Facts

LG Velvet 2 Pro leaks show what would have been LG's last hurrah

By JC Torres/

LG's exit from the smartphone market evoked mixed reactions. On the one hand, it wasn't exactly surprising given the company's ailing mobile business, but, on the other hand, it was still a sad fate to befall one of the former giants of that industry. Despite its best efforts, LG wasn't able to make its last phones a reality, including what would have been the world's first commercial rollable phone. It also canceled the more "normal" LG Velvet 2 Pro, codenamed LG Rainbow, which suddenly popped up out of nowhere to give LG fans a glimpse of what could or should have been.

There was no LG Velvet 2, of course, and this Velvet 2 Pro is almost a completely different beast from the first Velvet in design and specs. While the LG Velvet was pretty much a mid-range phone marketed as a premium handset, the LG Velvet 2 Pro is high-end inside and out. That includes a Snapdragon 888 5G with 8GB of RAM, and, like most high-end phones today, has no headphone jack anymore.

In terms of external appearances, the Velvet 2 Pro has also changed quite a bit. The phone shown in hands-on photos and one video reveals a punch-hole cutout rather than the previous waterdrop notch. The three cameras on its back are also now of equal sizes, so LG can hardly call it a Raindrop design anymore.

While the LG Velvet 2 Pro does look like a premium phone worthy of the company's name, one detail does reveal a potential problem that LG would have faced if it did launch the phone. Front Tron noted how the phone ran considerably hotter than an equivalent Galaxy S21+. That said, the phone the tipster got may have just been a pre-release model with bugs and issues that would have been sorted out before launch.

While these LG Velvet 2 Pro leaks could make some LG faithful dream of better days, it may also highlight one of the causes of LG's mobile downfall. Had it launched the phone, it would have had trouble finding a strong position in the market when facing the likes of Samsung, OPPO, OnePlus, and Xiaomi. It just would have been another forgettable option in an already crowded market and would have brought the company more expenses than profits.

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