What is your perception of LG?

[Mr Peabody]

LG is sold in the mass market stores as a contender to major brands like Mits, Sony, JVC etc and as far as I've seen priced that way but I don't see the quality there. I had a Sony DVD player go bad after about 2 weeks of being out of the box and replaced it with an LG. I can't put my finger on it but it looks peculiar to me. The picture is clear but the coloration is closer to what I see on Apex or cheap DVD players rather than looking similar to the Sony it replaced. Also the Tv's I've seen displayed have had poor showing in comparison to the brands they compete with.

I was curious if anyone owned any LG electronics and what they thought of it in comparison to other major brands and how you see the brand in your own local market.

I have to say they were very upfront in the owners manual as to what the DVD players limitations were. They spell it out in black & white that their player will not upconvert copy protected DVD's and the HDMI will only output 2.0 audio, that's a first for me. I don't want to get off the subject but to be fair to LG I have contacted other manufacturers who have told me their players have the same limitations, so it's not just LG.

[topspeed]

I want to know as well Mr. P. I saw a LG DLP in GoodGuys that had an unbelievable picture. It was far better than the Mits sitting on either side of it. It could have been set to "kill," but as it was the cheaper set I wouldn't have thought they would do that (unless the commission rate is higher on LG).

[eisforelectronic]

all I know is they gave out flaslights at last years CES

[Eric Z]

I don't know too much about the specific products other than seeing them in Best Buy or Frys, however, the company profile looks pretty strong from reading BusinessWeek articles on them.

BW featured LG Electronics a few months ago and they had really good things to say about them. The article highlights some of the reasons LG is successful- they not only sell high-end products (first ever commercial 71 inch plasma TV) under their name, they also sell more economical products under Zenith- I think they bought Zenith in the mid-90s after Zenith was granted bankruptcy protection. The article also states how LG is now 3rd in sales in appliances only behind Whirlpool and Electrolux.

Obviously sales and size doesn't always equal great quality, but there can definitely be some type of correlation. They improved their quality control over the past years and reduced defects by a bunch and also cut costs. They've also been around since the 50s. It will be interesting to see how things work out for LG. It's sounds like they already have a huge customer base- to be third in appliance sales has to be pretty big.

I'm sure you can find more information on LG online, too. I know you probably weren't looking for a company profile, but I just remember reading the Asian addition of BW at work a little while back.

[edtyct]

Even though LG (a Korean Co.) reserved its own name for what was to be the higher-end products and Zenith for the more budget-oriented ones, in many cases the two product lines are remarkably similar, if not identical. LG's components, such as their tuner-DVR, plasmas, LCDs, and RPTVs have frequently been at the lower end of the price scale, and they have been creditable performers, if not world beaters. Generally, at this point you won't find LG manufacturing to videphile standards out of the box, but there's no reason why an LG on the floor at the big stores wouldn't have a bright, colorful picture that looked good next to anything else. Many people liked the early LG/Zenith DVI-equipped DVD players, though a lot of the first digital upconverters failed to distinguish PC from video standards, thereby crushing blacks on TVs, in addition to other problems.

Ed

[nick250]

A little off the thread, but I got a LG cell phone a few months ago. By far the best cell phone I have ever had. The audio quality is the same as a regular phone and the feature set is complete and easy to access. Also great battery life.

[topspeed]

Even though LG (a Korean Co.) reserved its own name for what was to be the higher-end products and Zenith for the more budget-oriented ones, in many cases the two product lines are remarkably similar, if not identical. LG's components, such as their tuner-DVR, plasmas, LCDs, and RPTVs have frequently been at the lower end of the price scale, and they have been creditable performers, if not world beaters. Generally, at this point you won't find LG manufacturing to videphile standards out of the box, but there's no reason why an LG on the floor at the big stores wouldn't have a bright, colorful picture that looked good next to anything else. Many people liked the early LG/Zenith DVI-equipped DVD players, though a lot of the first digital upconverters failed to distinguish PC from video standards, thereby crushing blacks on TVs, in addition to other problems.

Ed
I had always thought that LG was the old "Goldstar" label, but a salesperson at Goodguys told me they were in fact Dutch. Which is it?

[oliver kuo]

I had always thought that LG was the old "Goldstar" label, but a salesperson at Goodguys told me they were in fact Dutch. Which is it?

LG is a Korean brand. Goldstar was the old name, the name was changed from Goldstar to LG (Life's Good) in 1995. I don't know when LG and Zenith merged. LG makes a wide variety of products, many come from partnerships with other large conglomerates. IE: LG Microwaves are actually from a partnership with GE, most of LG's audio products come from their partnership with JBL, and most of their TFT LCD products are a result of their partnership with Phillips/Magnavox.

[edtyct]

It's become a very small world for almost all of the manufacturers these days, big or small. They can't get along without forging strategic and/or manufacturing alliances with each other. The Philips/Sony partnership is well known. But in the early days of plasma, Fujitsu used to supply materials to everyone from Sampo to Hitachi. Only Panasonic created its plasmas in-house. Now Hitachi has bought out 80% of its partnership with Fujitsu and made a new pact with Pansonic. And these are only the more conspicuous movements.

Ed

[Woochifer]

LG's kinda like the Korean equivalent of a Panasonic in that they make a huge variety of household electronics and appliances, and it seems that they're trying to position themselves in at least the middle part of the market. I didn't know that they used to be Goldstar. It would make sense though that they they're now trying to push their brand upscale. 20 years ago, it was Korean companies like Samsung, Hyundai, and Goldstar that were perceived as bottomfeeding junk, much the same way that the cheapest of the cheap products from China are perceived currently. Just look at how far Samsung has moved up in the past 10 years.

[Rob1956]

Just to confirm the above posting, LG is the former Goldstar. A lot of research was done to prove to themselves that Goldstar would hurt them if they kept the name. Many people thought of the Goldstar name as "cheap" such as Daewoo, MPX, Symphonic, Recoton,
etc.