Now that our hands have evolved to cope with buttons awkwardly placed on the sides of smartphones, LG have gone and thrown a spanner in the works by designing their new G2 smartphone with buttons on the back. Seriously, what is LG playing at?

Wednesday, August 7 2013. Lincoln Center, NYC. LG unveiled the G2 – it’s latest flagship smartphone and it’s equipped with a whole-host of goodness. A 5.2 inch HD screen (1,920 x 1,080), a 13-megapixel rear camera, Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, a quad-core 2.26GHz processor and 2GB of RAM. Phew – breath.

And just in case you thought that wasn’t enough – LG’s G2 is the first smartphone to roll out using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 processor.

Now, if you’re not familiar with the Snapdragon 800 processor then it’s a beast. According to one reviewer it “incinerates the competition”, which is believable since it sports a 2.3GHz and a quad-core Adreno 330 graphics processor.

Buttons on the Back

“Technology without empathy can no longer be considered innovation”. Well, that’s a statement for you. This is what Dr. Jong-seok Park, LG’s president and CEO, said as he introduced the G2 on Wednesday. Then again, I suppose that’s what I’d say if I decided to revolutionize the way my company designed smartphones – namely by placing all the buttons (such as volume and quick-action buttons for the camera) on the back of the phone.

I am yet to hold the G2, but after so many years of getting used to buttons on the side of devices, it just wouldn’t feel right. And I’m sure you might agree.

Personally I have enormous hands so I struggle at the best of times using side buttons on most mobile devices. However, out of curiosity, just to try and see what it might feel like I held my phone and pretended there were buttons on the back. And boy, it feels weird.

Perhaps this is because my giant hands were mimicking functionality that should be used on a 5.2 inch device, not my lame 4.2 inch by 2.2 inch phone. That’s right I said phone as in the non-smartphone variety. But regardless of my pretense, I think because our brains and hands are hard-wired to now accept devices designed in a certain way that any form of change to the norm would just be wrong.

Answer Me

Now for all my clear grievance with the whole “buttons on the back” thing, LG has definitely spent some time tweaking and improving the user experience and created their “Answer Me” functionality.

To make the answering of a phone call more convenient for the user, when you raise the phone to your ear it answers the call without pushing a button.

One reviewer describes “Answer Me” as “especially useful if you’re wearing gloves”. Now, she must be thinking what I’m thinking. For us here in Saskatoon that type of functionality would be awesome during, say October to April. Agreed?

The G2 will be available in white and black – pretty much like iPhones then.

What’s your opinion on LG’s G2 device?