LG today officially announced the G Flex, a 6-inch Android smartphone that curves to “follow the contour of the face” and features a “self-healing” back cover. 
Besides accommodating round heads and apparently fitting better into back pockets, the curved design enables some new UX tricks, too. QTheater allows users to draw back a curtain, cinema-style, to launch photos, videos and the YouTube app. Also, there’s a split-screen function for multi-tasking and a dynamic lock screen that changes depending on how the device is held.
Inside the curved shell, the G Flex sports a quad-core Snapdragon 800, a 13 MP rear camera, a 3,500 mAh battery and 2 GB of RAM along with 32 GB internal storage. On the outside, the G Flex features the same Rear Key as the LG G2.
The “self-healing” back cover refers to an elastic coating on the rear of the phone that will reportedly repair small nicks and scratches accrued through daily use.
LG dubbed the G Flex the first “real” curved smartphone in a clear knock on competitor Samsung’s Round, announced earlier this month. Both companies have unveiled curved TV displays and now smartphones, although Samsung’s Round features a concave curve from side to side rather than the top to bottom curvature of LG’s new handset.
LG plans to release the G Flex in Korea first beginning in November before announcing additional markets.
