Explorer Project Strategy: Why LG is WINGing it
Context
LG announced the Explorer Project, a line of somewhat experimental form factors that LG nonetheless intends to bring to market and sell. The LG WING is the first in the line, due out in the fall with distribution at all three national carriers in the U.S. The WING looks and acts like a bar phone until the user manually swivels the main display up, forming a ‘T’ shape and revealing a second display underneath. LG showed off several use cases, although it is an open question how much software support the WING will receive. Microsoft is investing in modifying its Office and cloud apps to support the Surface Duo, and it but prior dual-screen devices from Kyocera, ZTE, and LG struggled to get developer support.
Why Explorer?
LG realized that Samsung and Apple had established leadership in flagship bar phones years ago. LG’s most recent* attempt at using design to establish a new device category was the modular LG G5 in 2016. Unfortunately, the G5 was a disaster. For a few years, LG reverted to selling solid bar phones with lots of cameras and terrific audio quality. These still came up short when compared to the Galaxy S and Note line from LG’s cross-town rival Samsung. LG briefly flirted with cutting costs by extending the launch cycle by a year, but this only meant that the phones were forced to compete using deep price cuts after the initial launch.
LG cannot simply abandon the smartphone market because phones pull through sales of LG’s components. (There is also pride at stake – in good years, Samsung makes a lot of money from its consumer device business. LG once did, too.) In a mature market with entrenched competitors, LG’s best option is to create new categories to build its brand, and then compete slightly down market in the mid-tier. If that sounds like Motorola’s strategy with the razr, it is.
However, LG decided not to build these halo phones with foldable displays due to durability and cost issues. Its first attempt at providing a lower-cost alternative to foldables was with a Dual Screen case accessory for the V50 ThinQ in Korea early last year. LG followed it up with a more capable and widely distributed Dual Screen case for the 8X ThinQ a few months later, the V60 ThinQ earlier this year, and as an option for the more affordable Velvet when that launched this summer.
The next step, apparently, is reinventing the swivel phone, which LG last tried in the featurephone era with the VX9400 in 2007. LG certainly retains the option of changing its mind on foldables: LG is one of only a handful of manufacturers in the world with significant expertise in folding and rollable OLED panels; Samsung, Royale, and TCL are the others. At the end of the WING presentation, LG teased a horizontally sliding/expanding phone. It was just a tease, but it somewhat resembles a prototype phone with a display that rolls out of its case that TCL showed off at CES 2020.
Challenges of a New Form Factor
The challenge for new form factors – for anyone, not just LG – is not coming up with an interesting form factor concept or new glass/display materials science. The hard part is creating a software-driven experience that takes advantage of whatever miracles your industrial design, materials science, and hinge experts have cobbled together. There are two parts to the software challenge: the operating system/user interface, and the apps.
If you can't tune the operating system to seamlessly enable new experiences enabled by the hardware, consumers will quickly perceive the new idea to be less useful innovation and more of a gimmick. Platform owners like Apple and Google have a huge advantage here if they ever get interested in innovating in hardware design because they have control over the interface at a system level, and can create APIs that work naturally with the rest of the platform. So far, neither Apple nor Google has shown much interest in radically changing the shape of phones. Google is certainly working with Samsung and Microsoft on building some capability for foldables and dual-screen in Android, and both show promise, but Google doesn't have skin in the game. If these efforts fail, Android – and Google’s advertising business – will be fine.
If you solve the operating system and user interface problems, the second challenge is convincing app developers to rewrite their apps to fully take advantage of those new experiences that the platform now supports. If there are no apps that take advantage of the new hardware, it's still just a gimmick, even if the gimmick is nicely executed for core device functions. Getting developers to support something new can be a challenge even for platform owners because of the ecosystem Catch-22: developers need an installed base to justify investment, and consumers need apps to justify buying the device, thus creating an installed base.
Apple is arguably the best at overcoming this. First, Apple deliberately builds each new platform as an extension of something that already has an enormous installed base to leverage. Then, Apple paints such a compelling picture for consumers of what the user experience will be, that developers are certain consumers will adopt it, thus providing the incentive to invest in advance.
Without the ability to generate a huge surge of third-party apps, new form factors can be jumpstarted with first-party apps if those apps and services encompass enough of the user experience to solve key consumer problems. Nintendo has proven this in gaming, and Microsoft is attempting it with Microsoft365 on the Surface Duo. LG can rewrite the core phone apps it includes on the phone – camera, video player, calendar, etc. – but it does not have many apps or services beyond that.
