attention to detail becomes a daily battle

We were thrilled when LG signed on to bring our All in One into their product line.   This would be their flagship product in the desktop market (previously they were competing with Samsung on mobile, but had nothing to offer in contrast to Samsung's desktop products).   Shortly after CES, our three companies (Intel, LG and Quanta) got together to begin working on the production path for the LG V300.   It was a very rewarding experience to begin working with LG, engaging in discussions with them about their customers and business goals for the project.   What I did not expect, however, were the complexities involved in driving design intent during the tooling phase.   The above photos show the first run PVT  (Production Validation Test) units - complete with warped parts, hand-painted lenses and parting lines which appear to have been gnawed upon by chipmunks prior to delivery.

On top of that, LG marketing had made some decisions about materials and color that presented some new challenges.   They opted for a opalescent white paint (which emits a gaudy rainbow hue when looking at it from various angles) with silver accents...more consistent with the LG design language and the tastes of the Korean market.   They were right about all of this, the product was a great success in Korea, but gone was the carbon color scheme which worked so well to dress the vents and IO in the back and worked to reduce the visual effect of parting lines.  

I was also rather disappointed to see that rubber feet had been added to the base of the system...when the design intent called for the entire bottom of the system to be rubber.  Suddenly the additional bottom panel (shown now in silver) felt unnecessary, when it was once an elegant solution for assembling the base and offering a stable footprint at the same time.