T-Mobile quietly starts selling a 'new' LG tablet with LTE, and you can already get it for free
LG may have decided to turn over a new branding leaf in its attempt to invigorate a convoluted, largely uninspiring, and undeniably unprofitable smartphone portfolio, but the company's tablet roster is still pretty messy from a naming standpoint and decidedly unremarkable as far as designs and features go.
You would even be forgiven for forgetting LG's Android slates are a thing, as the company took a long break between the G Pad IV 8.0 FHD, aka G Pad F2 8.0 or X II 8.0 Plus, and last year's G Pad 5 10.1 FHD. Making matters that much easier to forget, the new 10-incher went up for sale in the US with essentially no fanfare while packing a terribly outdated Snapdragon 821 processor.
That was more than six months ago, mind you, and believe it or not, it's only now that we see the LG G Pad 5 sold by a major US carrier with 4G LTE support on deck. The operator in question is T-Mobile, which appears to have released the tablet unceremoniously sometime in the last few days at a recommended price of $299.99.
We probably would have never noticed this super-low-key commercial debut on the nation's leading "Un-carrier", but T-Mo is actually letting its customers get the Android slate free of charge right off the bat without jumping through too many hoops. All you need to do is add an "eligible" new Mobile Internet plan to your account, agree to a monthly installment plan, and the full retail value of the impossibly named LG G Pad 5 10.1 FHD will be returned in the form of bill credits over the duration of your two-year "contract."
While it's definitely hard to recommend purchasing the "new" tablet in exchange for a full 300 bucks, LG's 10-incher is certainly better than the Alcatel Joy Tab T-Mobile is also offering for free with similar requirements. As the name suggests, the large display sports a more than respectable resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, as well as relatively thin bezels, and the 4GB RAM count and 8,200mAh battery also sound pretty great.
We obviously can't say the same about the aforementioned Snapdragon 821 SoC, which is almost four years old, but at the end of the day, an ancient high-end chipset is most likely faster than a modern low-end processor. Oh, and the LG G Pad 5 even comes with a fingerprint sensor, USB Type-C port, and rapid charging capabilities. Not too shabby after all!
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