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LG to Shut Down Smartphone Business
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LG phones never got my attention. LG HDTVs and monitors, on the other hand, are some of the best and most reliable. Our family always had great experiences with LG TVs, the Samsung ones (which are pushed by the sales people at Best Buy etc) gave us problems or died prematurely.
Probably Huawei and Xiaomi would survive. I think Samsung would still be the largest though.
LG makes excellent TVs and monitors but mediocre phones. None of them had any ground-breaking features that turned me away from Samsung or Apple.
I've still got an LG TV working in my dining room. It's over 10 years old and still going strong.
LG G2 was a beast ! Also nobody remembers that LG smartphones used to be made in KOREA and not China for years... Pretty sure costs were high due to this...
Their appliances are still considered the best in the industry. Their OLEDs lead the pack, and their customer service is good. I just wish they’d change their hideous logo.
I liked the V20. It was a very solid phone with a good DAC. The second screen on top was neat too. Battery life wasn't the best, but it was replaceable. I wish I kept it. Would have made a good music player.
It’s sad to see LG go. They’ve made some great phones that I know many Android users preferred to the big boys like Samsung. I’m also disappointed that the division is being shut down instead of being sold to another company, but that’s not LG’s fault—no company was willing to buy it.
That's a lot of cash to lose before finally getting smart to call it quits.
Agreed. My first decent (i.e. not top of the line) smart phone was an LG 41C. It was good phone and I definitely got my money's worth out of it.
But now I have an iPhone XR, and my next phone, when it is time to upgrade, will be an iPhone 12 Mini (or a similar model).
Yes, not too different from the race to the bottom by the commodity PC makers a while back.
Not surprised. I think I read on here they were getting out of the game some time last year.
I feel / felt the same way about Microsoft phones (well, the later variations). I had a Lumia 640 XL and an Alcatel Idol 4S and really liked both the phones and the version of Microsoft's phone OS at the time. But when it came time to consider replacing the Alcatel it was clear that Microsoft had put there phone efforts on the back burner, so I got another Android phone (Motorola Moto g6).
[EDIT: corrected typo (wrote "alter" instead of "later" in first sentence)]
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Well, who the hell wants google on their phones?
LG made a good phone that was affordable and sturdy.
a problem for LG is ATT giving away better Samsungs for free upgrades instead of LG now.
(i still dont have a smartphone and really dont need or want one)
LG made a good phone that was affordable and sturdy.
a problem for LG is ATT giving away better Samsungs for free upgrades instead of LG now.
(i still dont have a smartphone and really dont need or want one)
Yup you’re 100% correct. I bought my first LG product back in September. A nice UHDTV and absolutely love it! Then I bought 1 of their cordless vacuums haha.
They should definitely change the logo.
Some of them still are. I recently got a new LG V60 and I was surprised to see Made in Korea on it. Great phone by the way.
Yeah but that doesn’t seem feasible right now. What sustains them today is economies of scale. We are lucky Apple’s Mac is still in the game with the iPhone and other new products saving Apple from extinction.
And now with Apple silicon, and a more unified software, Apple’ has further enhanced the economies of scale and future of the Mac.
There's just consolidation everywhere.
20 years ago you had American Airlines, Alaska, United, Continental, TWA, Northwest, Delta, US Airways, America West, Southwest and so on.
Now there's basically only American, Alaska, United, Delta and Southwest left.
Same with cell phones/smartphones/ smartphone OS's. So many brands have come and gone.
Symbian, WebOS, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone... it's all gone.
20 years ago you had American Airlines, Alaska, United, Continental, TWA, Northwest, Delta, US Airways, America West, Southwest and so on.
Now there's basically only American, Alaska, United, Delta and Southwest left.
Same with cell phones/smartphones/ smartphone OS's. So many brands have come and gone.
Symbian, WebOS, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone... it's all gone.
In amongst all this, its often overlooked that only Apple and Samsung were the only major vendors making profits on smartphone sales for many years. Could see it going down to just a few Android vendors and China's vendors.
They had some very bad problems over multiple years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_smartphone_bootloop_issues#:~:text=Several smartphone models introduced by,that had been nicknamed a
They had some very bad problems over multiple years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_smartphone_bootloop_issues#:~:text=Several smartphone models introduced by,that had been nicknamed a
Part of the problem is the lack of any sizable premium market in the Android ecosystem to drive flagship phones and the profit margins that come with them (that can be rolled back into R&D). The market for top of the line Qualcomm Snapdragon chips is definitely faltering, and Samsung is struggling, too. I think OneMate and Xiaomi will find that there’s no oxygen at the top of Mount Android to support their flagship ambitions, and they’ll lose their lunches to other low end Chinese brand Android phones.
The Android hobbyist market doesn’t seem to buy premium phones (which makes sense, you don’t want to spend $1000 on a phone you may inadvertently brick with some software modification, also the primary spec the premium Android market sells itself on is camera specs, which hobbyists don’t really care about). Android makers can’t really compete with Apple in the luxury space (or even in the utility luxury space), in part because they don’t have things like the Apple Watch to establish a halo effect around their product.
Android itself is something of an albatross around the necks of every company that uses it, outside of the no-name Chinese firms. The only way to stand out is through UI skins, value-add apps/services, but that stuff prevents the timely release of software updates and is rejected by Android hobbyists and power users as bloat. And it has done a pitiful job of diversifying beyond phones (and the odd hobbyist handheld device), while Apple has moved iOS onto watches, TVs, tablets, and has even let it influence their direction in laptops and desktops (all markets Android really experienced failure to launch in). And the internal competition within Google between the Android and Chrome OS divisions hasn’t helped Android with its diversification problems.
The Android hobbyist market doesn’t seem to buy premium phones (which makes sense, you don’t want to spend $1000 on a phone you may inadvertently brick with some software modification, also the primary spec the premium Android market sells itself on is camera specs, which hobbyists don’t really care about). Android makers can’t really compete with Apple in the luxury space (or even in the utility luxury space), in part because they don’t have things like the Apple Watch to establish a halo effect around their product.
Android itself is something of an albatross around the necks of every company that uses it, outside of the no-name Chinese firms. The only way to stand out is through UI skins, value-add apps/services, but that stuff prevents the timely release of software updates and is rejected by Android hobbyists and power users as bloat. And it has done a pitiful job of diversifying beyond phones (and the odd hobbyist handheld device), while Apple has moved iOS onto watches, TVs, tablets, and has even let it influence their direction in laptops and desktops (all markets Android really experienced failure to launch in). And the internal competition within Google between the Android and Chrome OS divisions hasn’t helped Android with its diversification problems.
Yes, their OLED TVs are magnificent, i have had mine for 4 years and a definite worthy successor to my Sony Trinitron. The logo isn’t that bad, i have seen worse. Besides it’s not bad for a company that started life as Lucky Goldstar.
