Samsung Galaxy Round Beats LG To Become World’s First Curved Smartphone
Samsung Galaxy Round beats LG’s flexible display efforts to market
Samsung has shown off the world’s first curved smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Round, just a day after LG announced it was starting the mass production of its own flexible AMOLED screen.
The 5.7-inch Android-powered Galaxy Round is curved horizontally, or vertically if it is held in landscape, and boasts a number of features that make the most of its unique format.
Users are able to see information such as the time, date, missed calls and battery status by slightly tilting the phone to one side, while music tracks can be changed by tapping the sides of the device. In the photos application, albums can be selected by tilting left or right.
Samsung Galaxy Round
The Samsung Galaxy Round is 7.9mm thick, weighs 154g and promises a comfortable grip that allows the handset to be used with one hand, despite the large display. This is because the most desired controls can be moved to one side of the screen within easy reach of the user’s fingers.
The large screen also allows more than one app to be used at the same time, or simultaneous instances of the same application.
The Samsung Galaxy Round is powered by a 2.3 GHz processor, 32GB of storage that can be expanded by up to 64GB through a MicroSD card slot, and 3GB of RAM. It runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean and boasts a 13 megapixel rear camera, along with a 2 megapixel front facing camera.
No international release date has been made available by Samsung, apart from the fact it will be available in the suspiciously-named ‘luxury brown’ colour only for its Korean release, with more flavours available soon.
However Samsung will be happy it has beaten LG to market, with the two companies ongoing battle in the OLED flexible display arena.
Earlier this year, the South Korean offices of Samsung were reportedly raided by police amid allegations that OLED technology from LG had made its way into its rival possession through partners, while the previous July, six LG Display employees were reportedly charged over theft of OLED technology from Samsung, although LG contends that the information was widely known and wasn’t considered to contain trade secrets.
What do you know about the smartphones of 2013? Try our quiz!
