endgadget LG confirms it's shutting down its mobile business

[Avacado]

Quote

The reports out of its native Korea were correct, LG is shutting down its mobile business. With losses continuing to mount, and billions of dollars seemingly squandered on quirky handsets, the electronics giant has officially thrown in the towel on its struggling phone division. In a statement, the company said "Moving forward, LG will continue to leverage its mobile expertise and develop mobility-related technologies such as 6G to help further strengthen competitiveness in other business areas."

https://www.engadget.com/lg-mobile-worldwide-shutdown-020959355.html

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by UltraMega
Formatting and source

[BWG]

I used to do LG's G Series, but the last one's I bought for my Wife and I were terrible. The one with the swappable attachments like dacs and cams.

[Supercrumpet]

Shame. Never owned an LG phone but I usually kept an eye on them for some of the features they'd offer after competitors wouldn't, namely swappable batteries and 3.5 mm jacks. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not looking forward to replacing my Galaxy S8 when it kicks the bucket, but it's still in pretty good shape.

[Snakecharmed]

4 hours ago, BWG said:

I used to do LG's G Series, but the last one's I bought for my Wife and I were terrible. The one with the swappable attachments like dacs and cams.

 

I think that was the G5 where they introduced their LG friends gimmick. I vaguely recall one of the contraptions was some kind of BB-8-looking robot and I don't really care enough to Google it any further because that's how uninterested I was and still am with that concept.

 

28 minutes ago, Supercrumpet said:

Shame. Never owned an LG phone but I usually kept an eye on them for some of the features they'd offer after competitors wouldn't, namely swappable batteries and 3.5 mm jacks. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not looking forward to replacing my Galaxy S8 when it kicks the bucket, but it's still in pretty good shape.

 

I bought the G4 on launch, then got another G4 as a warranty replacement for the first one, and the replacement G4 died about a year later. Both failed due to the notorious bootloop issue.

 

I currently own a pair of rooted V20 phones that I'll probably keep around as long as I can because of the second screen, built-in DAC, 3.5 mm jack, removable storage, and removable battery. Even after they reach EOL as phones, they're still fantastic portable music players because of the DAC.

 

LG's problem was a mixture of a few things: Poor quality control, poor product life cycle support barely supporting one major Android OS update after release, and not understanding that they were never going to succeed by playing me-too with Samsung.

 

They tried a bunch of experimental features with their products but didn't keep the ones that worked and got rid of others that would have helped them stand out. The second screen on the V20 is one of my favorite features because I use it to quickly access my home automation apps and my music. Then they got rid of it as well as removable batteries in later  V-series phones.

 

The V20 was the first flagship phone to ship with Android Nougat, but LG took forever to roll out Oreo for it, and even then it was only 8.0 instead of 8.1 and the update broke a few features on the phone that were never fixed.

 

In some ways, LG reminds me of HTC from 10 years ago. They made some innovative products that gained an enthusiast following, then squandered that userbase with a series of bad decisions and an incoherent vision of what they wanted their products to be.

 

I'll probably keep the V20 as my phone until LTE networks begin to be retired or apps stop working on Nougat. By then, I suppose I'll look at anyone who makes a phone that includes everything except a removable battery, since that's about the only thing that seems to be universally off-limits to flagship devices. Recent Motorola and Asus flagships have been one feature away from ticking all my checkboxes. Compared to Europe, the right-to-repair movement is nearly nonexistent in the US, so I can't even consider options like the Shift 6mq or mu.