LG intranet leaks suggest internal firesale of unsold, unreleased smartphones as biz exits the mobile market

Following its decision to exit the smartphone biz, LG has reportedly started a fire sale of its unsold and unreleased assets, unloading them to staffers at a cutdown price. Pics obtained from LG's intranet and leaked on Twitter show the company listing the LG Velvet 2 Pro (also referred to as the LG Rainbow) for the equivalent …

[BinkyTheMagicPaperclip]

I had one of the HP Touchpads

Lovely devices - WebOS was quite a nice OS, but suffered from software support.

When an Android build arrived for it I stuck that on, and it lasted until I dropped the tablet onto a tiled floor.

Hopefully these cheap devices are rootable so LG aren't irresponsibly throwing insecure devices into the market place.

[Nate Amsden]

Re: I had one of the HP Touchpads

I have about 5 or 6. I kept one of my original 16GB Touchpads in the brown box(mailing box, the device box is white) from the firesale never opened. Don't know why just wanted to.

Two of my touchpads get daily use and have for many years as digital picture frames(the others are mainly spares). Paired with the touchstone charging dock they just sit there scrolling through hundreds to thousands of pictures. Have a 3rd with touchstone which I did use as a picture frame too but stopped using it for now as I don't have a good spot to put it where it would actually be noticed often.

Took some time to work around limitations in the software in getting a more random selection of pictures as well as distributing them in directories where the file quantity wasn't too big for the device to deal with. Also cropped the pictures to minimize the cpu required to auto resize when displaying as well as limiting pictures to either portrait or landscape to maximize viewing area. I've been quite impressed with how well they have held up, 0 failures in a decade. I would of expected at least a screen to die or memory to go bad or something. Their clocks aren't accurate as they are never on the network so there is serious drift but I don't use them for clocks.

I remember spending at least a couple hours working through errors on HP's site the day of the fire sale to buy some, bought four 16GB models at the time(used 2 for gifts at the time and sold one at cost to a friend), and had bought a single 32GB model day 1 from best buy whom later refunded me the difference in cost once the firesale started I think.

Still have a HP Pre3 as well though that has mostly sat in a box since I got my Galaxy note 3 (been on S8 Active for a couple of years, no plans to upgrade anytime soon, maximizing battery life as best as I can with chargie.org dongles that limit charging time).

WebOS was pretty neat, though it was clear it was pretty doomed when HP appeared unwilling to invest in it, instead they tossed what $10 billion at Autonomy instead? It was going to take several billion to even consider trying to compete seriously with Android/IOS.

[simonlb]

Re: I had one of the HP Touchpads

Had to chuck out my Touchpad a couple of years ago as I did a factory reset which does a 'phone-home' to the HP servers which HP had just happened to turn off a couple of years previously. Because it couldn't connect it completely bricked it.

[karlkarl]

Re: I had one of the HP Touchpads

Ugh, I hate this kind of stuff.

Many of the Google Nexus devices do this. The best solution is to simply not engage with it and sell it as soon as you can.

Possibly a bit late for you now. But now you know to check this kind of stuff in future ;)

[Dave 126]

> High-end handsets were particularly affected because what's the point in buying a phone with a fancy camera when you're stuck at home?

That really depends upon how attractive your dog is, or your skills at flower arrangement.

[JDPower666]

Or your vanity and desire to make the world a better place with 500 selfies a week.

[Dan 55]

Or maybe you want to show off your new-found cooking abilities on Insta?

[Nifty]

Yes, nowadays you need a good camera in your phone for indoor photography.

[circusmole]

WebOS on LG Tvs, tell me about it!

"Perhaps more ironically, given the circumstances, HP ended up selling WebOS to LG, which adapted the tech for its smart TVs."

I, unfortunately, paid for one of these "WebOS" TVs. It sat around in its box for almost a year while my "TV room" was being built. When I eventually switched it on the picture and sound were not too bad, but the WebOS UI was simply appalling. I kid you not, it takes at least a minute to change channels most of the time, and sometimes considerably longer. Just scrolling thorough the channels it can take 10-15 seconds to display the next page. Pathetic. I tried to return it but by then I had the thing for over a year. Of course, LG were totally disinterested with my complaints.

I have managed to get the thing working much better by connecting a Raspberry Pi based Kodi media centre and effective not using the WebOS "smart" features at all.

[sev.monster]

Re: WebOS on LG Tvs, tell me about it!

It's shockingly difficult to find non-smart TVs (affectionately "dumb TVs") that have decent picture quality and features. No, I don't want the latest in HBO Disnetfluhu Plus Max Prime built-in, I don't want image smoothing or post-processing, I don't want a camera and microphone, I don't want to pay inflated rates for buggy software that will inevitably reach EOL in a few months with a terrible unintuitive Wiimote-like remote that makes using the trite somehow more painful—I just want a good OLED screen with the latest HDMI or DP, in a frame more durable and thicker than my fingernail, so that I can immediately plug something else into it to make it "smart" that actually works reliably and not worry about the panel shattering the second I look at it wrong, respectively.

I unironically have investigated industrial-grade, no frills, ultra-durable televisions, but unfortunately they usually skimp on the "television" part and have terrible cheap panels, while costing 3 to 4 times more. Despite that, I still can't help but think they are superior.

[Gene Cash]

Re: WebOS on LG Tvs, tell me about it!

Consider "HBO Disnetfluhu Plus Max Prime" gleefully stolen.

So I haven't had a TV in 5 years... what's the difference now between a top-end monitor and a TV hooked to a smartbox?

[sev.monster]

Re: WebOS on LG Tvs, tell me about it!

Unless you want cable or satellite, the modern smart TV is a standalone device, with online streaming and audio outputs built in.

The larger top-end monitors tend to be more pricey, often prohibitively so, compared to even middle of the road shart (Freudian slip) TVs. Otherwise not much, just has different features tacked on. For example, most computer monitors either don't feature audio outputs or they're a mere afterthought—not that I'd be using it anyway.

[Down not across]

Re: WebOS on LG Tvs, tell me about it!

I just want a good OLED screen with the latest HDMI or DP, in a frame more durable and thicker than my fingernail, so that I can immediately plug something else into it to make it "smart" that actually works reliably and not worry about the panel shattering the second I look at it wrong, respectively.

I'd rather he money was used for more HDMI/DP ports than pointless "smart" crap. I'd be happy with large, low-lag screen with 8+ HDMI ports and no "smart" gubbins. Yes 8 is bit of an overkill, but 4 (especially with one possibly used for ARC) is not really enough (think 2-3 consoles, Pi/NUC for "smart", possibly another PC or two, DVD, LaserDisc.... etc). Preferably with discrete selelction of ports via IR or wired remote control.

Sadly the "industrial" options whilst not having the unnecessary smarts, often also don't have large numbers of ports and as you said often have rather mediocre panels in them.

[sev.monster]

Re: WebOS on LG Tvs, tell me about it!

And if they do have a lot of ports, they tend to come in vast excess, with that excess touted on the box as a feature...

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Everything from LG

Almost perfect, but with broken software that LG can't be bothered to fix. Hopefully their new focus on IoT and home automation doesn't burn down any cities.