At the beginning of 2013, LG’s flagship smartphone was a 5.5 inch 1080p Snapdragon 600 powered handset called the Optimus G Pro. Today, the company has sort of, kind of, but not really, announced a successor to that device called the Gx. It looks a lot like the LG G2, but under the hood it’s still the same Optimus G Pro. The Gx supports a few new LTE bands, and there several new software features, but other than that … there’s not a lot here to get excited about.

Focusing on the software, the Gx comes with a new lock screen called “Smart Day”. It’ll show you upcoming appointments, the weather, the date and time, and “other key information” at a glance. There’s also “Media Time”, which pops up whenever you plug in your headphones. It’ll show you movies and music you might want to watch or listen. Lastly, there’s a feature called “Telephone Reminder”. If you have a supported LG TV, whenever you get a call or a text on your Gx, it’ll show up on your television, assuming both your TV and the Gx are connected to the same WiFi network.

Why launch a variant of a device that was forgotten when CES and MWC are just a few weeks away and people are going to be looking forward to seeing what flagship phones 2014 has to offer? That’s a question I’m struggling to answer. It’s quite possible that LG simply had some excess 5.5 inch 1080p panels and Snapdragon 600 chips laying around that they had to repurposes, so why not re-launch an “old” phone and market it as new?

Works for Apple, right?