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Black or white. Up or down. Good or bad. Binary thinking is how the internet works, and I’m guilty of spending month after month, year after year, making fun of LG. But then something changed recently. When the G2 was announced in August, I immediately dismissed it, especially after they put a Viennese choir boy on stage. Several weeks later, however, the reviews started coming out. Journalists who I deeply respect, from websites such as The Verge, Engadget, and Pocket-now, were praising the device to my surprise. Some even went so far as to say the G2 was (at the time) the best Android phone on the market.
No. Impossible. Does not compute. There can only be one winner, and it’s Samsung.
Earlier today, the phone maker who I’ve been lovingly referring to as South Korea’s other company, held a press event here in Helsinki to show off three products. The G2, the G Pad 8.3, and the Nexus 5. While I obviously can’t write a review of any of these products since I only had about an hour to play with them, I can offer you some first impressions.
[Our very own Steve Litchfield has published his own Nexus 5 review, check it out!]Let’s start with the phone that’s getting the most attention on the internet right now, the Nexus 5. Here in Finland, we’re not going to get the 32 GB model. LG told the journalists in the room that this was Google’s decision, that the 32 GB Nexus 5 can only be sold via the Play Store.
Think that’s bad? It gets worse.
Suggested retail price: 530 Euros, which comes out to $715.
In other words, Finnish people have to pay double what Americans pay.
But enough about that, as for the actual device, it screams utilitarian. There’s nothing wrong with that, it just didn’t hook me. I was sitting at a table with three Nexus 5 units being passed around amongst us, and after 30 seconds with the device I just put handed it to the person next to me. And then I spotted her, across the room, all alone on a tall shelf, the G2.
Last month, while I was in America, I visited two operator stores with the intention of playing with the Note 3 and the G2. The former I found, the latter I did not, so today was the first time I actually got to play with one. And you know what, it was great. Yes, it’s plastic, but LG’s plastic felt better to me than Samsung’s plastic. As for LG’s software, while it looks like TouchWiz, it actually feels a little bit different. I wouldn’t even call it bad, just different.
As for the G Pad, you all know I hate Android tablets, and that hasn’t changed.
What I’m trying to get at is LG has finally earned my respect. I’ve been writing about mobile phones for seven years now, and they were a company I have consistently ignored because people rarely pay attention to the number three player. All it took was a 90 minute meeting to change my entire perception of the company, to the point where I can honestly say, hand over heart, I’ll strongly be considering their devices in the future.
Why am I even writing this article? Because I imagine there are a lot of people like me out there. When you hear Android, you think HTC and Samsung and that’s about it. ASUS is a total joke, Acer’s CEO just left the company, Huawei/ZTE/Lenovo are too China-focused. And then there’s LG.
They deserve your attention, not ridicule.
