LG has had few smartphone successes, but it will still be missed

If you are reading this on a phone, it is likely that LG did not survive. The Korean tech giant has been losing money and market share with its smartphone division for years, so it came as no surprise when it finally announced plans to turn off the plug today. You could be forgiven for shrugging your shoulders.

But LG deserves to be remembered as more than just a competitor. Their phones were rarely big hits, let alone the kind of polished product we would recommend to most competitors. Despite this, LG has introduced several features and innovations without which the phone world would get worse. The company was the first to place ultra-wide cameras on its phones, for example, and pioneered the type of full-screen, buttonless smartphone designs that dominate the market today.

And, particularly in the United States, where Android competition is extremely low, LG’s loss will only further strengthen the Apple-Samsung duopoly in the high end segment. LG is the third largest supplier of phones in the United States, with about 10% of the market share, although a large part of that is medium-sized prepaid handsets sold in operator stores. LG may not be at the top of your smartphone shopping list, but if you live in the United States, that list just got a lot more boring.

Sam Byford / The Verge photo

LG claimed to be an opinion maker in the pre-smartphone world. Its Chocolate and enV phones were stylish devices that helped LG expand its brand awareness worldwide. But after the iPhone and Android changed everything, LG struggled to adapt. I have a duty to mention the original LG Prada, which had a capacitive touch screen and was technically announced shortly before the iPhone, but its true legacy is mainly people pointing this out in online comments.

LG’s first Android phones were not impressive. The 2011 Nitro HD, for example, was its first flagship device in a long time, but it was overloaded with outdated and clumsy software and short battery life. Its successor, the Optimus G, represented a certain degree of refinement and, at the time the G2 appeared in 2012, LG’s new G series was a very reliable alternative for models like Samsung or HTC. The G2 was one of the first flagship smartphones to try to reduce the size of the frame, for example, and LG made buttons on the screen a central part of its design, long before most others.

It was also around this time that LG found a new partner on Google, launching two Nexus phones in a row. The 2012 Nexus 4 was built around the Optimus G, and had its fans despite its lack of LTE, a low battery and an inexpressive camera. The following year’s Nexus 5 found an even stronger cult, despite also having a bad camera and low battery. (The red version looked great and the $ 349 price tag didn’t hurt.)

LG’s mobile division continued to function, producing respectable phones like the G3 and G4 without ever really challenging Samsung. The software was still a heavy customization for Android, and LG continued to lag behind its peers with its pace of updates, but the hardware was solid. It was at the 2016 G5 that things really started to fall apart. Designed around a series of interchangeable modular accessories called “Friends”, the phone failed and LG quickly pretended that it never happened. Suffice it to say that if you bought a camera grip or DAC Hi-Fi audio accessory for your G5, it wouldn’t be able to make Friends with the G6 2017.

It is a pity that LG has focused on tricks with the G5 because this phone introduced a new feature that would become ubiquitous in the smartphone market years later: the ultra-wide camera. Ultrawides on smartphones allows people to capture photos that were previously restricted to camera gears, and it’s hard to imagine buying a new phone without it today. But it took a long time for other phone manufacturers to discover the utility; Apple launched its first in 2019, for example.

The V20, launched in the same year as the G5, had another exclusive feature that would become a trademark of the company’s phones for years: an honest headset connector in the year that Apple decided to discard it. And not just any headset – one that worked with an integrated quad DAC designed to increase sound quality and attract audiophiles. Did that sell a lot of phones? Well no. But it has become a trademark of LG’s next-generation devices since then, offering an option for wired headset enthusiasts who despair while other phone makers followed Apple’s lead one by one.

Photo of Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The 2017 G6 brought the G series back on track. It was the first major smartphone launched with a higher proportion now familiar, with an even stronger focus on eliminating bezels than ever before. Of course, many people did not notice, as Samsung immediately went with the similar, but more elegant Galaxy S8, and its “infinite screen”. Later that year, LG launched the V30, which had a completely new (and very good) design, but it will always be difficult to sell when its most distinctive feature is its (also very good) touch system.

From now on, LG’s flagship phones have become one. The G7 was a very good facsimile of an iPhone X, even though it won an Editor’s Choice designation from Border editor Dan Seifert. The V40 was the pioneer in the configuration of three cameras, now common. The G8X came with a dual-screen case that, in retrospect, Microsoft’s Surface Duo didn’t really improve much a year later. But all of these phones looked basically identical to each other, and none of their main features were seen as much more than gimmicks at the time.

For every good idea that LG had, there would be something meaningless like unlocking the “Hand ID” with vein sensor from the G8. Although the company made a big announcement about a new Software Update Center to increase the pace of Android updates, nothing has changed. And in the face of Samsung’s unstoppable marketing machine, LG’s best attempt at brand identity was to add “ThinQ” to the name of each flagship phone.

In its final year, LG’s mobile division has moved to solve its problems. The Explorador Project intended to produce more innovative designs, such as the beautiful but weak Velvet and the strange double Wing screen. At CES this year, the company announced a Rollable concept phone that it intended to bring to the market.

That will never happen now, and it is difficult to say that it is a huge loss, with companies like Oppo and TCL probably making up for it with their own versions. But in the context of the US phone market, there will be fewer options, and whoever is responsible for the loss of LG’s market share is unlikely to be such a creative replacement.

LG phones have rarely, if ever, been the best available, but the company has had a significant impact on the smartphone world in general. With the end of its mobile division, the United States market has become even more homogeneous.