There has been no shortage of LG Q9 leaks over the
past few months and as CES 2019 draws nearer, the Korean giant is clearly
expected to unveil its work on the somewhat odd mid-ranger at the event. As for
the "odd" bits, the LG Q9 actually has a few of those going for it.
First and foremost has to be the dated Snapdragon 821 chipset that is said to
power the device.
A new benchmark run from an "LGE LM-Q925L"
unit on GeekBench pretty much confirms this rather unorthodox chipset choice.
However, this has been the subject of speculation before. In fact, by most
accounts, the LG Q9 is simply said to be a re-branded LG G7 Fit. That includes
the internals, as well as the exterior design.
This makes it pretty clear that LG will soon be dropping
the Q9, under the LM-Q925K/L/S model number, complete with LG G7 Fit specs,
like a 6.1-inch IPS LCD of 1440x3120px resolution, the aforementioned
Snapdragon 821, 4GB of RAM, 3,000mAh battery, with Quick Charge 3.0 support and
either 32GB or 64GB of storage.
The LG Q9 will likely carry only two cameras - a
16MP on the rear and an 8MP on the front. It might also include a microSD
expansion slot, IP68 and MIL-STD-810G certification, as well as a pretty solid
connectivity load-out: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band, Bluetooth 5.0 Low
Energy, GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, NFC, USB Type-C port, and 4G VoLTE.
You can actually check our hands-on impressions with the LG G7 Fit from IFA
2018 for more info.
The plot does, however, thicken a bit, since another
similar LG mid-ranger is apparently also in the works. One likely to go by the
name Q9 One, as detailed in a recent Netflix listing of devices certified for
HD streaming, of all places. Said list also mentions the model number:
LM-Q927L. Slightly different than the ones the other LG Q9 has been spotted
under.
Apparently the LG Q9 One also recently got its
certification on the Bluetooth SIG Certification site, under the same model
number. A few month prior, the LM-Q927L stopped by the Wi-Fi Alliance as well. The
interesting bit being that in both cases the device was listed as running
Android 9 Pie. In contrast, most sources with info on the vanilla LG Q9 have
mentioned Android 8.1 Oreo for the OS. Like the "One" moniker
suggests, we could be looking at an Android One variant of the upcoming
handset.
There is yet another potential spin to consider
here, namely certain earlier rumors, regarding the LG Q9 that have listed a
Snapdragon 660 chipset, often along with 3,550 mAh of battery capacity. Perhaps
these two differences could pertain to the Q9 One? We'll just have to wait and
see.
