We go hands on with LG’s G2 Mini!

It’s a formula that we’re all familiar at this point: manufacturer makes flagship, sales for said flagship soar, manufacturer makes a smaller version of said flagship with lower specs, slaps a mini at the end of the name and voila! In this case, it’s LG’s highly successful G2 that has now been given the Mini treatment, resulting in the G2 Mini. While the new smartphone has the look and feel of LG’s award winning G2, the G2 Mini has downgraded hardware but much of the same software of its bigger brother.

LG G2 Mini specs

• 1.2GHz quad-core processor, Snapdragon 400
• 1GB RAM
• 4.7-inch IPS capacitive display, 540 x 960 resolution
• 8GB of storage, expandable via microSD up to 64GB
• 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash
• 1.3-megapixel front camera
• WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, GLONASS
• Dual-SIM, dual standby
• 3G, HSDPA
• 2420mAh battery
• Android 4.4 KitKat
• Php 13,990

Initial impressions: Really does feel like a shrunken G2

A lot of you may be going “duh” after you read the statement above, but we feel it’s important to reiterate just how much the G2 Mini feels like its older brother. After all, not all minis are created equal, and there are some minis that don’t manage to capture the essence of the flagship it’s trying to emulate.

The G2 Mini isn’t one of those gadgets, and if you’ve tried out the company’s G2 and transition immediately to the G2 Mini, you’ll immediately see just how much the latter looks and feels like the former. Everything from the design to the curves of the device to the keys on the back and the textured finish just screams G2.

Like most minis, LG has also downgraded much of the hardware on the G2 Mini compared to its bigger brother – it has a much lower display resolution of 540 x 960 (qHD) and a slower 1.2GHz processor. We were initially worried how much the company would downgrade the device as evidenced by their dissappointing G Pro Lite, thankfully the company didn’t go overboard with the downgrade, as the Snapdragon 400 processor in the G2 Mini is still capable of handling most tasks that it would be required to do.

The G2 Mini also gets LG’s customized Optimus UI overlay which gives the G2 Mini most of the features of its larger brethren, including the company’s improved Knock Code, a feature that allows users to unlock the device via a series of unique taps on the display.

Our fears of the device being downgraded to oblivion by LG were unfounded – we found that the Snapdragon 400 processor on the device performed extremely well, and we haven’t felt any kind of lag so far with our admittedly brief time with the device. This doesn’t come as a surprise – our experience with the extremely limited G Pro Lite was pretty pleasant as far as the smoothness of the UI is concerned, as LG obviously knows how to wring every ounce of performance from the processors it uses for its devices. We’re expecting much of the same with the G2 Mini, though only a full review would really show us if its hardware choice will stand up to daily use and not just performance benchmarks.

That’s it for now, stand by for the full review of the G2 Mini in the coming days.