The LG WING
The first Project Explorer phone is LG WING, a vertical bar phone that swivels up into a “T” shape, revealing another 3.9” display hiding underneath. The WING is on the thick (10.9mm) and heavy (260g) side for a phone, but not excessively so, and it can be used like any other phone in single-screen vertical mode. It has a 6.8” P-OLED display with 395ppi (though at a standard 60Hz rate), a respectable Snapdragon 765G processor, a 4000mAh battery, and 5G. The fact that you can pretend it is just a typical large smartphone makes the WING less risky for potential purchasers. LG further silences many objections by somehow managing to engineer better-than-most-phones durability: LG WING is Mil-STD-810D rated across nine different categories and IP54 rated for water resistance. However, the design adds cost, heft, and complexity. Unlike the Dual Screen case, consumers can’t ever leave that additional display behind, so those who don’t think that they will use it are not likely to buy it.
LG sketched out several use cases where the dual-screen T-shape WING might make sense, including media plus media controls, navigation plus calling, watching media plus social networking, editing video with tools on the second screen, or gaming and recording. LG WING supports creating app pairs that can launch together, a common approach for dual screen devices that Microsoft and Samsung use on the Surface Duo and Galaxy Z Fold 2, respectively. Perhaps most intriguing, LG has included a gimbal mode for recording shake-free video. A full suite of main cameras are on the back panel, and a pop-up selfie camera is included for narcissists to use no matter what orientation the front display is in.
The smartest decision LG made was not in the specific scenarios it chose but in how it launched. Many product launches take a break from company executive monologues with a quick clip from a YouTuber, photographer, or celebrity endorsement. These generally are not terribly credible; professional photographers can take good photos on a shoebox camera, and its almost a cliché that celebrities are caught using an iPhone instead of whatever product they are the ambassador for. The LG WING debut was entirely presented by a handful of influencers and content creators, not LG product or marketing managers. While LG’s PR agency certainly had a heavy hand in the script, it turns out that people who describe devices or lifestyle decisions on camera for a living are good at it, and LG should continue with this approach going forward.
While LG WING may seem like an experimental device, it is nearing production – some reviewers have gotten “first look” units already (Techsponential is expecting a production version soon). LG should also be commended for getting extensive carrier distribution. LG does not typically sell its phones direct or unlocked in the U.S., choosing to prioritize its carrier relationships, but having all three U.S. national carriers offer an unconventional form factor at launch is impressive.
[Update 9/29/20: Verizon is the first U.S. carrier to offer the LG WING, with mmWave 5G, priced at $1,000, though trade-ins and port-in promotions can bring that down to free. Preorders start on October 1 and it will become available October 15. If AT&T and T-Mobile offer the LG WING with just sub-6 5G, it is likely to cost around $100 less. Even at $1,000, LG is severely undercutting other new form factor devices like Microsoft’s Surface Duo ($1400), Motorola’s razr 5G ($1400), Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5G ($1450), or Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 2 ($2000). However, this is still in early adopter/super-premium pricing territory.]
*LG first tried curved phones back in 2013 with the G Flex; it even got a sequel thanks to AT&T’s willingness to back almost anything in the hopes of discovering the next iPhone. However, without any clear consumer benefit, curved phones did not sell and LG abandoned the idea.
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LG Wing Key Specs
Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 765G 5G Mobile Platform integrated with Snapdragon X52 5G Modem-RF System
Display:
- Main Screen: 6.8-inch 20.5:9 FHD+ P-OLED FullVision (2,460 x 1,080 / 395ppi)
- Second Screen: 3.9-inch 1.15:1 G-OLED (1,240 x 1,080 / 419ppi)Memory: 8GB RAM, 256GB internal storage, microSD (up to 2TB)
Camera:
Rear: Ultra High Resolution (64MP Standard 4 (F1.8 / 78°/ 0.8µm) / 13MP Ultra Wide (F1.9 / 117° / 1.0µm) / 12MP Ultra Wide Big Pixel (F2.2 / 120° / 1.4µm)
Front: 32MP Standard 5 (F1.9 / 79.6° / 0.8µm)
Gimbal motion camera, front pop-up camera, hexa motion stabilizer, dual recording mode
4,000mAh battery, Qualcomm Quick Charge 4.0+, wireless charging
Android 10.0
Dimensions: 169.5 x 74.5 x 10.9 mm; 260g
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a, b, g, n, ac / Bluetooth 5.1 / NFC / USB Type-C (USB 3.1 Gen 1 Compatible)
Colors: Aurora Gray / Illusion Sky6
In-Display Fingerprint Sensor
LG Wing Additional Press Kit Photos
Originally published Sept 18, 2020
Updated Sept 29, 2020 with initial U.S. carrier pricing and availability