LG keeps leaking G8 features; the latest is a vibrating display speaker

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  The LG G8. It looks just like the G7 and G6. [credit: Evan Blass ]

LG is still making smartphones. The latest is the LG G8, which is expected to debut at Mobile World Congress at the end of the month. It has leaked a lot.

First up is this press image from Evan Blass, which leaves little of the G8 to the imagination. LG's last big smartphone design was the LG G6, which was a return to a normal smartphone after the disastrously modular LG G5. You can draw a straight line from the LG G6 through the G7 to the G8, which looks pretty much identical to the phone LG released two years ago. In a year when many OEMs are switching to a minimal "hole punch" camera cutout, the LG G8 still has a notched camera cutout on the front like the LG G7. In a year when many OEMs are switching to an in-screen fingerprint reader, LG still has a capacitive fingerprint reader on the back. Possibly on the plus-side, at least there's still a headphone jack.

There are a few surprises in the LG G8 design, though. If you notice in the render there's no earpiece on the top of the phone; that's because the phone won't have an earpiece. LG has announced the phone will use the display itself as a speaker diaphragm, a feature LG is calling "Crystal Sound OLED." LG says the feature works by "vibrating the entire surface to produce sound," promising "impressive volume" and "improved clarity" over a normal speaker. LG has put a lot of focus in the loudness and quality of its speakers, and the all-speaker display sounds like another step in this strategy. LG doesn't mention anything about phone calls, though, and I wonder if there is a localized mode that could replicate the privacy of an earpiece for phone calls. The press release makes it sound like you'll only get a speakerphone for phone calls.

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