Hasta La Gadget!

The other day thanks to a leaked photo we managed to catch a glimpse of the LG G Flex, the South Korean company’s attempt at a smartphone with a flexible display. However the exact specifications of the handset remain a mystery, at least until AnTuTu benchmarks were sighted, giving us a look at what we might be able to expect under the hood of the LG G Flex. Similar to how the Samsung Galaxy Round is based on the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the LG G Flex is expected to be based on the LG G2 which means that while the curved display might seem like a novel feature, its hardware under the hood is no laughing matter.

For starters the AnTuTu benchmark results have revealed that the LG G Flex will feature a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset and will be accompanied by 2GB of RAM. It will also feature a 6” display and will sport a rather low display resolution of 1280×720, giving it a pixel density of 244PPI. We’re not sure if it’s because flexible displays aren’t up to Full HD resolutions yet, but either way it does seem a little disappointing, but then again these aren’t the official specifications so who knows, LG might still surprise us. In any case there’s still no word on when LG will announce the device, but hopefully it will be soon. In the meantime who else is looking forward to getting their hands on the device?

LG G Flex Specs Revealed In Benchmarks original content from Ubergizmo.

And the seemingly age-old war between LG and Samsung continues. This time the battle is centered around curved displays on smartphones — Samsung has already shown its hand with the curious Galaxy Round, and now some newly disseminated images seem to indicate that LG is going to return fire in short order. Earlier this evening a handful of press renders obtained by Engadget (and later by The Next Web) showed off what appeared to be LG’s forthcoming G Flex smartphone… and the pronounced dip that marks its slim midsection.

This is no mere blatant knockoff of the Galaxy Round, though. In a bid to outdo its rival, LG has apparently decided to pull out all the stops and develop a device that curves the opposite way — that is, the curve runs across the device’s waist. Engadget also reports that the G Flex will sport a hefty 6-inch display (a hair larger than the Galaxy Round’s screen), but other than that the G Flex seems to stick to the same sort of spartan design language that prominently marks so many other recent LG devices. That curve looks rather familiar though — it’s almost a bit Galaxy Nexus-y, a bit of ironic design minutia that probably didn’t escape LG’s design team.

At this point there’s no firm word on what other components are nestled inside that slim frame, or what sort of software LG has cooked up to try and take advantage of that curvy screen. For now we’ll have just to debate the merits of the whole curved display craze as a whole, and I’m not convinced just yet. As visually alluring as these things can be, I can’t shake the feeling that this first batch of curvaceous smartphones is nothing more than a pissing match between two companies that have been jostling to out-innovate each other for decades.

That said I have to wonder if Samsung’s approach to design isn’t the smarter one here. Say what you will about the Galaxy Round (I still think it’s pure gimmickry masquerading as a game-changer), but it’s going to slide in and out of a pocket with ease. The G Flex is ostensibly meant to better fit the contours of a user’s face much like the Galaxy Nexus did, but that big ol’ screen may make that proposition a hairier one than LG had hoped. Either way, we’ll find out the truth soon enough — the G Flex is reportedly set to make its debut some time next month. And then, hopefully sooner rather than later, we’ll discover whether or not this whole “curve-fuffle” will have the sort of impact on the industry that both Samsung and LG clearly hope it will.