LG promises three years of Android updates after exit from smartphone market

South Korean firm will also continue to manufacture and release phones through to Q2 of 2021

Trade

LG Velvet

8 April 2021

LG has said it will continue to provide its ‘premium’ smartphones with Android updates over the next three years, following its decision this week to exit the mobile hardware business.

Models launched in 2019, such as the Wing and both G and V series handsets, will receive three updates from their year of release, while models released in 2020, such as the LG Stylo and K series, will only get two updates.

The LG Velvet, for instance, launched with Android 10 last year and has an Android 11 rollout already in progress. That means the device will still receive Android 12 and 13, provided Google sticks to its early release schedule.

“LG will continue to manufacture phones through the second quarter to meet contractual obligations to carriers and partners,” the firm said in a statement. “This means customers can still purchase LG mobile phones currently in inventory and service support and security software updates will continue to be provided for a period of time for certain devices.”

LG wasn’t always the most reliable manufacturer when it came to device updates. In 2018, it launched a dedicated ‘Software Upgrade Centre’ but most of its devices either received new software versions much later than their release date, or skipped them entirely. The majority of its premium models are scheduled to receive Android 11 at the end of 2021, a full year after its release.

The decision to kill off its smartphone business means that a number of handsets currently in development won’t see the light of day. This includes the LG Rollable, a device unveiled at CES in February featuring a display that could be stretched on the fly to increase its screen size. The LG V70 – images of which were supposedly leaked online – will also not be released.

“Not sure how authentic those images are but neither device will be developed any further,” an LG spokesperson told Android Authority.

© Dennis Publishing

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