LG G Flex Rumored to Be Hitting Europe in January

News
By
published

LG's G Flex could be available before you know it.

LG this week announced the G Flex is launching globally over the next few months. The roll out will start with Singapore this coming Sunday, December 8, and will continue with Hong Kong on December 13. After that, things get a bit hazier. The European launch is rumored to be set for before the end of January, so within the next six to eight weeks, really.

LG showed off the G Flex at an event in California yesterday, though the phone was first introduced in late October. Presumably this week's event was the G Flex's official coming out party.

Because this isn't just any old smartphone, the hands on session was a bit different from normal. LG showed off the phone as well as some of its components, including the flexible display as well as the flexible battery, which actually isn't removable normally. LG claims the device can be flexed up to 100 times with as much as 88 pounds of pressure.

LG also demonstrated the self-healing back and explained a bit more about the technology behind the scratch resistant casing. Thanks to a molecular substructure that rests on top of the plastic coating and pushes back against the scratches, popping them out, the phone is capable of "healing" minor scratches and scuffs. This process depends on temperature, with the molecules responding faster in warmer environments. The device also can't recover from deep scratches.

The G Flex packs a 6-inch 720p POLED display, and is based on a quad-core 2.2 GHz Snapdragon 800 SoC, 2 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of integrated storage. The flexible battery is 3,500 mAh.

Follow Jane McEntegart @JaneMcEntegart. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.

Jane McEntegart
12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Will be interesting to see where this will go.

    What exactly will happen after the 100 flexes? Will flexing the device at 10 pounds of pressure increase the number of times it can be flexed?
    Reply
  • ZolaIII
    It will broke like any unflexable one.
    They did testing with those measurements.
    It's intended to be more resistant in all ways not to replace bubblegum!
    Reply
  • jankeke
    You could put a coin on one end, tap the other end and try to make the coin go in a glass or something. Untold hours of unmitigated fun, I tell you !
    Reply
  • house70
    12104024 said:
    Will be interesting to see where this will go.

    What exactly will happen after the 100 flexes? Will flexing the device at 10 pounds of pressure increase the number of times it can be flexed?

    I guess it's even more important what happens to a flat phone after 1 flex....
    Everyone knocking down this form factor has never used one (Nexus S). Most comfortable phone I've ever used.
    Reply
  • teh_chem
    12104716 said:
    I guess it's even more important what happens to a flat phone after 1 flex....
    Everyone knocking down this form factor has never used one (Nexus S). Most comfortable phone I've ever used.

    I personally didn't find the Nexus S (or Galaxy Nexus) to be any more comfortable than any other comparable phone. But I did find the curvature of the screen to be visually annoying in terms of display appearance. Only slightly, but I didn't think that the curvature added any amount of comfort or functionality; only something different to set it apart from other handsets for the sake of being different.

    Personally, I've never broken a phone because it failed to flex under some weird situation. I don't imagine most other people have that problem, with the primary breakage likely due to drops and screen shatters. The G Flex is not easily flexed. Meaning that its curved design occupies a larger volume footprint in whatever vessel one carries their phone in (generally a pocket). I don't know about other people, but I carry my phone in either my front pants pocket, or my back pants pocket. I wouldn't want a bulgy phone in my front pocket (flat phones fit the contour of my pocket and leg quite well), and I don't know about other people, but my ass isn't curved where my back pocket sits, so having a curved phone there doesn't make much sense either.

    It's a gimmick, just like the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S were, to differentiate themselves from all the other devices. It still doesn't augment the phone's functionality in the slightest.
    Reply
  • Estix
    12105199 said:
    Personally, I've never broken a phone because it failed to flex under some weird situation. I don't imagine most other people have that problem, with the primary breakage likely due to drops and screen shatters.

    You do realize that the reason the screen shattered was because it didn't bend, right? Rigid materials (like most glass) shatter under shock. Flexible materials just bend.

    The flexible phones should be far more drop-proof and shatterproof than others.

    Just my two cents.
    Reply
  • teh_chem
    12107975 said:
    You do realize that the reason the screen shattered was because it didn't bend, right? Rigid materials (like most glass) shatter under shock. Flexible materials just bend.

    The flexible phones should be far more drop-proof and shatterproof than others.

    Just my two cents.

    http://www.phonearena.com/news/LG-G-Flex-drop-test-does-flexible-mean-unbreakable_id49645
    Really? Seems like the glass on the G Flex cracks and shatters just as easily as any other phone. The fact that it bends along a curve/radius to a small extent does not make it break/shatter-resistent in terms of the most-common breakage method; dropping.
    Reply
  • Christian de Poorter
    LG G Flex is not yet the right solution! I am Christian de Poorter, designer.
    Our design studio in Milan (Italy) has created iFlex, flexPhone concept who got a world media success.

    Tuvie, design of the future, of Los Angeles, wrote “iFlex is a flexible cell phone concept that revolutionizes the phone industry”.
    http://www.tuvie.com/iflex-flexible-cell-phone-concept-by-de-poorter-design-studio/
    Reply
  • Christian de Poorter
    LG G Flex is not yet the right solution! I am Christian de Poorter, designer.
    Our design studio in Milan (Italy) has created iFlex, flexPhone concept who got a world media success.

    Tuvie, design of the future, of Los Angeles, wrote “iFlex is a flexible cell phone concept that revolutionizes the phone industry”.
    http://www.tuvie.com/iflex-flexible-cell-phone-concept-by-de-poorter-design-studio/
    Reply
  • teh_chem
    12130776 said:
    LG G Flex is not yet the right solution! I am Christian de Poorter, designer.
    Our design studio in Milan (Italy) has created iFlex, flexPhone concept who got a world media success.

    Tuvie, design of the future, of Los Angeles, wrote “iFlex is a flexible cell phone concept that revolutionizes the phone industry”.
    http://www.tuvie.com/iflex-flexible-cell-phone-concept-by-de-poorter-design-studio/
    What's the durability like for the portion of the display that bends? How many times can it bend/flex before distortion?
    Reply