back to article Leaked memo suggests LG is thinking about quitting the smartphone biz in 2021

LG Electronics is reportedly considering leaving the smartphone business this year, according to a leaked internal memo issued by CEO Kwon Bong-seok. Writing to staffers, Kwon said the future of LG's mobile business remained uncertain, but promised any decision would not result in any redundancies. "Regardless of any change in …

  1. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge
    Meh

    It would be nice if LG handed over their OS to open source efforts on the way out.

    LG's products are often "meh" so they don't get much attention. Good, but not amazing hardware. Software is crude but passable. Last time I checked their online support forums, an old pornographic photo was the most lively post with two replies. I've made a few purchases from LG because "meh" is better than premium amazeballs f'yall garbage from Samsung.

    1. Just Enough

      Best phone I've had in the last 20 years

      My current phone is an LG. It's the second LG I've owned and the best phone I've had in the last 20 years. Solid, dependable, does everything I need. It's well past time I'd usually upgrade, but right now I can't think of any reason to. And the thought of switching to the bloatware circus that is Samsung doesn't appeal at all.

  2. Grunchy Silver badge

    Oh I buy everything from Lucky Goldstar, I have no idea why everyone else doesn’t do likewise?

    :droll:

  3. Piro Silver badge

    I'd buy one if they made a smaller phone chock with old school goodness.

    3.5mm jack, IR blaster, dual SIM AND micro SD, large battery, unlockable bootloader, and entirely flat screen (I want a screen protector to stick evenly, dammit!). Qi charging would also be nice, and a build that isn't stupid like all glass.

    Readily replacable battery wouldn't go amiss either. In a, at most, 140x70mm body, preferably 135x65 or so.

    The Redmi 4X I have has a 15 Wh battery in 139x70x8.7mm with close to all those features, so I don't want to hear that small phones can't have large batteries.

    My old RAZR MAXX HD had a sizeable battery in an even smaller frame. I'd consider the design and build of that to be almost completely spot on. It had a great feel but without having a slippery glass back.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Well, smaller 0hibrs tend to have smaller batteries, since a smaller screen uses less juice.

      You might look at the Samsung XCover Pro - flat screen, ruggedised, 3.5mm port, FM radio, swappable battery, just 6mm wider than your desired width. Enhanced 'glove mode' for wet conditions, user mappable extra button. No IR though. And the aspect ratio is taller than the specs you gave (more text on screen for the same width).

      https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_xcover_pro-10001.php

  4. Dave K

    Very much hoping this doesn't come to pass. I'm *still* using an old LG G4. It did have the bootloop issue several years ago, but was fixed under my phone insurance (a freebie that comes with my bank account). Other than that, it has been absolutely solid.

    What I particularly love with it is that it hasn't succumbed to "performance rot" like most Android phones I've used. My wife and I have had several Samsung phones and without fail, they all start to stutter and run like crap after a couple of years. My G4 is 5 years old and still feels virtually as slick and responsive as when I bought it. Add in a good camera that supports RAW mode, a decent DAC, plus the headphone jack and SD card slot and it has been without doubt the best phone I've ever owned.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      IIRC, the G2 was the first Android device able to output 24bit 192Khz audio natively. I believe LG gave the necessary software bits to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP).

    2. Steve McIntyre

      Still loving my G5, too

      It's been reliable as anything for ~4 years, replaced the (trivially replaceable!) battery a couple of times. Nice features, good price.

      1. rnturn

        Re: Still loving my G5, too

        Same here. I've had replaced the battery holder (w/ the USB-C charging socket) and the battery itself (once) since I got it but, otherwise, it's been trouble free. I do wish that an Android update would be available. For some reason (muscle memory?) I never have any problems with the LG's buttons. I wind up doing something weird to the Samsung my wife's got just by picking the darned thing up and accidentally pushing a button. And her phone is so short of memory that some normal functions don't even work. Notification sounds when receiving text messages? Hit or miss. And she hasn't even installed a bunch of third-party applications. (IMHO, it's a POS.) An iPhone will never be under consideration as a replacement for my LG and the missus's experience isn't a great selling point for Samsung.

  5. Dave 126 Silver badge

    The LG G2 was a very good all-rounder, and pioneered features that are now common - such as a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor.

    However, some of their subsequent flagships were just weird for the sake of being weird.

  6. El blissett

    My LG v30 (2017 flagship) is the most durable flagship handset I have ever owned. Barely a scratch on it despite dropping it maybe twice a week, and the battery life is still as good as new. The software and security updates delivered have been a running joke with LG and never really went anywhere despite their promise to improve.

    While I'd love to have upgraded to something like the V60 or the G8S, they were simply too expensive and didn't offer enough of a reason to switch off of the V30. And LG's V-series niche in hi-res audio, while still top of the pack in terms of quality and engineering has reasonably similar technical equivalence in Xiaomis and other manufacturers selling better handsets that won't last as long but are half the price and run modern chipsets/Android.

    LG as a manufacturer need to innovate to show off what they can do in terms of screens for other manufacturers, hence experiments like the V50 dual screen and the Wing flip screen, but it's not a commercial consumer oriented strategy for survival in a challenging market.

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