LG’s turnaround appears to have completed with today’s earnings results. According to LG’s very own earnings announcement for the past quarter (2Q 2014), the company shipped 14.5 million smartphones, a record high for the company. This is primarily driven by the fact that LG finally knows how to not only make a great smartphone, but also how to market it and sell it to consumers, something they kind of lacked with previous phones like the LG Optimus G and the LG G2. Both the Optimus G and G2 were fantastic devices and pretty much owned the competition whenever they were introduced. However, with the G3, LG clearly learned their lessons from the Optimus G and G2 and were able to capitalize on those lessons to sell more smarphones than ever before. It also helps that LG is still the manufacturer for Google’s Nexus 5 which is still a quite popular phone.

LG has also learned quite a few lessons on how to make software and how not to ruin the Android operating system like some of their competitors have done (ahem, Samsung). So, when people take the LG G3 in their hands, they don’t feel like its a ‘slow’ phone relative to the others. LG’s decision to also go with a higher resolution display also helps the display look much sharper than the competition, which is a big factor when people are looking at a phone.

Obviously, $400 million in profit on $15 billion in revenue is nothing to run around the streets cheering about, as that is still a profit margin of less than 3%. However, it still reflects a 165% increase in profitability from the same period a year ago and is a result of stronger mobile and TV sales (LG’s profit numbers include all divisions together). The mobile unit alone, however, managed to pull in $3.5 billion in revenue and squeeze out about $83.4 million in profit. In fact, LG’s strongest business unit was their air conditioning and energy solutions company, which means that LG’s mobile and TV businesses still have a lot of room to improve upon, but clearly they’ve made some serious progress because $400 million in profit is still quite good.

This is a good turn around for LG’s mobile division and it will be interesting to see how they build on it after the G3, especially with Samsung and HTC following their every step. What I can tell you, though, is that LG is bringing some serious competition to Samsung and HTC and is forcing them to be more competitive on pricing as well. After all, the G3 actually launched at $99 on contract, forcing the Galaxy S5 and One M8 to also drop down to that price if they weren’t there already.

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Verizon’s new XLTE service is merely a new branding scheme for the company to promote their new 2×20 MHz AWS band of data service. As of right now, most users are on Verizon’s 700 MHz frequency which is slowly getting overcrowded, so naturally Verizon would want to deploy a second frequency (which they have available). They are doing this by utilizing their 1700 MHz frequency AWS block  (similar to what T-Mobile has) in a 2×20 MHz implementation which ultimately results in speeds at or exceeding 80 Mbps. Right now, on Verizon’s 2×10 MHz block in their 700 MHz spectrum block most users are getting around half that, at 40 Mbps or less. Some users are getting more, but not much more.

So, Verizon’s XLTE as of yesterday has launched in a few dozen cities on a handful of devices and you don’t have to do anything other than live in the right city and have the right phone in order to get these faster AWS speeds. We would name the exact cities, but there are literally too many to name in order to not just give you a list of like 50 or 60 cities. The link above will let you know if your city is on Verizon’s XLTE list or not. However, even if you’re in an XLTE area, you will still need to have an XLTE enabled device and those aren’t necessarily that common since they have to be newer devices with the right modems inside. A full list of devices can be found on Verizon’s website.

In terms of smartphones, you have the following phones:

iPhone 5S, LG G2, Nokia Lumia Icon, Samsung Galaxy S5, Droid Mini by Motorola, HTC One M8, Apple iPhone 5C, DROID Maxx by Motorola, Moto X, LG Lucid 3, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Samsung ATIV SE, HTC One Max, Samsung Galaxy S4, Blackberry Z30 and the Blackberry Q10

if you have a Verizon LTE tablet you need to have the following tablets to have XLTE service:

LG G Pad 8.3 LTE, Apple iPad Air, Apple iPad Mini, Samsung Galaxy tab 2, Samsung Galaxy Note Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

And if you have a Verizon hotspot or USB modem you need to have  the following devices:
Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 5510L, Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MHS291L and the Verizon 4G LTE USB Modem UML295

While we haven’t had a chance to test these speeds quite yet, we’ll be sure to report back to you relatively soon with our Verizon HTC One M8 (which is capable of XLTE) and since we’re usually between San Diego and San Francisco, both markets are capable of supporting Verizon’s new XLTE service. Do keep in mind, however, that this is not LTE-Advanced, which is the next version of LTE service that is already running in places like Korea where they are able to get speeds in excess of 100 Mbps over commercially available devices. LTE-Advanced brings a whole host of features to smartphones, many of which are already inside of those phones, but the networks are simply not ready for quite yet. We know that Verizon is already working on their LTE-Advanced network and that this is likely a step forward in that direction in order to help them prepare for the jump.

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Verizon’s new XLTE service is merely a new branding scheme for the company to promote their new 2×20 MHz AWS band of data service. As of right now, most users are on Verizon’s 700 MHz frequency which is slowly getting overcrowded, so naturally Verizon would want to deploy a second frequency (which they have available). They are doing this by utilizing their 1700 MHz frequency AWS block  (similar to what T-Mobile has) in a 2×20 MHz implementation which ultimately results in speeds at or exceeding 80 Mbps. Right now, on Verizon’s 2×10 MHz block in their 700 MHz spectrum block most users are getting around half that, at 40 Mbps or less. Some users are getting more, but not much more.

