Assuming Samsung had not sprung for the metal and glass Galaxy S6 design language, it’s likely that critics of LG’s G4 would have found much less to complain about. In the end, what the company did produce was a refinement of its G3 from last year, and – in part – attention was paid to the fact that this year’s offering still supplied a user replaceable battery and included microSD support. Two things Samsung removed. Still, the build quality was often cited as being a cause for the consideration that the G4 was “not premium”. Things may be in for a major change next year, at least based on a new rumor.

A report on Naver posted earlier today suggests that LG will in fact, be using a metal unibody for 2016’s G5. While this isn’t much to go on, it would logically make sense given that the company has already sought to include metal in its recently released V10 handset. While it would remain to be seen as to what kind of metal the G5 would have – the V10 is amazingly resilient to drops – at the very least it would serve to offer a more direct rivalry with whatever premium product Samsung plans to launch next year, be it early or business as usual.

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LG has been suffering from sluggish sales, both with its G4 and – at least according to reports in Korea – the new V10. This kind of drastic design difference could be just what the doctor ordered.

We would like to take this opportunity to remind our readers that until LG itself makes any information public, this kind of news is therefore unconfirmed and speculative.