LG announces the Snapdragon 600-powered Optimus G Pro, coming to the US in Q2 2013

The Optimus G, LG’s late 2012 flagship Android smartphone, has not even made its way to many markets yet despite an initial launch in August last year, but that hasn’t stopped LG from prepping up the Optimus G Pro, a beefed up version of the Optimus G, which the Korean manufacturer has finally announced in a press release.

The Optimus G Pro is the first device to use one of the newest Snapdragon processors – the Snapdragon 600 – from Qualcomm, which the chip maker unveiled at the CES last month. With four cores running at 1.7GHz, the Snapdragon 600 should ensure a position at the top for the Optimus G Pro in benchmarks and great overall performance.

The other key upgrade over the Optimus G is the larger 5.5-inch Full HD IPS display with a pixel density of 400 ppi, making it LG’s first 1080p smartphone and pitches it against Sony’s Xperia Z and HTC’s Butterfly (and Droid DNA in the US). Furthermore, the Optimus G Pro will also be the first LG smartphone to come pre-loaded with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, with LG’s Optimus 3.0 user interface on top.

Other specs include 2GB RAM, 13 megapixel rear and 2.1 megapixel front camera, 32GB of internal storage, microSD support, Wi-Fi, LTE, HSPA, Bluetooth 4.0, USB Host and NFC connectivity. There’s a removable 3,140 mAh battery powering this beast of a phone, and one can’t help but think of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 looking at the battery capacity and the size of the screen.

LG has said that the Optimus G Pro will be making its way to the States in the second quarter of this year, and if the Optimus G is anything to go by, we can expect the Optimus G Pro to launch in other markets later in Q3 or Q4. The price for Korea has been announced to be 968000 won (~900 USD), which is quite steep to be honest and does make one wonder if customers will have to shell out premium Apple-like prices for Android flagships going forward.

Further details on availability and international/contract pricing should come out during the MWC event this month, where LG will no doubt be showing off the Optimus G Pro to all the tech lovers in attendance.