Amazon’s Prime Exclusive phones lineup, which offers discounted devices in exchange for lock screen ads, used to exclusively consist of budget devices you'd never dream of paying full price for. But in recent months, the lineup has improved, adding respectable midrange offerings like the Moto G5 Plus and Alcatel Idol 5S to the mix. And now Amazon can boast that a flagship phone is part of the Prime Exclusives lineup.
No less than four LG phones are now available as Prime Exclusives: the X Charge, Q6, G6, and G6 Plus. The X Charge and Q6 are solid budget options, now going for $149 and $229, down from $199 and $299, respectively. In the X Charge, you’ll find a long-lasting 4,500 mAh battery, while the Q6 boasts an 18:9 display in a compact, inexpensive package.
But it’s the LG G6 and G6 Plus that are the most notable of the bunch, as no other Prime Exclusive device comes close to what these two phones offer.
The G6 was LG’s range-topping handset for 2017, up until the V30 released earlier this month. It was the first of the year’s flagships to launch with an 18:9 display, and also contains dual 13-megapixel rear cameras, one of which touts a wide-angle lens. Under the hood is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 processor, the same chip in Google’s first-generation Pixel. The G6 Plus is identical to the standard model, but has 128GB of internal storage, rather than 32GB.
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More expensive Prime Exclusive phones tend to carry bigger discounts, and the G6 and G6 Plus are no exceptions. Normally, $638, the G6 can be had for $399 if you opt for ads.
Meanwhile, the G6 Plus sees its price slashed by $300, from $799 to $499. That’s the biggest discount of any Prime Exclusive, though even at that price, it’s still not a slam dunk.
The almost bezel-free Essential Phone was also recently reduced to $499, and the OnePlus 5 (which is admittedly a little hard to find at the moment), starts at just $479. At those prices, neither of those phones will force you to put up with incessant ads. Bargain hunters who are fine with T-Mobile's network should check out the Uncarrier as well, where the G6 is available for $500, without the lock screen ads Amazon includes on its phones.
The G6’s Prime Exclusive availability is encouraging for consumers, who now have yet another way to purchase one of the year’s best phones — though the picture is a little less rosy for LG. On the very same day it announced its lineup for Amazon, the company’s mobile division also divulged losses of more than $330 million between July and September. That deficit is triple what the department experienced in the preceding quarter, and LG is likely looking to get its phones into users hands anyway it can.