So, Verizon’s XLTE as of yesterday has launched in a few dozen cities on a handful of devices and you don’t have to do anything other than live in the right city and have the right phone in order to get these faster AWS speeds. We would name the exact cities, but there are literally too many to name in order to not just give you a list of like 50 or 60 cities. The link above will let you know if your city is on Verizon’s XLTE list or not. However, even if you’re in an XLTE area, you will still need to have an XLTE enabled device and those aren’t necessarily that common since they have to be newer devices with the right modems inside. A full list of devices can be found on Verizon’s website.

In terms of smartphones, you have the following phones:

iPhone 5S, LG G2, Nokia Lumia Icon, Samsung Galaxy S5, Droid Mini by Motorola, HTC One M8, Apple iPhone 5C, DROID Maxx by Motorola, Moto X, LG Lucid 3, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Samsung ATIV SE, HTC One Max, Samsung Galaxy S4, Blackberry Z30 and the Blackberry Q10

if you have a Verizon LTE tablet you need to have the following tablets to have XLTE service:

LG G Pad 8.3 LTE, Apple iPad Air, Apple iPad Mini, Samsung Galaxy tab 2, Samsung Galaxy Note Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

And if you have a Verizon hotspot or USB modem you need to have  the following devices:
Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MiFi 5510L, Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot MHS291L and the Verizon 4G LTE USB Modem UML295

While we haven’t had a chance to test these speeds quite yet, we’ll be sure to report back to you relatively soon with our Verizon HTC One M8 (which is capable of XLTE) and since we’re usually between San Diego and San Francisco, both markets are capable of supporting Verizon’s new XLTE service. Do keep in mind, however, that this is not LTE-Advanced, which is the next version of LTE service that is already running in places like Korea where they are able to get speeds in excess of 100 Mbps over commercially available devices. LTE-Advanced brings a whole host of features to smartphones, many of which are already inside of those phones, but the networks are simply not ready for quite yet. We know that Verizon is already working on their LTE-Advanced network and that this is likely a step forward in that direction in order to help them prepare for the jump.

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It seems as though May is going to be a pretty busy month in the smartphone industry, much like April was. This month we saw the Launch of the HTC One M8 as well as the Samsung Galaxy S5, after their announcements in the months before. Now, it appears to be Motorola’s and LG’s turn as Motorola is rumored to be announcing the Moto E and Moto X+1 on May 13th and LG is expected to launch the LG G3 on the 27th, an update to the G2 from last year. The G2 last year was a fantastic phone and really cemented LG’s platform in a way that got Google to borrow from it for the Nexus 5, which is made by LG for Google. The G2 is actually a renaming of the original line’s naming as the Optimus G series, but LG had already made an Optimus G2 phone, so they dropped the Optimus name and now we’re coming up on the G3.

LG G3 Launch Invitation

With LG’s G3, the expectations have mostly been that the company will launch a phone in the 5-5.5″ ballpark since the LG G2 is already a 5.2″ nearly bezel-less phone. The expectation is that LG will continue this trend with the G3, which means no buttons on the sides of the phone and all of the buttons on the back of the phone. The big deal about the G3, however, is that it is rumored to be bringing a 2560 x 1440 (or 2560 x 1600) resolution display to the smartphone formfactor which is eagerly awaiting a phone with that kind of resolution from a mainstream manufacturer. OPPO’s Find 7 is supposed to have a 2560 x 1440 display, but that phone isn’t quite available yet in most markets and it isn’t necessarily a mainstream/tier 1 manufacturer. It will probably have a pretty impressive camera like the G2 did and it will probably have an even bigger battery than the G2 did, which was already a massive 3100 mAh lithium polymer battery. I don’t really know what LG can do that’ll be considered innovative outside of the new display, but anything they introduce should be received well, even if their phone does come a bit later than Samsung’s and HTC’s. I think the 2560 x 1440 resolution is worth waiting for, purely because of the quality of the display and because it may also mean a Snapdragon 805 as opposed to a Snapdragon 801.

Motorola Launch Invitation

In terms of Motorola’s announcement, the rumored devices that are expected to be announced are the Moto E and Moto X+1 which are essentially a new budget phone (Moto E) and a new flagship phone (Moto X+1). However, one must remember that Motorola is technically now a Lenovo division and this may affect where they try to position the Moto X+1 because frankly, the Moto X was overpriced for what it offered and as a result, I don’t think they sold as many as they had thought. Perhaps they’ll realize this with the new Moto X+1 and offer it at a lower price like the current Moto X is, at $299 tomorrow. Their business model should be to offer the bare experience at $299 and then to offer various premium experiences of that phone at $349, $399, $449 and $499, encouraging people to spend more money for a better looking phone but lure them with the base price. Heck, its what all the car manufacturers have been for decades.

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