Two Years After Mobile Business Shutdown, I Haven’t Missed LG

It’s been over two years since LG made the decision to shut down its mobile business. Over the course of that time, I haven’t thought to myself once, “Gee, I sure wish LG was releasing a phone this year.”

I don’t mean for that to come off as mean, but let’s face it, LG Mobile wasn’t releasing anything overly exciting in the years leading up to its closure. That’s likely part of the reason for the business not making it in the first place. In the low end to midrange space, they were making adequate devices, suitable for those looking to spend no more than $200. When it came to competing in the more high-end space, phones like Velvet, Wing, and the V series weren’t going to cut it. For us here, those are the devices we cover, so from our admittedly limited perspective on the phone space as a whole, it wasn’t looking good for LG for quite some time.

LG loved hyping up features that, to us, seemed niche. The big example of this is the Quad DAC. You have to appreciate what LG was trying to do here for the audio purists in the crowd, but clearly, audiophiles alone weren’t able to buy enough phones to keep LG Mobile going.

We’d also be missing a big part of the story if we didn’t mention software updates, which was a main reason it was hard to recommend LG phones over devices from Google and Samsung. In the updates game, LG was bad. It was so bad that when the company announced a new “center” dedicated to software updates, the Android world collectively laughed. Looking back on what LG gave to the Android world, the highlights include the G series, the Stuff N’ Things series, and the original G Watch. What a sweet watch.

Anyone have any fun LG memories they want to share? Now’s the time.