LG G5 SE is real, breaks cover on official Russian site with less RAM, Snapdragon 652 chip

After weeks of rumors, the LG G5 SE is real and — as the recent case leak suggested — it’s virtually identical to the regular LG G5. LG’s official Russian site has published a product information page revealing everything about the LG G5’s slightly underpowered sibling, and there don’t seem to be too many corners cut.

Like the LG G5, the ‘SE’ model features a Quad HD 5.3-inch IPS in-cell touch display with a pixel density of 554ppi. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with the company’s own UI on top, and has the same 16MP/8MP wide angle dual camera system on the back. It has a front-facing 8MP camera, a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor/home button and a USB Type C port on the bottom edge alongside the 3.5mm jack and loudspeaker.

More importantly, it boasts the same modular design so that users can swap out various modules, like the CAM Plus physical camera controls or DAC Hi-Fi unit.

To cut costs, LG has opted to fit the G5 SE with some mid-range internal specifications. Specifically, there’s an octa-core 1.8GHz Snapdragon 652 processor instead of the SD820 and ‘only’ 3GB RAM. It has 32GB internal storage which can be expanded up to an extra 2TB via MicroSD.

While both phones are virtually the same height and width (149.4 x 73.9 mm) and come in the same metallic colors, the SE does measure slightly thinner at 7.3mm (versus the G5’s 7.7mm body). Given the very slim difference in thickness, the SE should fit in to any cases designed for the G5. From the wording on the product page, it looks as though the SE also features the same thin metal construction.

There’s no word yet on whether the SE model will be launched in the US, or other western markets where the G5 is on sale.