LG G Flex With A ‘Real’ Curve Announced; Samsung Galaxy Round Gets Company

Following a series of leaks over the past few days, LG Electronics (KRX:066570) finally unveiled its new LG G Flex on Monday, which the company claimed to be the “world’s first ‘real’ curved smartphone.”

According to the company, the LG G Flex, which is curved to follow the contours of a user's face, is the first device to offer such a design in the smartphone market. And, the device is said to incorporate new user experience features that take advantage of its curved form factor.

“The LG G Flex is the best representation yet of how a smartphone should be curved,” Jong-seok Park, president and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company, said in a statement. “The LG G Flex with its distinctive design, innovative hardware and consumer-centric UX represents the most significant development in the smartphone space since smartphone became part of our regular vocabulary.”

LG said that the phone’s curvature is optimized to suit the average face and to deliver improved voice and sound quality. The device’s curved design also offers a more comforting grip while offering a better viewing angle for watching videos or playing games.

The LG G Flex features a 6-inch flexible Plastic OLED screen (720p), which allows for a curve on the horizontal axis. The handset is between 7.9 and 8.7mm thick at various points and weighs 177 grams. The phone is powered by a 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, while other key specs include 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel camera and a 3,500 mAh battery.

According to LG, the LG G Flex features a “Self Healing” coating on the back cover -- an elastic coating -- which has the ability to recover from scratches and nicks quickly. The device comes with a “Dual Window” feature which divides the wide 6-inch screen into two separate windows to help multitasking.

In addition, the LG G Flex also features a “swing lock screen,” which moves the wallpaper on the lock screen depending on how the phone is held and produces different unlocking effects when the user touches different areas of the screen.

LG said that the G Flex will be available in Korea starting in November through all three major local carriers while availability in additional markets will be announced thereafter.

The G Flex is seen as LG’s move to catch up with its rival, Samsung (KRX:005935), which launched the Galaxy Round, the company’s first smartphone with a curved display, earlier this month.

Samsung’s Galaxy Round is 7.9mm thick, weighs 154g, and has a 2800mAh battery. The phone features a 13 megapixels camera and runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean atop 3GB of RAM and a 2.3GHz quad-core processor.

Here are the key specifications of the new LG G Flex (Korean Version):

Chipset: 2.26 GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm? Snapdragon 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

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 / Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac) / NFC

Color: Titan Silver