Bellevue, Wash. — T-Mobile said it would be the first U.S. carrier to offer LG’s new flagship smartphone, the G3, beginning July 16 through company-owned stores.
Availability through indirect channels was not disclosed.
The phone will be available at an unsubsidized $598.80, or 24 monthly payments of $24.95 under the carrier’s EIP
The phone is already available for preorder.
The LG G3 will be T-Mobile’s first phone with Quad HD screen and will join other LG phone’s in the carrier’s portfolio. They are LG G-Flex, LG G2, LG Optimus L90 and LG F3Q.
All four national carriers have said they will offer the Android 4.4.2 LTE/ HSPA+21 phone in the summer.
The phone, unveiled June 2, will be LG’s first phone with Quad HD (2,560 by 1,440) display and the first in the industry with laser autofocus, which speeds up focusing of the 13-megapixel main camera to 276 milliseconds to ensure users don’t miss a picture. Laser autofocus is available only on select DSLRs, the company said.
In other changes, LG boosted screen size to 5.5 inches from the G2’s 5.2 inches, but the phone can still be used comfortably with one hand because of a narrow-bezel design that brings the width close to that of 5-inch phones and delivers a screen to front-panel ratio of 76.4 percent, the company said. The phone measures 5.76 inches by 2.94 inches by 0.35 inches.
In other enhancements, CPU speed goes up to quad-core 2.5GHz from 2.2GHz, RAM goes up to 3GB from 2GB, the phone’s speaker gets a 1-watt amplifier, and the screen goes to Quad HD from FullHD at 423 ppi. The battery size remains at 3,000 mAh with battery life growing by 20 percent despite the larger, higher-resolution screen. The new model also gets a MicroSD slot lacking in its predecessor. The slot accepts cards up to 128GB.
