Samsung is a battle-tested developer, and while the focus has apparently been with Apple and its iPhones, iPads and lawsuits, it was only a matter of time before someone else bubbled up to the forefront with products that might make inroads against Samsung’s offerings.

Of course there are a host of Android-driven devices that already compete with Samsung and you can now add LG Electronics and its Optimus G Pro smartphone to that growing list. The difference here is that the company is directly challenging Samsung and its popular Galaxy Note 2.

Introduced today and available now in South Korea and expected in the U.S. market in the second quarter the new device will have a 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080, better than the resolution available from the Note’s 1280 x 720.

It will be interesting to see how much additional competition the Samsung Note 2 draws. When the company released it initially I believed that it was a novelty item and would not last, shows what I know. Now that the form factor has been increasingly widely accepted I expect addition companies to enter the space to try and wrest some market share away from Samsung.