Rafe previews the upcoming LG JoY, with thoughts and photos from the Smartphone Show, analysing its chances of success in the smartphone ecosystem. Will LG succeed where Sendo, Panasonic and Siemens failed in bringing a non-Nokia S60 device to market?
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I also had a look at the Joy when attending the Smartphone Show and was quite impressed.
Something i did see though that was not public and i have a picture to back it up. LG say there are no deals with any networks yet to provide the Joy in the UK. However!!........ When i was taking photos of the Samsung 520 phone also announced someone from LG came over to compare it to the Joy. He took a Joy out of his pocket and put it next to the Samsung so i could get a shot of them side by side.
I did not notice at the time, but when looking through my pictures i found his LG Joy had the 3 Services bar on it (like the ad-bar on the N73 and K800).
This was definatly the Joy with the 3 bar on it so it has me thinking 3 will launch this phone quite soon. I would be more than happy to link to the photo if anyone is interested
Dan, you weren't the only one to see that phone. LG have had a strong relationship with 3 over the last couple of years, so it makes sense that they'd approach that network with this handset.
Some very insightful comments there Rafe - you touched on the Panasonic and Sendo woes in a way which made me remember... Sendo's X2 handset would have blown the market away if it had launched on time; and Panasonic's X800 was (and still is) arguably the sexiest S60 flip phone ever produced. Both those products were second generation for their respective companies - if you apply the same logic to LG, just think how good the next LG phone could be!
What was also interesting when playing with this phone is the level of stability LG had achieved with what they were admitting was very early firmware. The JoY easily beat the N95 on the stability and therefore usability fronts at the show. If Nokia want the N95 to be their king handset, maybe they should be asking LG (and Samsung) how to get their own firmware working 😊
Nokia need to watch out - LG are coming at them fast!
It being that the N95 has alot of new gadgetry inside it that neither LG or Samsung's include, I'm not really surprised the demo handsets may have been abit shaky. Something I'm sure will be sorted in time for release.
All said, i wish LG very good luck with this and i really would like them to succeed. I personally want a good proliferation of the S60 platform between its licensees; it can only bring about more experience and better advancements in functionality.
Aesthetically, i prefer the Samsung, but i felt the LG was very robust and the screen was certainly marvelous to view. With the LG recent track record due to their Chocolate range, thry certainly have a leg to stand on. If advertised as fervently as they are with their non-smartphone range, we will be seeing this handset as one of the best S60 licensee successes.
But its the N95 all the way for me.