps on the device also integrate with Drive, which is a very nice touch if you’re in Google’s ecosystem.

Last year, LG did moderately well thanks to Samsung’s slightly disappointing Galaxy S5. This year, Samsung came out swinging with the Galaxy S6, which has been repeatedly praised as one of the best devices Samsung has ever made. That’s going to make LG’s job much harder with the G4. Having a bigger screen and expandable storage should help, but I think it’s going to be a very competitive year for both companies moving forward.

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