G3 Beat is the mid-range version of LG's flagship smartphone

Shawn Knight

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g3 beat smartphone flagship lg g3 g3 mid-range

LG has announced a mid-tier handset based on its flagship G3 smartphone. The G3 Beat retains the same styling as its bigger brother in a slightly slimmer package that's also easier on the wallet.

The new phone carries a 5-inch HD IPS display operating at 1,280 x 720 pixels (294 PPI) versus the larger 5.5-inch screen on the original. Under the hood is a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor operating at 1.2GHz alongside 1GB of RAM and 8GB of flash storage that's expandable via microSD card.

Around back is an 8-megapixel camera with laser auto focus while a 1.3-megapixel shooter graces the front for selfies. The handset supports 4G LTE network connectivity as well as 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPU/Glonass, NFC and USB 2.0. The Beat will run Android version 4.4.2 KitKat out of the box.

The phone measures 137.7 x 69.6 x 10.3mm and weighs in at 134g. It'll be available in metallic black, silk white and shine gold and will be powered by a 2,540mAh removable battery. 

The LG G3 Beat is available starting today in South Korea and will begin a global rollout from Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries in the weeks that follow. Interestingly enough, the phone is being branded as the LG G3 s outside of South Korea.

No word yet on pricing nor do we know when / if it'll eventually arrive on US shores.

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As usual, just because it's a smaller device it also has worse specs. It would be nice if the mini version of these phones had mostly the same specs instead of being watered down so hard. I just can't see myself buying such a monster phone, the S4 is already big enough to make my hands sore after continuous use.
 
As usual, just because it's a smaller device it also has worse specs. It would be nice if the mini version of these phones had mostly the same specs instead of being watered down so hard.
The article very clearly states this is a MID-RANGE phone, NOT a high-end phone with a smaller screen. You can't expect to use all the same internals as a flagship, reduce only the screen, and then expect to be able to sell that for half the price.
Also, flagships with expensive, completely unnecesary specs only really sell well in the US and some places in Europe, where people sell their sould to their crappy carries to buy those phones with subsidies. The rest of the world is not that irresponsible, and people there understand how pointless things like Snapdragon 800 SoCs, huge ammounts of RAM and pointless increases in display DPI which provide no visual benefits yet increase battery consumption (let's face it, 1080p on a phone is already ridiculous) are just expensive and unnecessary luxuries, and don't really care about them. They would much rather buy a good mid-range phone which already serves them perfectly well and not become a carrier slave on an expensive contract. That's where phones like this G3 Beat or the S4/S5 Mini are meant for, NOT for markets like the US.
And "flagships with smaller screens" would only appeal to a tiny niche in the US and similar markets, not enough to actually drive demand. So no, you won't get a smaller flagship (except on rare instances like the Z1 Compact, but I honesly don't expect Sony to do something like that again).
 
It all looks great, like a better spec'd Moto G. Now they just need to get the price right (anything beyond $300 will be a big mistake).
The only problem is that this "quad-core" fad must die a swift death. They'd be much better off using a dual-core chip at a higher frequency like 1.6/1.8 GHz or so, than this 1.2 GHz quad-core that is being used everywhere.
 
Next year there will be 6 inch phones with 5.5 inch "mini" phones, right? They can't add anything new, just bigger screens which are getting ridiculous and draining battery. Tablets are gonna lose their purpose, if they had one, but that will be a good thing.
 
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