Rather surprisingly, LG's upcoming G Pad 5 tablet will be powered by the three-year-old Snapdragon 821

Of all the major smartphone OEMs, LG has a reputation for throwing some major curveballs with its hardware decisions. The company's latest attempt at baffling its fans could be the upcoming G Pad 5 tablet, as a new report claims it will be powered by the Snapdragon 821.

According to the source report by XDA-Developers, the G Pad 5 has been listed on two certification websites, revealing most of its specifications. It will sport a 10.1-inch 1920x1200 display. That's respectable enough. There's apparently a fingerprint reader on board, a single selfie camera, LTE support, 4 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of storage. NFC is missing, however. On the software end is Android 9 Pie in the guise of LG's UX.

The main kicker here is the choice of the Snapdragon 821. For some perspective, the Snapdragon 821 is the SoC that was used on devices like the OnePlus 3T and first-gen Google Pixel. We're not sure why LG is still using an SoC like that, especially since an inexpensive mid-range chipset like the Snapdragon 660 already offers equal performance while being a tad more efficient. But then again, this is LG, and it'd almost be wrong to expect rational choices from the South Korean company.