It was only last week that we heard LG had begun mass production of flexible OLED smartphone displays, ready for a new breed of curved and bent smartphone. Unfortunately the company’s Korean rivals Samsung beat it to the punch, launching the Samsung Galaxy Round just days after LG’s own announcement.
Even before we knew that LG was making flexible screens on a big scale, we’d heard of a curved smartphone called the LG G Flex. That phone is expected to launch in November and today we’ve caught our first real glimpse of it, courtesy of Engadget.
Two leaked press renders show a very interesting phone which curves from top to bottom, with a concave running horizontally through the middle of the phone. This design is different to Samsung’s Galaxy Round, which curves the left and right edges outwards to leave a concave which runs vertically down the middle of the screen. We have to say, LG’s method is how we had envisioned curved smartphones in our heads before we’d really seen anything.
Just like Samsung’s Galaxy Round, the G Flex won’t be a phone which you can bend and twist unfortunately. Instead, the flexible OLED display is used to create a fixed curve shape in the casing, which to us looks as though it will allow the phone to hug the contours of your face whilst on a phone call in a really comfortable way.
Asides from its curvy nature we still know very little about the G Flex. The display will be a 6-inch OLED type and the phone will almost certainly run Android of some description – likely Jelly Bean 4.2.2 or 4.3 – but that’s currently all we know.
LG has a history of launching its breakthrough and experimental products in its homeland of Korea only, just as Samsung has done with the Galaxy Round, so we’re not holding our breath on a world launch. The full lowdown should be revealed next month however, so if you’re intrigued then keep an eye on the latest news throughout November for some unorthodox smartphone shapes.
