LG would make a lousy plumber, because it doesn’t try hard to plug leaks… at least in new product announcements.  So when LG today finally showed us its flagship Android smartphone, the LG G2, we already knew what was coming.

That’s not to say that we’re disappointed — far from it.  LG is now back in the high-end smartphone race, pitting the G2 against current smartphone Android kings the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One.  Although similar in specs to those two, the LG G2 is a tad larger with a 5.2-inch True HD-IPS, 1920 x 1080 screen.  That comes in at 423ppi, just a hair less pixels per inch than the S4, but not enough for the average person to notice a difference.

Inside, the G2 runs on a 2.26GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, which is supposed to run a bit faster than the Snapdragon 600 chipsets that power the Galaxy S4 and HTC One.  The LG G2 also offers Adreno 330 graphics and 2GB of RAM, like its two rivals.

The G2 is powered by a 3,000mAh battery, much bigger than the 2,600 mAH battery in the Galaxy S4, and the 2,300 mAh battery in the HTC One.  Still, the LG G2 is a skinny 0.35 inches (8.9mm), a bit thinner than the 0.37 inch thick HTC One but not as thin as the 0.31 inch S4.  The G2 weighs 143g, or just over five ounces.

The LG G2 has impressive cameras specs, too: a 13-megapixel camera on back like the Galaxy S4, and a 2.1-megapixel on the front, similar to its rivals.  The G2’s flash though, is the standard camera phone LED variety — not the Xenon flash found on the camera-centric Nokia Lumia 1020 and Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom.

The G2 comes with either 16GB or 32GB of non-expandable storage, so if you need more than that, you’d best consider getting the HTC One, Galaxy S4, or even the iPhone 5, which all support up to 64GB of space.

What does set the G2 apart is the power button and volume slider placement on the back of the phone.  LG has played up these features in its advertising, but whether or not they make the phone easier to operate will be subjective to users.

The LG G2 supports 4G networks where available, and LG has switched to nano-SIM here, following a trend set by Apple and recently supported by Asus and Motorola.  The G2 also comes with radios for dual-band Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0 and DLNA. It ships with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, but will likely be upgradable to 4.3 soon.

LG says the G2 will be rolled out by over 130 carriers in the next eight weeks, starting in South Korea and then in North America, Europe and other key markets. Specific dates will vary.

Here’s a roundup of a few of the better posts for hands-on photos and video of the LG G2: