If you had a dollar for every time a phone maker promised premium features in a mid-range hset, you’d be able to afford a much nicer phone.
But that’s not stopping , whose mid-tier G4 Beat claims to be “an exceptional phone without the exceptional price.” don’t know what price is, mind you, but is making good on bringing at least some features of its flagship G4 to the budget set.
Most noteworthy is the rear camera, which is only 8 megapixels but uses laser auto-focus to quickly line up crisp shots. The G4 Beat also has a color spectrum sensor, which measures the RGB infrared values of ambient light tries to fine-tune the colors of each photo accordingly. On the software side, the camera offers manual controls for shutter speed, ISO, exposure, white balance. The 5-megapixel front-facing camera includes a Gesture Interval Shot feature that snaps four selfies in a row with a h signal.
The phone’s design is similar to ’s flagships, with a rear-mounted button for controlling power volume. The display measures 5.2 inches with 1080p resolution, there’s a 1.5 GHz Snapdragon 615 processor that’s quickly becoming the C du jour in mid-range hsets. (As we noted in our catel Idol 3 review, the octa-core processor is competent, but not as impressive as it sounds.) On the downside, is skimping on storage RAM, with 8 GB of the former 1.5 GB of the latter.
The G4 Beat will hit several Europe tin America markets later this month, including , Germany, Brazil. A global launch will follow in markets such as Canada, India, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey will follow. There’s no word on U.S. availability.
y this matters: is talking a big game, but the competition for mid-range supremacy is getting fiercer, with surprisingly phones in the $250 to $300 range such as the Idol 3 Oneus One. It really is possible to get a high-quality phone for mid-range prices; the question is whether will be the one to deliver.
