White Nexus 4 officially unveiled, LG says it isn’t making the Nexus 5
The white Nexus 4 has been spotted at nearly every corner of the globe even since before the device was initially available. We’ve seen it in tons of pictures and promo shots, and it even popped up at a couple of trade shows, but it evaded the release calendar for quite some time without a peep from Google or LG about its existence. Well, we can finally stop chasing this crazy rumor as it has become official: the White Nexus 4 is on its way.
LG mentions the device will roll out first in Hong Kong tomorrow, May 29th, with launches in Europe, North America and the rest of Asia taking place over the next several weeks. LG didn’t drop any pricing information, though considering the only difference between this version and the one currently in the Play Store is the half white chassis we imagine that same attractive starting point of $350 will remain.
Of course, that means the rest of this device is also identical. It’s still got a 4.7 inch 1280×768 IPS Plus display, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset, 2GB of RAM, and more. And no, folks, it won’t be launching with Android 4.3, but do expect to see Android 4.2.2 on board once you take the device out of the box and turn it on for the first time.
With that, LG’s CEO also had no problem denying its involvement in the construction of the rumored Nexus 5. Normally we’d call bologna and disregard any denials (because no one really expects these folks to spill the beans ahead of time), but considering LG didn’t play the typical “we don’t comment on rumors and speculation card” when asked about it we might be inclined to believe them.
CEO Kim Wong says it didn’t need the Nexus platform to gain more traction than the Nexus 4 already gave them, and insisted that the company’s custom user experience featured on the likes of the LG Optimus G Pro would continue to be its focus throughout the rest of the year (and possibly beyond).
Wong even went as far as to say that releasing a Google-controlled stock Android version of its flagship ala Samsung’s Galaxy S4 isn’t desirable for the company, so it seems we can rule out any “Google Edition” Optimus G Pros from the Korean OEM (though we never believed such a thing would happen in the first place).