This Sunday marks the 5-year anniversary of LG officially exiting the smartphone business. That wasn’t quite the end of the story – the company wouldn’t stop making phones until the end of May 2021. However, on April 5, 2021, the company officially confirmed that its board of directors had approved the decision to shift focus away from phones.
LG sold off its remaining phone inventory with a promise to put out software updates for its final models. And it did – the LG Wing received Android 13 in April 2023 (it originally launched with Android 10). At the same time, the company announced a new brand identity.
The LG Wing was LG’s last major smartphone
The LG Wing is kind of the reason we miss LG so much. Not the phone itself – as cool as the twisty design was, it wasn’t particularly practical – but we could always count on LG to be bold and try something new.
Some of LG’s most memorable phones
If you want a trip down memory lane, we compiled a list of LG’s greatest hits in an article five years ago. There are more articles covering LG’s best phones before and after Android, the first phone with a capacitive touchscreen, the company’s initial ventures into dual-camera and dual-screen phones and more.
LG’s unreleased rollable phone
LG’s exit came at a bad time – the economy was in bad shape in 2021, but that’s not what we mean. LG quit just as foldable phone technology was starting to take off. What would an LG foldable look like with 2026 tech? Could the company have made rollable phones work? We’ll never know.
Goodbye, LG, and thanks for all the fish!