LG have not had a great couple of years with 2018 being especially uninspiring. This year, with the launch of the G8, they are expected to try to become relevant in the smartphone market again.
LG have made some decent phones but have not pushed the envelope of innovation in recent times. They were the first to introduce an 18:9 display and include a wide angled rear facing camera (which I still wish every phone had) with the G5 but since then have not brought much new to the table.
According to a new leak from Korean website etnews the LG G8 will be launched around the world in March. It will arrive with LTE but no 5G and a new 3D camera. The notch will be shrunken, as it most definitely needed to be from the G7 ThinQ, down to a teardrop notch which manufacturers such as OPPO and OnePlus have already had success with.
That puts LG at least five to six months behind those manufacturers with their notch solution — they had better hope that those companies (and others) do not move past the teardrop onto the next iteration in display technology as we head towards the full display phone. If they do then the G8 will look old hat in a notch-less world.
Also included in the leak is the presence of an LG 5G phone which is NOT a G8. As other companies such as OnePlus are doing, LG will be separating their 5G phone from their flagship, at least until 5G is the common standard and easily accessible throughout the world.
LG will also be releasing the mid-range Q9 in January (CES maybe?). The Q9 will feature a 6.1 inch display with a Snapdragon 660 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of internal memory and a 3000 mAh battery.
The rumoured foldable LG phone is not set to make an appearance until the third quarter of this year and is expected to sport 5G connectivity.
Hopefully LG can pull off some magic with their phones this year, especially in the software section where many of their recent phones have lacked polish.
Do you think LG will be able to reverse their fortunes of 2018 in 2019? What will it take from them for you to consider them for your next phone?
I was a huge HTC fan and only bought their phones. I was unhappy with their new ones, so I decided to try the G6. It was an awesome phone. I now have the G7 and am really happy with it. The camera is sensational and phone does exactly what it should. I am excited for the G8 and will be purchasing it when they are released.
LG kind of ruined themselves with the bootloop issue that went on for a while.
Correction required…
The G5 was the first phone to have the wide angle camera but the g6.
Right you are.
It seems you guys like to dis LG phones. Sure, they may not have all the bells and whistles of some of the other brand’s flagships, but some of us like that. I love my G6. OK, I wish it had a SD 845 and a couple more gig of ram, but not being a ‘power user’, this phone does me quite nicely. (I believe your daughter has one, Scott?) . The camera is adequate for my needs, I’ve never experienced any lag, battery life is quite good, its design is clean, it’s easy to hold, good fingerprint sensor placement,… Read more »
Reality is LG phones work just fine, but Scott’s statement that they “do not push the envelope” is 100% spot on. They don’t. LG need to look at what’s happening in the market and instead of playing catch up, they need to run their own race and innovate. That’s how they’ll get ahead. LG used to make really good phones that were easily as capable as the other big hitters. However, the G5 was a bit of a flop (despite innovating, in the wrong direction), and it’s been downhill since then. The G6 was fine, just uninspiring. Never really touched… Read more »
Yes, but how, Chris? What does LG need to do to ‘innovate’? Do the other manufacturers (such as LG) have to announce new tech BEFORE Samsung etc? More cameras? Better displays? More AI? More gimmicks? Where will it end? I admit that LG dropped the ball with the G5, but the G3, G4, G6 and 7 were all ‘really good phones’. I think maybe it all comes down to marketing. Samsung and Apple are constantly in our faces, and all the tech reporters around the world keep up the general perception that these are the phones to we must have.… Read more »
I don’t disagree with you at all on the issue of price. Samsung and Apple’s pricing is insane, and I honestly find myself wondering who in their right mind would be splashing that much cash on something that’s outdated so quickly. Apple I can almost understand given their commitment to timely software updates, but Samsung’s OS updates aren’t great.
I don’t think a phone needs gimmicks to be successful. A great phone can be a combination of little more than great battery life, a good camera, great form, and great software. Bells and whistles be damned.
Agreed.