LG has today confirmed that its flagship smartphone for 2013, the G2, will go on sale in Australia from Monday, 4 November, exclusively through Optus.
The smartphone will be sold from next week through Optus retail stores and online. It will also be sold outright through a number of Australian retail stores including Allphones, Dick Smith, Harvey Norman and JB Hi Fi.
Optus will sell the LG G2 on a number of plans, including the hero offer of a $2 handset repayment on its $60 plan over 24 months, a total of $62 per month.
The plan includes 600 minutes voice calls, unlimited SMS and MMS messages and 1GB data
LG Australia's Head of Mobile Communications, Jonathan Banks, claims the LG G2 is one of the "most highly-anticipated" smartphones of the year.
"This is one of the most highly-anticipated smartphones of the year, and we are proud to announce its arrival with Optus and our key retail partners in Australia.""The partnership with Optus involved R&D collaboration to enable the G2 to support the new Optus 4G Plus network. This combined with innovative hardware design makes G2 a very compelling proposition for Australian consumers."
The LG G2 is among the first smartphones to work on Optus' TDD-LTE (time-division duplex) and FDD-LTE (frequency-division duplex) 4G networks, marketed as its dual band, "4G Plus" network.
Optus' TDD-LTE on the 2300MHz network band is currently available in selected parts of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide.
The telco says the TDD-LTE network will be rolled out across selected Australian metropolitan centres over the next 12 months, and promises it will reach 70 per cent of the metro population by mid-2014.
The 2300MHz TDD network uses the entire available frequency for both downloads and uploads, whereas the existing 1800MHz FDD network has dedicated slots for uploads and downloads.
As it supports both FDD and TDD 4G networks, the LG G2 will simply switch to whichever Optus 4G network is available.
While dual-mode 4G smartphones are relatively new, LG was been beaten to the milestone by both Samsung and Apple.
Optus launched dual-mode 4G versions of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini back in August, while Apple's new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c devices both support dual-mode 4G and went on sale in Australia last month.
LG will sell two outright models of the G2 in Australia. A 16GB model will retail for $649, while a 32GB model will sell for $699.
LG says the first 10,000 customers who purchase the G2 in Australia will receive a bonus Quick Window flip cover.
