LG recently released one of the most innovative smart phones ever produced, or best referred as phablet (combination of phone and tablet), the LG G Flex. This device basically consists of a smartphone, very similar to the one previously released by the company (the G2 model), but this time the novel design included a feature of flexibility and automatic “healing” from minor abrasions and scratches.
This device runs with an Android operating system (4.2.2) and was designed and launched to the market early on 2013. The smartphone contains a polycarbonate shell with a curvature of about 700 mm, including a 2.26 GHz processor with 2 GB of memory. In general terms, the software is pretty similar to the previous model released by LG, the major differences come in play when dealing with the hardware.
The smartphone has a distinguishable curvature; when the device is completely pressed to a surface, the smartphone stretches. It is hard to find the flexibility of the phablet, but it is a true fact that it can be stretched and folded to a small, certain degree. The major purpose of this design was to bring commodity to the users since the gadget adopts a similar form of the surface it is pressed against. The other major upgrade this smartphone has is the ability of “self-healing”. The shell of the device is covered with a material called Gorilla Glass that is basically alkali-aluminosilicate sheet that prevents major scratches to penetrate a the layer of the shell of the phone. When the hard cover of the smartphone is heated (by a sunny day or by an extensive use), the Gorilla Glass acts upon any kind of abrasion left in the phone and suppress it.
The major tradeoff I can observe from this device is the practicality. Even though a flexible smartphone that is not very prone to hardware corrosion seems like a good idea for people that are not very careful with their smartphones, not many people will be interested in such a device since not many people care if their smartphones are flexible or anti-scratches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_G_Flex
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/technology/chi-gadgets-ces-2014-20140106,0,6900744.photogallery
http://www.lg.com/us/mobile-phones/gflex
http://www.lg.com/us/mobile-phones/gflex/performance.jsp
Richard says
good