LG today unveiled its first LTE-capable tablet, the Optimus Pad LTE. While South Africa cannot as yet take advantage of the kinds of speeds supported by the device, the launch does highlight LG’s approach towards the tablet market.

 

Dr. Jong-seok Park, the president and chief executive officer of LG mobile communications company, explained that with tablets generating five times more traffic than the average smartphone, it was “not a huge jump to assume that tablet users need and want faster connectivity.”

 

He added that the combination of LG's LTE technology with the tablet form factor was “a clear advantage for consumers who use a tablet as their primary consumption device when on the move."

 

 

This also explains the slightly more portable size that LG has opted for – the device has a 8.9” form factor rather than 9.7” or 10.1” as employed by Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab respectively. Additionally, the Optimus Pad LTE is a slender 9.34 mm thin and weighs in at a more than bearable 479 g.

 

The Pad LTE base specs include a 1280 x 720 True HD IPS display, a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor running Android 3.2 Honeycomb OS (no word as yet whether this will be upgraded to Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich) and an eight megapixel camera capable of capturing  high definition video.

 

The company touted the fact that the Optimus Pad LTE was the “world's first tablet to support an SD memory card expandable to 32 GB.” (We are unsure if LG did not hear about last year’s Toshiba AT100, which is also capable of this.) This LG explained, was in recognition of the importance they expected multimedia  to play for owners of this device.

 

It makes sense therefore, that the Optimus Pad also has a HDMI port and is DLMA compatible. Additional features include the Smart Movie Editor for editing pictures and videos more easily; Web Duet, which allows for e-mailing, messaging and SNS sharing with search functions; and On-Screen Phone, which ensures compatibility with LG smartphones.

 

 

 

We actually think LG is on the right track here, focusing on speed and form factors that Apple has yet to broach, and concentrating on those who want a more portable tablet experience.

 

Indeed, our experience has been that 8.9” tablets, evidenced by Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 8.9, offers an interesting middle ground between the 7” and 10” range, in some respects offering the advantages of both.  

 

There’s no word as yet about when we can expect to see LG’s latest locally, or at what price it will lure potential customers in with.

 

In recent news, LG unveiled a magic remote for its Cinema 3D smart TVs, which featured voice recognition and gesture support.