It’s February, which means we can officially start hyping ourselves over Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona at the end of the month. Although it appears that Samsung won’t be unveiling the next Galaxy flagship per usual, we’re still anticipating new phones from Nokia, BlackBerry, LG, and more. In fact, if we’re lucky we might even see two new phones from LG. According to an article over at Phandroid, some G6-related findings suggest that LG might have a compact version of the G6 in the works.
If you’re invested in the idea of compact phones at all, you may be wondering why that rumor is anything to be excited about. From recent history, we know that it’s a 50/50 crapshoot whether you’ll get anything worth mentioning or not. Flagships with a “mini” moniker were once nothing more than a watered-down flagship look-a-like, but there have been a couple of noteworthy compact models to surface like the Sony Xperia Compact and Apple iPhone SE.
Although I try to be optimistic, LG already has a short history of compact minis. If that history is anything of substance, I find that my definition and LG’s definition of “compact” greatly differ. The LG G2 Mini and LG G3 S had 4.7-inch and 5-inch displays respectively, which were kind of the norm for smartphones at the time anyway. However, they were smaller than their larger G flagship counterparts, so relatively speaking they were technically mini. With that in mind, screen sizes these days don’t necessarily mean as much now as it did back then; with shrinking bezels on the rise, a phone can have a relatively large display without necessarily having to increase in size physically.
There’s also LG’s “bootloop” issue to consider. Hopefully LG has already resolved this issue, but there have been enough reports across different LG smartphones like the G4, V10, and Nexus 5Xto know that it’s worth keeping an eye on.
From what we can see, the G6 already looks to be a fairly straightforward device. At the very least we know that modularity won’t be a factor here. I think that a compact model could be good for both LG and consumers, assuming the phone is truly compact and specs aren’t gimped too much in comparison to the G6. It’s a fairly untapped market, especially right now in the States. Apple has the iPhone SE, which is great if you want to use iOS. Android users, however, are left to deal Sony, who continuously struggles to make an impact or much of an appearance in the U.S. It has been a couple of years since we’ve seen a “mini” anything from Samsung or HTC, so it’s ripe for the taking in regards to more well-known brands here.
