While Mobile World Congress doesn't technically start until Monday, February 27, the day before is typically a busy one anyway. A variety of different companies take the day before to announce their big, flagship products. That includes LG, Huawei, Samsung, and Motorola this year. The rest of the trade show will be whatever else surfaces to the top of the news cycle, as is par for the course for most of these trade shows.
I think it's safe to say that when it comes to our flagship smartphones, we expect a level of quality from companies like LG and Motorola, and a growing amount of expectations for companies like Huawei. The easiest way to get a lot of press coverage is to make a bad phone, or a phone that bucks so many trends, but fails to actually land any of those crazy tricks.
LG discovered that last year, with the release of the LG G5.
The company doubled down on the modular craze that wasn't really taking off. Modular design was certainly in the news quite a bit, from Google's Project Ara, to Motorola rumors (which eventually became fact), but, as consumers showed the world, it wasn't really anything to write home about. Or spend money on.
So, while the Life's Good crew made big claims about modular longevity for its official accessories, the company changed strategies. The LG G6 was quickly revealed to be getting rid of the modular design, and LG made it perfectly well known that they were going with a more traditional design with the G6.
The results, now that the G6 is official, look super promising. LG dropped the gimmicks, and created a solid smartphone. That's a good thing, even if LG isn't your cup of tea, or the G6 isn't on your radar. LG has made a noteworthy flagship in early 2017, and hopefully it does well for the company.
And then there's Samsung, teasing a future announcement date for the Galaxy S8, that company's upcoming flagship. Samsung is teasing a smartphone that will change the way we look at phones, right from the hardware perspective, which is certainly a bold claim -- and one I can't wait to see come to fruition. So while LG made a phone that does certainly whittle down the bezels a bit, Samsung is looking to rebound from a terrible late-2016, and doing so with what is appearing to be a pretty exciting design.
I think there's plenty of excitement swirling around both devices, but I can't help but wonder if any kind of lead for the LG G6 is a good thing. Of course, right now, we don't know anything about a release date or pricing. But it would seem logical that LG would want to get the G6 out as soon as it can, and with a leading gap between its own flagship and the Galaxy S8 that could launch globally in the middle part of April.
Will it matter? That's what I want to hear from you. Do you think if LG can get a head start on the Galaxy S8, will it work out in LG's favor? Or is Samsung's clout, and the impending arrival of its flagship, enough to make potential G6 buyers wait and see? Let me know!