LG Electronics Inc said it will begin selling a new curved smartphone next week. Undoubtedly one of the most interesting smartphones announced at CES 2015, LG’s G Flex 2 will be officially released on January 30 in South Korea – which, of course, will become the first market to get the new handset. While we already knew that the G Flex 2 would be available in Korea by the end of the month. But G Flex 2 international launch time is not provided yet by the LG Electronics Inc. Its latest effort is to bring the curve to a mass market in South Korea and to expand the use of curved screens as a way of differentiating its smartphones from those of competitors.
Curved screens are a way of differentiating high smartphones that have come to share many similar features such as high resolution displays and powerful cameras. When LG launched its first version of a curved smartphone in 2013, it was a hollow product. The phone features a 5.5-inch screen curved from top to bottom. In an improvement from its predecessor, the phone’s self-healing back can repair scratches in seconds rather than minutes. LG said both the screen and the body are tougher to shocks than other phones.
The G Flex 2 is LG’s first handset to feature Qualcomm’s 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor, as well as the company’s first device to run Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. The G Flex 2 has the same form element of the original G Flex, though it’s smaller, thanks to the fact that it sports a 5.5-inch 1080p display. The new handset features a self-healing back cover, 16 and 32 GB internal memory, which can be expandable via external sd card,13 MP rear camera wit laser auto-focus, a 2.1 MP front-facing camera, and a 3000 mAh battery. It looks like the Korean G Flex 2 has only 2 GB of RAM, instead of 3 GB like the international variant.
Executive vice president Cho Sung-ha said that the company expects sales of the G Flex 2 to be superior to its predecessor. LG did not implement some of the latest technologies for the G Flex 2, such as quantum dot displays, even though it has a full high-definition screen.
After hitting shelves in South Korea, the G Flex 2 will be available around the world – including in the US, where AT&T, Sprint and US Cellular are all getting ready to sell it. LG’s hometown competitor, Samsung is also investing with curved screens. Last year, Samsung has just announced the Galaxy Note 4 Edge, which consists of screen on its curved edge that displays information.
