LG announces the G3 Beat, a 5-inch, mid-range version of its flagship G3 smartphone

LG has announced the G3 Beat, a new, mid-range version of its flagship G3 smartphone. With a screen size of five inches, the G3 Beat is slightly smaller than its 5.5-inch older sibling, but LG claims the device “retains the best features and functions of the G3” while catering to consumers who are shopping with a smaller budget.

The new device runs Android KitKat but is more modestly powered than the G3. At the heart of the G3 Beat is a 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, while it includes 1GB RAM, 8GB of on-device memory — both of which are half the power of the G3.

The G3 Beat’s rear-facing camera is eight-megapixels and the front-facing camera is 1.3-megapixel, which again represent scale downs from the G3, which sports a 13.1-megapixel and 2.1-megapixel camera respectively.

Feature-wise, the G3 Beat includes a range of the G3’s features, such as laser auto focus, touch and shoot, gesture shots, its smart keyboard, and QuickMemo+.

The device will be available in a choice of three colors — Metallic Black, Silk White, Shine Gold — and goes on sale in Korea from tomorrow, July 18. It is then scheduled to hit retailers in Europe and Russia — where it will be called the ‘G3 s’ — “weeks” later, before rolling out worldwide thereafter.

We’ve reached out to LG to get pricing, and ask when the device will make it to North America.

Update: The company says, per the blog post, that there is no timeline for the G3 Beat’s US launch. We’ll keep you posted.

Don’t miss: LG G3 review: Third time’s a charm for LG’s 5.5″ flagship, but questions remain over battery life

Images via LG