LG

Last week during its earnings call, Google acknowledged that it had been having issues keeping the Nexus 6 flagship in stock, and in a totally unexpected move today, the company has put the Nexus 5 back up on the Play Store. The device is listed at its original price of $349 for 16GB at $399 for 32GB.

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LG posted its quarterly earnings numbers today and boasted  impressive numbers in its smartphone group. Globally, Smartphone sales were up 24% but in the US alone, smartphones shipments were up 78% for the quarter year over year. LG ended the year having moved 59.1 million smartphones, bolstered by its popular G3 flagship. Those aren’t Apple numbers by any stretch but still very solid.

LG also posted growth in its home entertainment sector but a net loss overall for the quarter mostly due to charges related to shutting down its Plasma business.

SEOUL, Jan. 29, 2015 ― LG Electronics Inc. (LG) today announced net profit of KRW 501.40 billion (USD 474.81million) for full-year 2014, an increase of 125 percent over 2013 net profit. Operating profit increased significantly in 2014 to KRW 1.83 trillion (USD 1.73 billion) from KRW 1.25 trillion (USD 1.14 billion) in 2013, an increase of 46 percent. Full-year consolidated revenue of KRW 59.04 trillion (USD 55.91 billion) was mainly boosted by a 24 percent increase in smartphone shipments.

The LG Mobile Communications Company reported a 16 percent increase in annual revenue to KRW 15.06 trillion (USD 14.26 billion) with help from North America, where shipments increased 78 percent during the fourth quarter of 2014 from the previous year. Fourth-quarter revenue of 3.78 trillion (USD 3.48 billion) was 5 percent higher than the same period in 2013. A total of 59.1 million smartphones were shipped in 2014, an increase of 24 percent from the previous year, among 78.2 million mobile handsets sold last year. Expecting a challenging year ahead with greater competition globally from various manufacturers, LG will concentrate on improving its brand power, operating more efficiently, and focusing on selective key markets.

In early December, it was reported that Qualcomm was having some problems with its next-generation Snapdragon 810 chip. The SoC was said to be overheating at certain voltages, and this raised concerns that the next slew of flagships coming in early 2015 might see delays. LG then went on to announce its G Flex 2 smartphone at CES 2015, effectively squashing rumors about the 810 that had spread just about a month earlier.

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LG announced several features of its new G Flex 2 smartphone at CES 2015 last week, including a full HD 5.5-inch dynamically curved P-OLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor with Octa-Core 64-bit capable CPUs, 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with dual LED flash, 3,000 mAh battery and Android Lollipop. But one important piece of information that LG has withheld to this point is how much the G Flex 2 will cost…
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SamMobile is reporting that Samsung plans to launch a fully round smartwatch at Mobile World Congress next month. Not a lot is known about this new Samsung smartwatch, though. It reportedly carries the model number SM-R720 and is referred to as Orbis within the company.

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LG has officially unveiled the G Flex 2 and we’re here at at CES 2015 to bring you all of the details. The G Flex 2 carries over the same curved display/body design from its predecessor, but has significant improvements in the hardware department. Let’s go ahead and take a closer look in our hands-on and overview video…

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After revealing the G Flex 2 name previously through CES banners, LG officially unveiled its next generation curved display Android handset at the Consumer Electronics Show today. The first LG G Flex was met with early reviews characterizing it as an expensive prototype, and we found it hard to recommend especially next to LG’s other smartphones in our own hands-on review. So what does LG have planned for the G Flex 2 as it takes the curve for a second spin?
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The official start of CES 2015 is right around the corner, but as is the case every year, some early signage has revealed the plans of one company. According to a plethora of posters posted throughout the main hallway at CES, LG is planning to unveil its G Flex 2 device during the show this week (via The Verge). The original G Flex was released all the way back in December of 2013, so an update is certainly needed by this point.

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This is probably one of more dramatic smartphone explosion stories I’ve read lately. (But this is definitely not the first—almost every flagship phone has seemingly had a horror story like this one.) This time, it looks like an LG G3 was at one second sitting innocently on a mattress, but then erupted into flames so violently that its owners had to throw the mattress out the window.

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Verizon and LG have partnered on a new version of the G3 which was unveiled today for World AIDS Day. The (PRODUCT)RED G3 features a “Blaze Red” body, but is otherwise exactly the same as the black and white models launched earlier this year.

For the uninitiated, the G3 includes a 5.5-inch display, 13 MP rear camera, and Android 4.4 (with Lollipop rolling out for it now). NewGeekGuide‘s Dom Esposito reviewed the device in June, calling it “the closest thing on the market to a no-compromise smartphone.”

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Verizon announced the availability of two low-cost LG tablets today. Priced at $300, LG’s full-size 10.1-inch tablet sports an HD IPS display, a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter, 16GB of internal storage, an 8,000mAh battery and Android 4.4 KitKat. The smaller and cheaper ($250) 7-inch slate features nearly identical specifications, with the exceptions of its smaller stature and its 4,000mAh cell.

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While only a small but growing number of users have even upgraded their desktop computer with a 4K monitor, a new report from PhoneArena claims that Samsung will start mass-producing a 5.9-inch 4K Ultra HD Super AMOLED display in August. Conveniently, that is around the time Samsung might begin manufacturing its Galaxy Note 5.
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Google and LG have entered into a new agreement that will see both companies cross-licensing technology patents and products that covers all existing patents as well as any filed during the next decade. Google says the point of this agreement is to ensure that both companies can focus on innovating rather than worrying about who owns which technology.

Earlier this year Google created a similar agreement with Samsung in an attempt by the Mountain View-based corporation to forge tighter bonds with its Android handset makers while enabling them to take on competition from Apple.

The full press release from Google and LG is included below:

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You won’t find this display on a smartphone you can buy just yet, but LG Display is today showing off a new 5.3-inch LCD smartphone panel that includes an almost non-existent 0.7mm bezel. That’s even thinner than some of the other super thin bezels to hit recent devices like the Sharp Aquos line and, according to LG, the world’s thinnest.

LG explained how it’s been able to achieve the extremely thin bezel, which it points out is thinner than the 0.8mm thickness of a credit card:
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While Google confirmed the $2.9B sale of Motorola way back in January, it is only today that the last piece of paperwork was signed and the formerly American-owned Motorola officially became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese electronics manufacturer Lenovo.

Announcing the completion of the acquisition on the Motorola blog, the company said that its headquarters would remain in Chicago, along with its offices in Silicon Valley … 
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The latest numbers from Strategy Analytics reveal that Chinese handset maker Xiaomi has surpassed Huawei and LG to become the third-largest smartphone maker in the world. Xiaomi has been making impressive strides since recruiting former Google executive Hugo Barra and more than doubling its sales following international expansion.
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LG’s twin-track smartphone strategy – offering both premium G-series models and cheaper L-series devices – appears to be working, with the company announcing Q3 smartphone sales up by 39% to 16.8M and operating profits more than doubled to 461B won ($440M). The results beat analyst expectations, and LG said that it was bullish about future prospects.

Building on its momentum and two consecutive profitable quarters, LG expects to strengthen its positioning in the smartphone market with its G Series and L Series models despite the landscape becoming more competitive

The G3 handset in particular has helped the company gain ground against its much larger Korean rival Samsung. Samsung is due to announce its own Q3 results tomorrow, but has already issued a profit warning on the basis of low average selling prices of its phones … 
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