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Ben Sin

This week’s announcement by LG Electronics that it was leaving the smartphone business was not exactly a shocker – LG’s mobile division had been haemorrhaging money for the past several years and for months, there were rumours of its shuttering. 
The division is expected to be wound down by July 31. 
But while most of LG’s recent releases have been underwhelming, it wasn’t always this way. In fact, Android enthusiasts will remember LG as a pioneer of many mobile trends, and a company that was willing to think outside the box and try new, weird things. 
And so in the wake of LG mobile’s demise, here’s a fond look back at five of the most important LG smartphones – for both good and bad.



LG Prada
There’s a general belief that smartphones used to be clunky BlackBerry-like devices with physical keyboards before the iPhone introduced touchscreen to the masses. The LG’s KE850, which was marketed as LG Prada after striking a licensing deal with the fashion giant, actually holds the distinction of being the first smartphone with a fully functional capacitive touchscreen. It launched in May 2007, a few months before Apple’s iconic device.
LG becomes first major smartphone brand to withdraw from market
 Of course, the iPhone’s touchscreen was more intuitive to use, but the LG Prada does shoot down the notion that Apple single-handedly started the smartphone era we live in today. 



LG VX9400
Released in late 2007, the LG VX9400 has the honour of being one of the first phones in the US to support live TV broadcast using Qualcomm’s technology, but that’s not why it cracked this list. Instead, the LG VX9400 is iconic because it was the smartphone choice of Tony Stark in the original Iron Man movie (2008). The phone got prominent screen time in the opening action set piece. 

LG G3
LG’s apex as a smartphone manufacturer is likely the six months from late 2013 to early 2014 when it launched the LG G2 and G3. The G2 had an at-the-time radical design: it had no physical buttons on the front of the device. Instead, the power/home and volume buttons were moved to the back for a more seamless, clean all glass face. This is now, of course, the desired look in every smartphone.
While the G2 offered this design first, the G3 that arrived shortly after is the more important device because it further slimmed the bezels, and introduced Quad HD/1440p resolution, which is now the norm in almost every Android flagship. 


LG Wing
LG’s smartphone division has never shied away from trying weird things – it launched a phone with a 3D screen in 2011 – and so it is fitting that the final smartphone released by LG is a dual-screen swivelling device that looks like a hammerhead shark. 
Released as part of its “Explorer Project” that was supposed to help LG reverse its mobile division fortunes, the Wing was a cleverly designed phone that can be both regular slab smartphone or a T-shaped two-screen multitasking machine with just the push of a thumb.
In our first look review we thought the hardware was very well done and the idea genuinely useful, but the phone suffered from LG problems, such as slow software, and a camera that was just decent in a sea of great smartphone cameras. Still, for a farewell product, LG Mobile went out the way it came in: zigging where everyone else was zagging.


LG G5
The LG G5 is important for a very dubious reason: it may have been the device that led to LG Mobile’s downfall. 
Released during a period when the mobile industry was curious about modularity in gadgets, the LG G5 billed itself as the world’s first modular phone, with a removable bottom chin that can be swapped with other accessories. 
The problem is, none of those accessories had much mainstream appeal: we’re talking about a camera grip that is essentially a thick piece of plastic with a physical shutter button; a hi-fi DAC (digital-to-audio converter) that offered audio quality already available in the previous LG V10 without the need of a plug-in; and a VR camera that didn’t block out your peripheral vision, which made for the least immersive “virtual reality” experience ever. 
The G5 was such a commercial and critical failure that the company ditched the modular experiment within half a year, which according to industry hearsay left US carriers fuming. It’s the G5 that led to the beginning of LG’s fall from grace to being  barely a Top 10 phone brand by 2020. 


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Technology

5 memorable LG smartphones, from the Wing to the Prada, as the tech giant shuts down its failing phone division

LG, which is shutting down its smartphone division, has pioneered a number of trends. The LG Wing in its T-shaped ‘Swivel’ mode. Photo: Ben Sin

LG Prada was the first touchscreen smartphone, released before the iPhone in 2007. 

A screen shot from Iron Man (2008) shows Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) using the LG VX9400 in the opening scene. Photo: YouTube

LG G3: slimmer bezels, an all-glass front, and high screen resolution. 

The LG Wing in its T-shaped ‘Swivel’ mode. Photo: Ben Sin

The LG G5 phone was billed as the first modular phone, with a removable chin, but the replacement modules had little appeal. Photo: LG

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Lifestyle

Gadgets


Innovations include the LG Prada, the first touchscreen mobile phone in 2007, and the G3 with its slimmed down bezels
Then there was the quirky Wing, with its T-shape swivel mode, and the modular G5, that may have brought down LG’s mobile division



From the first touchscreen phone to a glass phone front with no buttons, LG has been a pioneer in the smartphone industry. It has released some quirky looking phones, and others that failed to excite consumers. Here are five of the most memorable.


Smartphones

LG Electronics

5 memorable LG smartphones, from the Wing to the Prada, as the tech giant shuts down its failing phone division

Innovations include the LG Prada, the first touchscreen mobile phone in 2007, and the G3 with its slimmed down bezels Then there was the quirky Wing, with its T-shape swivel mode, and the modular G5, that may have brought down LG’s mobile division

Innovations include the LG Prada, the first touchscreen mobile phone in 2007, and the G3 with its slimmed down bezels

Then there was the quirky Wing, with its T-shape swivel mode, and the modular G5, that may have brought down LG’s mobile division