LG taking Viewty name way downmarket with GW300?

When we hear "Viewty," we think expansive touchscreens and ample, high-capability cameras. LG might be a little over-excited to capitalize on the brand's name recognition, though, because that uninteresting GW300 we showed you a little a while back -- the low-end portrait QWERTY handset with a 2 megapixel cam, quadband EDGE, and a meek QVGA display -- has apparently been slapped with a Viewty badge and quietly released in France with nary a peep out of LG's press offices. As best as we can tell, the company figures customers will stroll into the store, see the phone, think to themselves "holy [expletive], I can get a Viewty for [some ridiculously small amount of euro]?" and plunk down the cash -- but given how the GW300 looks nothing like its brand siblings, we can't picture that happening.

[derX Posted Aug 30th 2009 1:25PM]

Yeah, this is just ridiculous. LG was really developing a clear branding strategy to then screw it up. The first example of this is when they introduced the LG enV Touch that looks exactly like the Voyager line. But I guess this is what happens when a company just pumps out phones without putting much time or thought into them.

[carcomptoy Posted Aug 31st 2009 1:06AM]

There's actually a very good reason for the switch from Voyager to enV Touch, and it has to do with trademarks. Plantronics already has a "Voyager" line of headsets, and they didn't take lightly to LG selling handsets under the "Voyager" name as well.

Read: http://verizonvoyager.org/topics/rumors/lg-voyager-2-renamed-env-touch

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 30th 2009 5:18PM]

Is not true, this is the answer : http://www.david-tate.fr/La-France-seme-la-panique-USA-avec

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 30th 2009 6:01PM]

The device is displayed in all shops of Bouygues Telecom with the name LG Viewty GW300. It could be an error, but when I enter different shops in France this names hits my face every time. Strange, isn't it? It is not just a fault of one minor shop, but in that case it would be a mistake of an entire chain.