Back at the end of October you might remember it was reported LG had unveiled their first attempt at an application processor (AP). This was not particular breaking news as it had been known for some time that LG were indeed planning on entering the chipset market. In fact, they are not the only ones with companies like Samsung And Huawei also trying to get in on this action. That said, the last week of October was LG’s time as they released what we now know to be NUCLUN. Round about the same time LG also unveiled a new smartphone dubbed the LG G3 Screen. As you can probably guess, this was kind of a bigger version of the LG G3. In short, a G3 with a screen. The other big selling point of the G3 Screen was that it was the first device to come loaded with LG’s NUCLUN.
However, as we roll on towards the six-weeks-since-launch marker, the latest news coming in is not so welcoming for either the G3 Screen or NUCLUN. According to reports coming from Asia, it seems the G3 Screen has performed extremely poorly against expectations. So what’s with the poor sales? Well, firstly it is worth noting that the G3 Screen was rather expensive when you compared it to other similar spec devices. That said, anonymous industry sources are claiming that the real culprit behind the poor sales is the LG processor. It seems it is all NUCLUNs fault. Again, according to the sources this is because the processor is “one generation” behind others being released by Chinese companies like Huawei or the more well-known MediaTek line.
If this is the case, this will be a great disappointment for LG. The South Korean tech company has reportedly spent close to $180 million on developing this processor (not to mention two years worth of time). However, maybe that is the problem. For a first attempt maybe LG just have not got the product right. Either way, some of the faults being noted include downclocking speed while under high operating temperatures. This results in rather sluggish performance all round. It is worth noting that these comments are a little premature. It is actually possible that it might be the enlarged G3 Screen causing the problems. Until the processor is more widely used in other devices and we have comparable data to crunch, nothing for sure can be ruled out. For now though, it sounds like the new LG processor is unlikely to be as warmly received as the LG G3 was. What do you think? Is the processor the problem? Let us know.