CES is barely done and dusted, but the tech calendar waits for no-one, and LG is already getting ready for Mobile World Congress.

Invites have started landing in inboxes, with a ‘Play Begins’ tagline teasingly telling us to save the date for the 21st of February.

The G4 was a late arrival when it launched in April last year – two months after Samsung and HTC revealed the Galaxy S6 and One M9 at MWC. LG probably doesn’t want the same to happen this year, so the G5 looks like the most likely candidate. Even so, with no G Flex showing up at CES like it did in 2015, we could still be in for a surprise announcement.

That mysterious green jack-in-the-box on the invite certainly isn’t giving anything away ahead of time.

The smart money is on the G5, though, and if the rumours are true it’s going to be a beast of a phone. Expect a 5.3in QHD screen, Snapdragon 820 processor, 20MP camera and maybe even an iris scanner – take that, every phone with a fingerprint reader.

The biggest change could be on the outside, with LG finally ditching the plastic design for an all-metal build to compete with Samsung and Apple. That could mean saying goodbye to the stitched leather back seen on the G4, but it’s a price we reckon most people would happily pay for proper metal.

Whatever LG has in store for MWC, we’re going to be in Barcelona in February to find out.