LG G Flex Officially Unveiled, Unofficially Recognized as the Banana Phone

Samsung was first to the curved phone battle with the Galaxy Round, but LG certainly didn’t sit on their butts and almost immediately followed up with a curved phone of their own. The LG G Flex is so named because of its 6 inch screen that has been curved to follow the contour of the face. The curve is different from the Galaxy Round, which curves from side-to-side, and it because it curves along the length of the phone, it appears much more pronounced. Hence, the reason many in the industry jokingly refer to it as the banana phone.

Comical nickname aside, the Banana Phone — este — the LG G Flex features some very respectable hardware. It runs on a 2.26GHz quad core Snapdragon 800 processor, which is simply the fastest SoC in the market at the moment. That makes the fact that the LG G Flex’s screen only has HD 720p resolution, not Full HD 1080p.

Aside from the screen, another impressive feature is that the back of the G Flex has been coated in a special self-healing film. Simply put, minor scratches just disappear after a few minutes. Maybe this should be called the Wolverine phone, not the Banana phone.

As for the rest of the specs, the LG G Flex has been coupled with 2GB of RAM, and for you shutterbugs out there, the G Flex has a 13mp autofocus camera. Now, if you’re worried about LG’s record of not including an SD card on its flagship devices, then don’t. The G Flex also has 32GB of internal storage, which will hopefully be expandable micro SD. Lastly, it features 4G LTE connectivity, a 3,500mAh battery, and will run on Android 4.2.2 with LG’s custom UI on top.

Despite the unflattering Banana Phone nickname, the LG G Flex is my choice between it and Samsung’s Galaxy Round. The Galaxy Round certainly isn’t a pushover and even sports a screen with Full HD resolution. However, the self-healing back cover is what puts it on the top for me. As for pocketability, I don’t imagine the LG G Flex’s top-to-bottom curvature will be very pocket-friendly.

LG G Flex Specs

• 6″ curved HD P-OLED display (720 x 1280 resolution, 245ppi)
• 2.66GHz quad core Snapdragon 800 CPU
• Adreno 330 GPU
• Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• 2GB RAM
• 32GB internal storage
• 13mp autofocus rear-facing camera
• 2.1mp fixed focus front camera
• Up to 4G/LTE data
• WiFi a/b/g/n/ac
• Bluetooth 4.0
• GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS
• 3,500mAh battery, non-removable
• 160.5 x 81.6 x 8.7 mm
• 177 g