Apr 20, 2024 | Updated: 11:35 AM EDT
Jan 16, 2014 04:22 PM EST
The LG G Flex has been officially announced to be coming to Sprint’s retail and online stores. The LG G Flex is the interesting curved, flexible display smartphone that has been shown to have self-healing capabilities and is reputed to be unbreakable. The LG G Flex is also rather large, 6-inches making it one of the biggest smartphones on the market. The LG G Flex will be in Sprint stores starting February 7 while those who pre-order the device (HERE) will get on January 31. The LG G Flex will be coming to the two other major carriers, AT&T and T-Mobile at a later date.
So far reception to the LG G Flex has been mixed as you can see in the two video reviews we’ve attached below, largely in part of the price. Compared to other devices with similar specs the LG G Flex is fairly expensive with the full price at $650 or $300 with a 2-year contract with Sprint. Another payment option is the Sprint Easy Pay program which provides Sprint customers with the LG G Flex for a down payment of $150 with 24 payments of $20. The LG G Flex on Sprint is a little bit unique because it comes with the Sprint Spark radios which let the LG G Flex tap into Sprint’s latest LTE network upgrade which is supposed to make the LTE connection more reliable.
LG is at the forefront with their own take on the new trend of curved displays and phones. What does this mean for their newest smartphone? A new form factor, durability, maybe even style? Josh goes through the LG G Flex to find out.
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Phil takes a quick look at the LG G Flex — a 6-inch Android smartphone with a curved, bendable display.
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As for the specs of the LG G Flex they’re a mixed bag with some high-end hardware and software specs mixed with lackluster components. The LG G Flex has a 6-inch HD 1280 x 720 curved P-OLED display (Real RGB) rather than the 1080p display that you would expect. In terms of processor it comes with the now standard quad-core Snapdragon 800 clocked at 2.26GHz with a Krait CPU and 2GB of RAM. The camera in question is a 13-megapixel rear facing camera with a 2.1-megapixel front facing camera. There is a 3,500mAh battery (non-removable) and 32GB internal memory. Aside from the display the LG G Flex does seem like an up scaled curved version of the LG G2. It even has the back volume rockers and power buttons and presumably the double tap screen wake feature too. It’s worth pointing out that there have been reports that if the screen flexes too much it develops bumps, “Because the G Flex components inside the glass cover, OLED display, battery are elastic, excessive or frequent force that flattens the device produce bumps.”
Aside from that the LG G Flex has a dual window app which can divide the screen to make the large device easier to use and multi-task with it runs the older Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean rather than 4.3 or Android 4.4 KitKat. We’re not sure why LG didn’t go with the more recent Android update or if and when the LG G Flex is in line for the Android 4.4 KitKat update. In terms of design we’re looking at dimensions of 6.3 x 3.2 x 0.35-inches and a weight of 6.24 ounces. As we mentioned before the main hook of the LG G Flex is that it’s designed to be indestructible because of the curved flexible display and it has the self-healing back that repairs scratches. We’re still not sure if what is essentially a large LG G2 with a downgraded display and some curves is worth shelling out $650 for or $300 for a 2 year contract.
