A report earlier this week held that the “mini” versions of high-end smartphones that Android smartphone manufacturers have been pushing for the past year may not have been selling as well as had been hoped. The devices don’t seem to be inexpensive enough to compete with mid-range smartphones that offer many of the same features.

That won’t stop manufacturers from leveraging their capabilities to build such devices, but the nature of the game may change in the coming year. LG demonstrated this perfectly today by unveiling the LG G Pro Lite. Rather than being a smaller version of the G Pro, the G Pro Lite has pared-down hardware that puts it firmly in the mid-tier smartphone category while still maintaining the look of the G Pro.

The device itself looks almost identical to the Optimus G Pro, with a similar 5.5-inch display. The hardware inside, however, has been pared down quite a bit. The G Pro Lite’s screen has been severely downgraded to a resolution of only 960 x 540, and the Snapdragon processor in the original has been replaced with a 1GHz dual core. RAM has been cut to only 1GB and storage is limited to 8GB, with the option to upgrade with MicroSD cards. Cameras have also been scaled back, with the rear camera at 8MP and the front-facing one at 1.3MP. The device does not have LTE capabilities.

“With LG G Pro Lite, we are introducing a competitive device to the masses in the growing large smartphone market,” said Jong-seok Park, CEO of LG Electronics Mobile. “The market for smartphones with displays over five inches will continue to grow and LG is in a great position to capture these new customers when they’re ready to move up from their current phones.”

(Image courtesy LG)