Skip to footer

LG self-healing phone: super powers not required

LG releases its newest creation: the G Flex, dubbed the world's first 'real' curved phone with a special back cover coating that eliminates daily wear and tear.

|
LG
LG released its latest venture, the G Flex which offers a curved screen and scratch-proof coating.

It used to be self-healing skin was confined to superheroes and terrifying villains.

Now it’s coming to your phone.

LG announced its new G Flex phone today, which it deems the first “real” curved smart phone. Aside from the latest trends and technology built into the hardware of the device, LG is also introducing a new material that could prevent your phone from daily wear and tear.

The G Flex has a slight bend that curves to the shape of your face, making phone calls more comfortable and the screen more compatible with video. It offers a 6-inch, 720p screen (landing it squarely in "phablet" territory), runs on Android Jellybean and a Snapdragon 800 quad core (translation: it’s fast), and features a 13-megapixel camera.

But the real draw is the new self-healing component. The self-healing material is on the back cover and is designed to prevent the phone from daily scratches and nicks, which makes it a more durable and long-lasting phone. It would take about a minute for the elastic coating to recover its original surface after getting scratched, and it hasn’t been demoed yet, but it will certainly be something to keep an eye on in months to come. 

The G-Flex also offers a nifty “swing” lock screen that changes the screen saver when the phone is held at a certain angle and the curved screen delivers an “IMAX-like” experience in landscape mode. The screen is OLED, plus uses Real RGB, which combines pixel colors for brighter color tone. If you like to watch videos on your phone, this could be a key feature.

LG is not the only company to offer a curved smart phone. Though LG announced plans to mass-produce the phone in October, Samsung released the curved Galaxy Round in early October that bends down the vertical axis of the phone for a comfortable handgrip.

So are flexible screens the future or just a passing fad? Analysts project that if technology continues to advance (read: screens get more bendy) production on flexible screens could increase to 800 million units by 2020.

The G Flex will be available in Korea starting in November with more markets added as time goes on.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to LG self-healing phone: super powers not required
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2013/1028/LG-self-healing-phone-super-powers-not-required
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe