- LG finally closes the update servers for its phones in June
- This marks the end of LG’s phones, a market it ends in 2021
- We have ranked our favorite LG phones from the last 25 years
Do you remember LG phones? Not long ago, the Korean tech giant was one of the most exciting telephone manufacturers around, dazzling American innovators such as LG Chocolate ‘Slider’ phone and the swivel-screened LG wing.
But unfortunately, no more – like stained by Android Authority, LG plans to finally close the update servers for its phones on June 30. At practical level, this means that if you still own an LG phone (a gold star for your commitment, if I have), you have exactly two months left to download a final Android update on it before the cord is cut.
Still, the news is arguably more symbolic than practical. It’s been four years since LG confirmed it would stop making smartphones after an impressive 25-year-old race doing so.
In fact, LG was one of the first tech giants to enter the telephone area in the 1990s with Samsung and Sony when it took on Nokia and Motorola and became a great player in the ‘Feature Phones’ room.
So what were LG’s biggest phone hits and the ones we look back on most lovingly? Here’s our list – let us know which ones you think are missing in the comments below.
7. LG G FLEX (2013)
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The most human phone ever. It was LG’s slogan for the wonderful crazy Lg g flex – A handset that contained a ‘flexible’ screen and ‘self -healing’ back.
The unit itself was also ‘flexible’. G Flex had a natural curvature that LG said allowed it to sit more comfortably against your face and place the microphone closer to your mouth – who remembers the Nokia 8110 ‘banana phone?
As I said in my review of the phone: “Don’t get too excited about its flexible abilities … You can’t actually start folding it up.
“Place LG G Flex with the front down on a flat surface, and at the most curved point, the screen is still only a few millimeters above the surface. But then the fun part comes. Apply a decent amount of pressure to the back of G Flex and you can flatten out the handset.”
And the reaction it got when I showed people this flexible feat? “I was met – without failing – by a sea of windy faces when G Flex did seriously about creaking and crushing sounds. Sure the handset bends a little, but it never sounds like it enjoys training.”
Then there was the ‘self -healing’ back, which was able to absorb minor dents and knocks, but it certainly wasn’t immune to a scratch or two.
The LG G Flex was not the best phone and it was extremely expensive, but it did what LG did best – something else, something unique, something crazy. And that’s what I love.
By John McCann
6. LG KU990 VIEWTY (2007)
The very fact that I refuse to throw away this phone – 18 years after its release – shows the love I have for it. This phone had a 5MP camera, xenon flash, dvd (ish) quality video shooting, a manual zoom button – and a Touch screen.
For all of you kids out there, you don’t know how exciting this was to use when you had only been used to tap away on keys. A keyboard that could move and become a movie screen? Amazing! (Skip past the fact that there was very little video content out there to actually watch).
There was a stylus that you could fasten with a small cord (though it quickly got annoying) and I’m sure if I fired the phone up now, the resistive touch screen would drive me up the wall (where it feels the pressure to detect the electric behavior at my fingertips) by guessing what part of the screen I would have.
It was joined that this phone actually outsourted the initial iPhone, thanks to the higher spec, lower price (and the fact that Apple did not officially report the sales figures …), and although this lead was not long, it was completely deserved in my eyes.
By Gareth Beavis
5. LG COOKIE (2008)
When LG Cookie was launched in 2008, the youngstone took by storm. I know it because I was one and it marked the first phone I could actually call my own. Afterwards, the cookie was not as spectacular, and in fact LG used it to target the emergency screen market by keeping costs on the device as low as possible.
This scrimping resulted in a 3-inch, 240 x 400 pixel touch screen powered by an ARM9E CPU with an ate to a ate to 175 MHz. It also had a 3.15MP camera that was able to record videos of 12 frames/s, and no flash setting.
Pretty impressive, right? No, not really, but the combination of super cool looks (yes, I had the white version) and a nice little stylus hidden away in the phone’s body meant that the LG cookie was for me, the style of style and Innovation in my formative years.
By Axel Metz
4. LG ENV2 (2008)
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It may not have been my first phone, but ENV2 was definitely one of the first – and one I still have in a closet somewhere.
