LG G9 ThinQ may not be a premium flagship

LG has been pretty silent in the mobile space save from a brief moment in the spotlight last month. It announced the LG V60 ThinQ, the only flagship phone it has so far for this half of 2020. People were expecting that, just like last year, it would unveil the LG G9 ThinQ beside it. It may still do so eventually but it will no longer be the high-end handset that LG's customers and fans have come to expect from that line.

If Samsung has its S, LG has long had its G series to marks its flagship line of smartphones. The V series came later to be its torchbearer for the second half the year. Lately, however, there has been talk about LG merging the two or dropping one or the other. Surprisingly, it might be the G that gets the short end of the stick.

A report from South Korean media bears slightly disappointing news, claiming that the LG G9 ThinQ will launch with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 and not the Snapdragon 865. Both chips come with 5G modems as part of the standard package but the latter has always been the mark of high-end premium flagships. In a nutshell, the LG G9 ThinQ could be presented as a mid-range 5G option instead.

Granted, the number of devices in that category is extremely small at the moment, with the Nokia 8.3 5G and ZTE Axon 11 5G practically the only competitors. LG may be planning to get a lead on other brands by targeting that "affordable 5G phone" segment before others can jump in.

To be fair, the gap between Snapdragon 700 and Snapdragon 800 chips has not been wide in the first place but it does exist, especially with synthetic benchmarks. In practice, few people might not mind slightly lower performance but they might also be easily swayed by marketing hype around numbers. Unfortunately, LG hasn't exactly had the best of luck in that arena.