LG flexes its muscle, unveiling a curved phone, as it takes an apparent swype at SamsungSEOUL – Ambitious mobile maker LG unwrapped the G Flex, the first “real” curved smartphone in Korea today.
The 6-inch Plastic OLED (POLED) display curves to follow the contour of your face, with never seen before proprietary display and battery innovations, LG said in a statement.
LG G Flex has a quad-core processor, runs 4G, face detection and has an elastic coating to protect from wear-and-tear. It’s also the first mobile to have a “Self Healing” coating on the back cover, further protecting from wear-and-tear.
Dr. Jong-seok Park, CEO of LG Mobile hailed it “the most significant development in the smartphone space”.
In what appears to be a thinly veiled swipe at Samsung, which recently launched Round phone, also in its native Korea, he added:“the LG G Flex is the best representation yet of how a smartphone should be curved”.
It is the world’s largest POLED built on plastic substrates instead of glass, giving G Flex its flexibility, developed in collaboration with LG’s Display and Chem sister companies.
Its curvy properties also mean it fits more comfortably in a back pocket.
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The POLED display is brighter with the application of Real RGB, which contains all three sub-pixels – red, green and blue – in one.
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The curvy phone improves user experience – including better voice quality reducing the distance between mouth to microphone, and better viewing angles. In landscape mode, the plastic flexible display offers an ‘IMAX-like experience’ say its makers.
G Flex also sports the Rear Key as found on LG G2.
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Key Specs (Korean Version):
Chipset: 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm SnapdragonT 800 (MSM 8974)
GPU: Adreno 330, 450MHz – Display: 6-inch HD (1280 x 720), Curved P-OLED (Real RGB)
Memory: 2GB LP DDR3 RAM / 32GB eMMc
Camera: Rear 13.0MP / Front 2.1MP – Battery: 3,500mAh (embedded)
Operating System: Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2
Size: 160.5 x 81.6 x 7.9 – 8.7mm – Weight: 177g
Network: LTE-A / LTE / HSPA+ / GSM
Connectivity: BT 4.0 / USB 3.0 compatible / WiFi (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac) / NFC
Color: Titan Silver
Other new features include: QTheater- for quick access to photos, videos and YouTube from the lock screen. By touching the screen and dragging outward, the apps appear from drawn theater curtains.
Dual Window divides the 6-inch screen into two separate windows for more effective multitasking, and Face Detection Indicator. G Flex supports various music formats – MP3, CD quality or 24 bit/192kHz Hi-Fi playback.
“The LG G Flex with its distinctive design, innovative hardware and consumer-centric UX represents the most significant development in the smartphone space since smartphones became part of our regular vocabulary”, says LG Mobile CEO.
G Flex’s battery, which also curves, has a capacity of 3,500mAh, enough juice for more than a full day of use.
LG Australia are staying schtum on local availability, with no information available.
The LG Flex will be available in Korea starting in November through all three major local carriers.