The LG ENV2 was not the original seashell, but it had a large number of pillow with a small screen on the front and the ability to fold open to a larger screen (yes, large after non-smartphone standards). With speakers on each side and a closer to full-size Qwerty keyboard, it was a real Blackberry rival.
The LG ENV2 offered some smartphone essque, Blackberry-Esque Flair without Smarts, and it was quite fun to use and served me well, even with a removable battery on the back. It also has a decent camera, but not with shots I want to share now. But I remember getting pretty good at writing on the inside of the keys and having a lot of fun answering text messages on it.
In the years ago, I reviewed a number of other LG phones. In my early blogging days, I remember lovingly chatting with Mr. Mobile – alias Michael Fisher – on the LG G3 day. But LG ENV2 offered a lot of features, even some mini-mobile games, in a durable, non-so-smart package.
By Jacob Krol
3. LG Wing (2020)
The LG Wing should be unlike any other smartphone that the world had ever seen. It was the first device in LG’s’Explorer‘Series of devices that would have been a number of products intended to explore unconventional form factors-such as LG Rollable.
LG Wing broke every rule in the textbook with a large and clumsy design, too many moving parts and at a premium price point for mid -range specifications. While it wasn’t really the best phone for the price, it was among the most entertaining devices that I’ve ever put my hands on.
It was a cool party trick to reveal the second display with just one welding, in what was probably the most polarizing design of its time. It is noteworthy, even for a first generation product with an unknown form factor, it was surprising Not badWith a decent number of features and third -party apps optimized to make use of the double screen.
The wing is a suitable Swansong for LG’s smartphone journey, cementing its place in the history books as one of the most innovative brands in this room, not afraid to experiment and go against the norms; While serving as a reminder of how unforgivable smartphone market can be.
By Aakash Jhaveri
2. Google Nexus 5 (2013)
2013 was a big year for LG in the smartphone world. Next to his G2 flagship and its first bent phone, it was invited to make the next iteration of Google’s Nexus line of smartphones.
Nexus was a project from Google that brought in Android phone manufacturers to make hardware designed to show what the software can do in its purest form. Nexus 5 was one of the best handsets in the series, and a large part of it is down to LG’s influence.
Nexus 5 had a lot of similarities to the LG G2 we mentioned below (spoiler alarm), but this used Android software in a way that Google intended. It even felt slimmer than the LG G2, and it also had an affordable price.
As one of the first smartphones I used as a technology journalist, I began to see what Google was aiming for with its Nexus line on the Nexus 5. I also discovered what LG was capable of in one of the best time periods for LG smartphones and I will always have a love for this specific phone because of it.
By James Peckham
1. LG G2 (2013)
There have been a few smartphones over the years that have almost exquisite got the mix of features, hardware and pricing, and the LG G2 (or Optimus G2 in some regions as the company inexplicably continued to clamp a lumpy extra word in the title) was just that.
This was just a good handset. A 5.2-inch screen was Fight At that time, and the 13MP camera was just in the best of the best out there, with lots of great features for fine tuning and some top snaps were possible. The shiny, rounded plastic shell felt sturdy in the hand, and the overall interface was filled with smart little adjustments to improve the basic Android experience.
But the main star was the location of the rear buttons – a power key that was flanked over and below with the volume buttons On the back of the phone!
The idea was that this would be more of a natural, ergonomic fit in the hand considering its ‘enormous’ size and therefore you would be less likely to drop it. Some reviewers found that it was too difficult to reprogram the brain to look for the unlock key there, but they did not use it long enough. Sometimes I still long for it now, and still wondering why phone marks don’t use the back of the phone for a kind of touch interface.
Of course, I’m pretty sure Annals of Time makes me remember this phone with a rosy tint – Android overlays were often buggy when the fiddly camera settings are probably annoyed and the buttons probably fell off or something. But I remember this phone with true love – for a while it seemed that the success of this phone would hold LG at the top table in the smartphone world in the coming years, but unfortunately it was never realized.
By Gareth Beavis
