We first saw the curved display with Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, but LG has just upped the ante with their just announced LG G Flex. We’d seen the curved screen before, but now we’ve got an announcement, specs, press pics- the whole nine yards.
Why the curved screen? For starters it looks awesome and stylistically sets LG apart from the competition, but there are some practical purposes for the curved display as well:
- Increased comfort due to phone curving more naturally from your ear to your mouth
- Sound level increase of 3dB due to microphone having closer proximity to your mouth
- Better grip
- Increased comfort when store in back pocket.
Our own unscientific research shows that about 9% of smartphone users carry their phone in their back pocket – I’m one of them – and I can imagine this percentage will increase due to the 6-inch display and added comfort.
Potential concerns about the drastically curved screen would include how it responds better or worse to being dropped and resting on a flat surface. I also wonder if the multimedia viewing and gaming experience will be improved, hindered, or unaltered. Time will tell, but Koreans will find out first: it’s launching their in November and while the G Flex will be made available in other regions afterwards, no announcements have been made in that regard.
Here’s a quick rundown of the LG G Flex specs:
- 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM 8974)
- GPU: Adreno 330, 450MHz
- 6-inch screen
- HD resolution (1280 x 720), Curved P-OLED (Real RGB)
- 2GB RAM
- 32GB Storage
- 13.0MP rear camera
- 2.1MP front camera
- 3,500mAh battery
- Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2
- Bluetooth 4.0
- USB 3.0
- WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
- NFC
Apparently LG had to pull some pretty neat tricks to create a curved battery as well, but since the battery is embedded, we’re unlikely to get a look until someone cracks it open.
All this curved goodness fits in a frame that’s only 160.5 x 81.6 x 7.9/8.7mm and weighs just 177g. The variation from 7.9 to 8.7mm is of course due to the curved display.
G Flex Got Back
Another unique feature of the LG G Flex is that there are no buttons on the sides of the device, where you would typically find the power button, volume rocker, camera button and so forth. These have been relocated to the rear of the device and propped up with some added functionality.
Thus is also the case with the LG G2 and the manufacturer says that it reduces accidental button presses and makes adjusting volume while in a call much easier. There is also a rear LED that acts as a countdown timer for the camera and when you receive several missed calls from the same number consecutively, it will blink red to notify you of a potential urgent situation (or clingy significant other).
Here’s a claim that I’m sure reviewers will put to the drop test: a self-healing back cover.
The elastic coating has the ability to recover from the daily wear-and-tear scratches and nicks that un-cased smartphones are likely to receive, keeping the G Flex looking newer longer.
Lock screen innovations, face detection, and dual window multi-tasking mode are also invited to the party.
The LG G Flex has only been announced in the Titan Silver color, and just to remind you, these specs could certainly change based on geography.
The specs are certainly solid but the main question here is what do you think of the curved display?
Take Our Poll Head on over to our brand new LG G Flex Forums!
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