LG Electronics launched the new version of its flagship Optimus smartphone in its home market of South Korea on Thursday, May 17. According to executives, LG will ship the new Optimus LTE2 to countries with high-speed LTE networks in the Americas and Europe this summer.

Though LG's launch is much more modest than Samsung's high-profile introduction of its Galaxy S3 flagship phone in London two weeks ago, the LG Optimus LTE2 shapes up as a true challenge to both Samsung's Galaxy S3 and HTC's One X smartphone. In fact, LG's new phone even surpasses at times the technical specifications of Samsung's newest and most advanced smartphone, the Galaxy S3.

A True Challenger

Both LG's Optimus LTE II and Samsung's Galaxy S3 run on Google's latest Android operating system, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, both have screens of nearly 5 inches in diagonal size, both run on 4G mobile broadband networks, and both feature wireless charging capabilities. The new LG phone, however, is the first smartphone ever to sport a whopping 2GB of RAM. In addition, the new LG can take pictures with verbal commands - just say "Kimchi."

While manufacturers generally leave their high-end flagship phones on sale for a full year, LG rolled its Optimus LTE2 smartphone in its home country of South Korea just eight months after the first version. According to LG, the new Optimus LTE2 will ship to other countries that have LTE networks, such as the U.S., Japan, Canada, and parts of Europe, during the summer months. LG's first LTE phone went on sale in the U.S. in January, and it is still rolling out in some countries.

Specs & Features

The phone has the same 4.7-inch liquid crystal TrueHD IPS display with 720p resolution as the first-generation phone. The LG Optimus LTE2 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 chipset with a 1.5GHz dual-core Krait processor, boasts 2GB of RAM and Adreno 225 graphics. It comes with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box, as well as a customized interface - LG's Optimus UI 3.0. The new user interface offers a cool new approach to the Android lock screen, and also comes with a feature allowing users to scribble quick memos on the screen.

Other features include an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, LTE, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, DLNA, 16GB of internal storage, an expansion slot for up to 32GB of additional storage, and USB 2.0 with MHL, which sports 5.1 channel audio output. LG also improved power efficiency by up to 40 percent, therefore the new smartphone will reportedly last for up to 10 hours of talk time and up to 225 hours in standby.

The new LG Optimus LTE2 will sell in South Korea with a 935,000 won price tag (about $803), but cellular operators will likely offer the new phone at subsidized prices.