Last summer, LG faced a class action lawsuit over bootloop issues with its G4, V10, V20, Nexus 5X, and G5 smartphones. The lawsuit reached a settlement today, with LG offering afflicted device owners in the suit either $425 in cash or a $700 rebate toward a future LG device, according to Android Police. The issue, related to manufacturing defects on LG’s end, meant some owners of those devices were left with inoperable phones or phones that were stuck in a never-ending reboot cycle, hence the bootloop name.
If you’re a class member, you’ve either been contacted by the firm representing the class action suit or will be in the next couple of days to file a claim before February 12th. If you didn’t join the class already, unfortunately you’re out of luck and won’t be able to receive the settlement.
Still, it’s one of the larger settlements we’ve seen for a suit like this against a phone company, and it’s nice to see that LG is making some (legally enforced) amends to customers.
Comments
This is the first class action I’ve seen with a useful and proportional payout. Hopefully LG is as vigilant about PCB/solder integrity as Samsung is about battery safety post-Note 7.
By John Ca on 01.31.18 6:07pm
You cannot dump safety and reboots/bricking into the same category. LG phones have never been banned from commercial airliners by the FAA
By pantyinspector on 01.31.18 8:11pm
No, but the lack of proper design and testing affected both manufacturers – that’s what John is referring to…and as can be seen with LG here (look at the models, many consecutive year over year) – they didn’t fix it after they saw the problem.
It’s a good thing Google extended the warranty on the Pixel 2 XL (made by these guys) to 2 years.
By SasparillaFizz on 01.31.18 9:50pm
Great. It happened to both my wife and I, but we were never contacted. My phone was replaced by Google, so was hers. Then it happened again on her replacement and she got it replaced through LG. THEN it happened again to her replacement from LG and she’s now using my old 5x which is probably on borrowed time.
By trent steel on 01.31.18 6:12pm
Same, never contacted.
By CowScueezer on 01.31.18 7:51pm
How is a law firm supposed to know who has a particular phone? Telecoms can’t just hand out user data.
By vroomvroomimabroom on 01.31.18 8:07pm
I was somehow contacted about a VitaMix class action settlement without ever volunteering. I wasn’t even contacted until after the settlement. Now I get $75. Not sure why this is any different.
By shabanga on 01.31.18 10:27pm
I have been contacted for several class actions, I have no idea how they found out I had bought the items as I had not signed up for any class actions. Including the nvidia gtx 970, redbull, 23andme, a stick of DRAM I bought in like 2007 at a computer expo for cash. This really irks me because we had 3 G4s and a Nexus 5X.
By Tyler Watkins on 02.01.18 1:25pm
Also never contacted
By Drachen on 01.31.18 8:11pm
Was this class action suit reported on previously? This is the first I’m hearing of it, and I had done plenty of Googling on the subject for two useless phones. Now I get nothing? Well, that sucks.
By cubbance on 01.31.18 6:23pm
Never seen an article on it but the issues been discussed in the comments a bunch of times. That’s the only reason I’ve heard of the issue.
By Stone Cold Dan Quinn on 01.31.18 6:47pm
I just feel the gut dropping horror of the engineers who watched this delayed effect bug unfold into a massive disaster.
That thing they didn’t consider.
That they didn’t think to test for.
And can’t be fixed by a software update.
By gregorian on 01.31.18 6:31pm
That thing they kept telling the PO about and it never made it onto the backlog.
By Just_Some_Nobody on 01.31.18 9:48pm
This, it was an issue that appeared year over year and wasn’t addressed.
By SasparillaFizz on 01.31.18 9:51pm
Maybe it was reported once or twice, but I never ever heard of these issues. Imagine that happened to iPhones. We would still be talking about it every everyday.
By I am not Spartacus on 01.31.18 6:49pm
More like people didn’t give a damn because the 5X was a mediocre piece of hardware with a major defect that could cause if to fart out on the user roughly a few weeks before its probable projected lifespan hit its limit, and a couple of months before Google announced a replacement phone (Pixel) good enough to make people forget they ever had to deal with that uncomfortable, poorly-lit, plastic monstrosity.
By Eric Berggren on 01.31.18 7:39pm
Regardless of your thoughts on the 5x (I thought it a fantastic phone bootlooping aside, esp for the price), this same problem was occuring in their flagship G Flex and G4 phones prior to the 5x even shipping.
By shabanga on 01.31.18 10:29pm
Your reply doesn’t much answer the comment you are replying to, but it totally is off base on how some people feel (source the comments above you) about being affected by this problem (myself included) and not caring about losing their hard-earned money when the phone "farts out."
PS: I thought the 5X was great.
PPS: Plastic is the superior material to metal and glass. Glass and metal don’t belong on a phone: slippery cold block signals of shatter.
By shakalakaboom on 02.01.18 3:23am
Sure, compare a problem that affects <1% of people to an iPhone problem that would affect many more. That makes sense. /s
You should rather compare it to The Samsung battery issue. That got more coverage than any other issue in smartphone history, and rightfully so, because it affected a lot more people.
By Doctor Ferdinand on 01.31.18 7:41pm
If it happened to my iPhone, I would walk a quarter mile to a store and swap it out, and then probably stop talking about it a month later.
By willieche on 01.31.18 7:42pm
Really? Does Apple just give free replacements for out of warranty devices? If so I seriously need to reconsider my choice of device.
By shabanga on 01.31.18 10:30pm
No, Apple ignores the problems until class-action like touchscreen problems, bumpergate, YouTubers start bending phones.
That or they just start throttling your phone without telling you.
By shakalakaboom on 02.01.18 3:26am
what about iPhone 4, They got to pay only $15, why LG should pay $700 ??
Not defending LG or it seems unfair to me, sure bootloop is worse and the phone is bricked but so is iPhone 4’s signal & iPhone 6’s bendgate Both permanent.
No hate just my 2 cents.
By Muhammad Muayad on 01.31.18 7:09pm
Bendgate is one of those things only those on the opposite team even remember or thought was a thing. Kinda like Benghazi.
By willieche on 01.31.18 7:47pm
Nope. It was a real thing and I know a few people have had it happen to them. My cousin for example https://i.imgur.com/fm4cmA0.jpg
By Supraman21 on 02.01.18 8:28am