Yesterday, LG announced its move to shut down the phone business. The company was known for making bold moves but not sticking to them – whether it be modular phones with the LG G5 or flexible displays with the G Flex series. But it did leave its mark on a niche set of consumers.

While the latest development is a piece of miserable news for the fans, LG has left more people heart-wrecked than many would have imagined. The company’s legacy extends to hobbyist cinema as it did more for cinematographers and video content creators than any other mobile manufacturer in its time with the V series.

I posted the news of LG Mobile’s demise on my Instagram story, which received several replies from heart-broken fans. One of them is Akshay Dsilva, who recalled his time with several LG phones and deep-dived into what made them different for people like him. Akshay is a freelance cinematographer and filmmaker, and LG’s V series offered something to him that no other phone in the segment did at that time.

LG's V series was tuned for hobbyist cinematographers

“The V series lineup was solely made for content creators,” he recalls. For the unaware, LG offered manual controls in the video recorder, and it was a “game-changer” for video hobbyist filmmakers. The LG V20 offered flexibility in terms of bitrates, frame rates, audio output tweaking, and more. “It was just insane,” said Akshay remembering the number of useful features offered by LG in the V series. “It pretty much introduced me to the world of Cinematography,” he added, “the moment I would turn on the camera, it would be Manual mode.”

The company offered a set of manual features including audio settings where you could set the file type, bit depth, and sampling rate – a feature no other manufacturer offered at that point in time. The microphones were another top-notch part of the V series, which offered superior quality. Plus, LG provided the headphone jack with additions like DAC that supported RAW audio formats – a blessing for hobbyist filmmakers and cinematographers.

Sony and other manufacturers followed suit with their take on manual video recorder but it was LG that introduced many wanna-be filmmakers to the world of cinematography with its V series.

Even though LG had its flaws, it was different. It tried doing things that no other manufacturer did. Some stuck, some didn’t. For instance, the modularity concept of the LG G5 didn’t last a year but the company guided the way when it came to dual rear camera setups with ultra-wide-angle sensors.

However, that wasn’t enough to keep the boat afloat as LG Mobile’s business failed to turn a profit for several years in a row leading to the shutting down of the mobile business altogether.

You will be remembered, LG!