The Next Nexus (by LG): An odd choice of manufacturer?
>> Why on earth is LG is making the new Nexus?
LG isn’t known for making the best Android handsets out there, so why oh why has Google chosen it to build the new Nexus smartphone?
Richard Goodwin
Know Your Mobile
October 24, 2012
knowyourmobile.com
In under a week Google will unveil its new Android operating system, version 4.2, alongside a brand new Nexus handset.
Usually this is cause for celebration – there’s nothing quite like a new Nexus smartphone, after all. But with LG at the helm is this still going to be the case?
I’d like to give the company the benefit of the doubt, but after two year’s worth of weak handset launches it’s difficult to be very positive about the arrival of an LG-built Nexus handset.
So what on earth happened this time?
Historically Google has chosen only the biggest and best manufacturers inside its Android ecosystem to build its beloved Nexus handset. First we had HTC, with the Nexus One, and then Samsung took over for two generations, which gave birth to the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus.
And now it’s LG’s turn. Yep, LG: the company that brought us the Optimus 3D, the Optimus 2X, the Android 3.1-powered Optimus Pad, and, lest we forget, the Optimus 4X HD – a device so tainted by its predecessor’s reputation that absolutely no UK networks carried it at launch.
That’s not to say LG has never done anything good, it has. Take the Optimus Vu, for instance. I absolutely loved that bizarrely shaped phablet and all its quirks when I saw it at MWC 2012. Check out my gushing first-look here, if you don't believe me.
*** knowyourmobile.com
My main gripes with Android-powered LG phones are three-fold: one, they’re always rammed full of bloatware, two, they’re usually designed poorly and constructed out of materials that’d make even Samsung blush, and, three, Android never seems to run very well on them.
Which is why I was absolutely dumbfounded when I found out that Google had transplanted Samsung onto tablet-making duties and asked LG to make its next Nexus handset. It makes no sense. LG is not known for making quality Android handsets. Everybody knows that.
Why not Motorola, which Google actually now owns, or HTC?
Surely they’d have done a better job at building a Nexus handset to take on the like likes of Apple’s iPhone 5 and Nokia’s Lumia 920?
Take a look at HTC’s J Butterfly handset or Motorola’s new Razr i, then take a look at LG’s Nexus 4, and tell me I’m wrong – both handsets surpass anything LG has done in the past few years and yet neither company even got a look in.
What’s up with that, Google?
All I can do now is hope that LG now prove me wrong and create the best Nexus handset to date. Personally I can't see this happening, but I have my hat at the ready, along with some chilli sauce and a flat bread, just in case they do. ###
- Eric - |
