LG’s performance at Mobile World Congress last week can best be described as underwhelming. The company announced a 5 inch smartphone/tablet that’s a terrible competitor to the Samsung Galaxy Note. They announced 3 new “stylish” smartphones that scream boring design. And of course they showed off yet another 3D enabled smartphone when no actually wants anything to do with 3D technology. Oh and there’s also a quad core flagship device with a product name so long that we’re going to run out of server space if we repeat it; compared to the HTC One X it looks pathetic. So when is LG going to get their shit together? According to the Korean Yonhap News Agency, LG had 6,800 people in working in R&D at the start of 2011, with 20% of those being focused on smartphones. That comes out to 1360 people. Today, just one year later, between 60% and 70% of LG’s now 8,000 employee strong R&D department is focused on smartphones. Assuming it’s 65%, that’s 5200 people. In other words, LG increased the amount of engineers working on smartphones by over 380% in 12 months.
Impressive as those numbers sound, we know that just because there are more people working on something, that doesn’t necessarily mean the larger group will come out with a better product. What LG needs is concentration, and announcing 8 freaking smartphones at Mobile World Congress isn’t exactly a fine way of demonstrating that.
If LG is listening to us, here are several suggestions we have: Make three models every year. One bleeding edge device, one mid range, and one low end. All of them should run stock Android. They should also be made out of premium materials. If that means sacrificing technical specifications in order to keep the bill of materials down, then so be it. Also, stop copying Samsung. It’s frankly a little pathetic and makes you look lazy.
What do you think LG should do?