LG ‘Bootloop’ Lawsuit Settlement: $425 in Cash or $700 Rebate

LG has been fighting a losing battle with Samsung in the mobile space over the last few years, and part of LG’s problem might be the long-term reliability of its phones. Owners of the LG G4, V10, V20, Nexus 5X, and G5 filed a class-action lawsuit against the company last year, and the parties have apparently reached an agreement. LG will offer up to $425 in cash or $700 toward the purchase of a new LG phone.

LG’s reliability issues became apparent back in 2015 with the release of the G4. This phone started strong, but owners reported a startlingly high incident of failure after using it for several months. The “bootloop” issue simply means the phone restarts itself and never makes it into the Android OS. It just reboots again and again, making it impossible to recover your data.

There was no way for users to repair the phone once it bootlooped—the only recourse was to send the phone to LG for repair. According to LG, loose connections between internal components caused the bootlooping. It didn’t offer specifics, but a faulty connection to the RAM or power supply could cause the failure to fully reboot. Swapping in a new main system board fixes that, but these boards would eventually fail as well.

LG didn’t recognize the issue at first and was inconsistent with how it handled warranty claims. That only served to upset owners of the G4. The reboot issues persisted as LG released more phones. Even the Google-designed Nexus 5X suffered from bootloops because LG manufactured it.

The class-action lawsuit went to arbitration last summer, and now the agreement is done. Class members can get a $425 cash payment, which is more than the cost of the Nexus 5X and a significant chunk of the other phones’ original price tags. Alternatively, owners can get a $700 credit toward the purchase of a new LG phone. That would cover all of a G6 or most of a V30, neither of which appear to have the bootloop issue. Although, some class members probably want nothing more to do with LG and will just take the cash.

With a total of five phones included in the lawsuit (all of LG’s major 2015 and 2016 devices), LG is potentially on the hook for a big bill. It’s newer phones have not been known to run into bootloops like the older ones, so hopefully this settlement puts the LG bootloop issue to bed.