LG G7 will have a dedicated Google Assistant button, report claims

LG's next flagship smartphone, the G7 ThinQ, will have a button that will activate Google Assistant, CNet claims citing source familiar with the smartphone.

That would make the G7 the first ever phone to have such a button -- not even Google's Pixel phones have it.

We've seen something similar on Samsung's flagships of late, which have a dedicated Bixby button. The approach hasn't seen much love from users, so it'll be interesting to see how LG's customers will respond to having a dedicated assistant button on their phones -- especially since users won't be able to reprogram the button to do something else.

The move is in line with LG's heavy focus in AI tech in its phones. The company' last flagship -- the LG V30s ThinQ, also has the "ThinQ" moniker, which indicates AI features. It has several AI-powered features, including smart scene selection in its camera as well as some LG-specific Assistant commands. This, Cnet's report claims, will also be true of the upcoming G7.

Other Android phone makers such as Huawei and Vivo have lately been adding AI-powered features to their flagships as well.

The LG G7 ThinQ is scheduled to be unveiled in New York on May 2. The phone is rumored to have an iPhone X-style notch (like most current Android flagships) and a heavy focus on AI-related features (that's what the "ThinQ" part of the name stands for). Specs-wise, the phone is rumored to come with a 6.1-inch screen, a Snapdragon 845 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a dual 16-megapixel camera, stereo speakers and water/dust resistance.