A couple of weeks ago we spotted LG's new G Pad II 8.0, at that point announced exclusively for the company's home market of South Korea. The hardware is underwhelming at best: despite some interesting features like a full-sized USB port and a stylus, many were put off by the pokey Snapdragon 210 processor and 1.5GB of RAM. Fortunately, it looks like LG isn't going to go for the lowest common denominator with all its forthcoming tablets. The G Pad II 10.1, announced today, has a little more oomph to its hardware.

To begin with, it uses a 1920x1200 screen, which has become essentially the lowest point of entry for 10-inch tablets at this point (no matter what Samsung says). The rest of the specs are respectable: the Snapdragon 800 is a bit old, but still offers plenty of power, 2GB of RAM is plenty for Android 5.1.1, and 16GB of storage (plus a microSD card) is, if not great, then at least no less than you might expect. It's wrapped up in a fairly inoffensive shell (available in "Brilliant Bronze" and some kind of purple) that holds a 7400mAh battery. The cameras are 5MP and 2MP on the rear and front, respectively. The extras from the 8.0 version don't seem to have been retained.

As usual, LG is hoping to woo potential customers with some whiz-bang software extras, like a "reader mode" that decreases the blue light of the screen and a multi-window mode. The G Pad II 10.1 will also come with Microsoft Office pre-loaded and 100GB of free storage on Microsoft's OneDrive system. Both the Wi-Fi and LTE models are without a price at the moment, but LG's press release says they'll both be available in North America, Europe, and Asia. The company will show the tablet off at the IFA trade show in Berlin next month, where we'll hopefully get more information on prices and dates.