Curved Mobile: The LG G Flex

G Flex was released last Monday to launch in South Korea only for November. Future markets are still yet to be announced. The company designed LG G Flex as a curbed mobile device to enhance sound quality for users. G Flex uses a flexible plastic OLED which is designed as a curved 6-inch display. The handset reduces the microphone distance by leveraging the curvature designed arc. LG aims to offer consumers an IMAX like experience.

The device operates on Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2. The LG G Flex phablet is six-inches with a 1280x720p Plastic OLED screen. G Flex has Snapdragon 800 processor for performance with 450MHz Adreno 330 GPU. The smartphone has a powerful 3,500mAh battery. Built in is a 13-megapixel front facing camera and 2.1 megapixel camera rear.

LG Electronics

LG touts its “self healing” technology as one of its best features for the LG G Flex device. The handset has a protective film on the back cover. The smartphone can rid of any scratches on the phone within minutes and look new for longer. The technology which is highly sustainable uses an elastic coating. The back only repairs scratches but not for the screen. LG is the first company to introduce the “self healing” coating to smartphones.

Key Specifications (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 (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: TDMB / Hi-Fi 24bit, 192kHz Playback

*LG Electronics

Curved mobile is still a niche market. The trend in curved smartphones offers users a more comfortable feel and grip versus traditional models. The curbed displays are currently offered for large screen TVs from Samsung and LG. Manufacturing costs are still very high and the devices still lack high quality features.

Opportunities in flexible devices do have potential to transform the premium smartphone market however type of curbed mobile devices still pose challenges for the market. Integrating battery form, chip boards and many other components are still a work in progress for flexible devices. LG reported a $75 million operating loss last week from the handset division due to increased marketing costs for its smartphones in August.

The LG G Flex is the company’s latest device added to its G Series family. Building vendor relationships that support innovation will be crucial. LG’s growth forecast is driven by firmer sales of smartphones. Competitors such as Samsung a big threats. In the past quarter its rival shipped more phones than Apple, Nokia and LG combined. Smartwatch revenue growth has been at an all time high. About 1.2 million digital watches will be sold this year, generating $370 million in sales, states ABI Research. It is forecasted that sales may jump more than 20-fold by 2015.

Is LG Electronics poised to win the smartphone race?