There has been no official word on a mini variant of LG’s latest flagship, but a couple of leaks and the launch of the LG G3 Beat in China recently were pretty good signs that an LG G3 Mini would be making its way to the market in the near future. Now, a leaked user manual is offering the most concrete evidence of the device’s existence, while revealing what the phone will be called once it launches worldwide.
According to the manual, the G3 Mini will be called the LG G3 S, at least in Europe. That would be a welcome departure from the industry tradition of companies simply tacking on the word “mini” to mid-range variants of their flagships – the S in the title could still be considered as a hint that the device is a smaller version of its high-end sibling, but it won’t betray the fact that it also features lower-end hardware.
The manual doesn’t reveal any specs, but those should be similar to the G3 Beat, including a 5-inch 720p display, a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, an 8-megapixel camera with laser-assisted autofocus, 16GB of internal storage and a microSD slot, and a 2,540 mAh battery. The phone should also support LTE connectivity, and run on Android 4.4.2 KitKat.
It’s unclear when the LG G3 S will go on sale, but as we have noted in the past, it will likely be a while since even the LG G3 hasn’t yet completed its global rollout.
UPDATE: It seems the LG G3 S might come out earlier than expected, as a Russian retailer is already taking pre-orders and has published pictures and full specs of the device. The phone is priced at RUB 13,990 (around $406), and according to the retailer listing, features a disappointing 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. Well, at least LG was kind enough to keep the the laser autofocus sensor next to the camera.
