They do, or did, make phones. The predecessor to their current lineup used a high quality DAC and got reviewed in Stereophile. At the time I needed a new phone and I was interested in getting a quality portable music player. I was looking at the usual suspects such as Astell and Kern but I didn’t want to have to carry 2 portable devices , a separate headphone amp, etc. The LG played Hi Rez files, and because it’s Android you can store up to 2TB of files on the SD Card and not have to faff around with and external HD.
The screen is eye popping-the same OLED as LG TVs. And it’s fast-downloads virtually instantaneous. Camera was a huge improvement over the iPhone 6 that was my previous phone.
Biggest negative-BT pairing. Second biggest-try to find one. After the Sterephile review the Verizon people stared blankly when I asked about it. Eventually I procured one. I had the same salesman 2 years later when I got the new one and he said I was the only LG customer he ever had.
I did connect it to my preamp a few times by a mini cable to compare how it sounded to my regular components. It held its own but it obviously wasn’t going to compete against a $5K DAC and associated transports, and of course there is the inconvenience of having the phone tethered to your system.
I wonder why LG didn’t try to market it more in the audiophile community after the Stereophile review
