Remember LG’s Optimus VU, and the VU 2, and the VU 3? Wait, how could you forget such an innovative device? The Optimus VU was announced back in 2012 during Mobile World Congress and at the time it was to be a South Korea-exclusive, but it did end up heading to Verizon as the LG Intuition, which didn’t turn out to be intuitive and unsurprisingly didn’t sell overly well. The VU line has been one of the quirkier devices that LG has on offer, with its 4:3 aspect ration making it hold in one hand and just plain bizarre. Still, it was an interesting device nonetheless and while it didn’t give Samsung’s Galaxy Note the competition LG hoped it would, we can argue it gave birth to the G Pro line.
Now, it’s rumored that LG might have something in the works to replace the VU line, tentatively dubbed the G Stylus. According to a fairly vague tweet from @evleaks, LG could be looking to replace the VU line with a new brand and a new addition to the G family. The ‘stylus’ part of the name would be a pretty clear shot across Samsung’s bow. A device from LG with a stylus would be done to compete with the Galaxy Note line, let’s just hope that they don’t go with a 4:3 ratio once again – it’s not 1994 any more LG.
The phablet category was pretty much created by Samsung and the Galaxy Note line and while there’s a fairly wide variety of larger devices on the market these days, none of them come close to the features and performance on offer from Samsung. If LG seriously want to give Samsung something to worry about, they’ll have to pull out a lot of the stops and put together a powerful device. Not to mention marketing, in South Korea the Galaxy Note line is super-popular for the drawing of characters and here in the West the Galaxy Note is instantly recognizable as one of the most powerful devices on shelves.