LG flexes its hand with a second curved smartphone

One of the most frustrating things about owning a smartphone is knowing that the screen can shatter, but curved displays can help stop this LG experimented in that area last year, and in 2015, it’s back with a new phone that hopes to make the idea even stronger.

If you thought that LG’s G Flex phone was a neat idea that needed more work last year, you weren’t alone. We checked out the idea shortly after CES in 2014, and while the promise of a phone that could take the weight of a human sitting on it was a neat promise, the phone not breaking in the process, the huge size, not-so-fantastic on-screen keyboard, and a screen that was relatively mediocre in the grand scheme of things made it hard to consider unless you desperately needed a phone to show off that wouldn’t crack when you tried flexing it in front of people.

These days, flexing a phone in front of people seems to be fairly normal, too, especially as iPhone 6 Plus owners do what they can to show that bendgate really is a thing.

But there’s more to a big phone than if it will survive an encounter with the strength from your leg, and LG has taken some of the criticism from the old model and made a new version for 2015.

As such, the LG G Flex 2 has slightly different curves to give the phone a sleeker look, a screen running a better resolution of 1080p Full HD (1920×1080) instead of the 720p HD (1280×720) on the first model, and an improved self healing back cover that fixes minor scratches more quickly than the original model.

The specs have been updated as well, and this will be the first phone to come with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor, a new version of the constantly-being-improved Snapdragon 8xx series that brings a little more grunt, 64-bit processing, and a new graphics component, with the phone also bringing Android 5.0 also known as “Lollipop”.

LG has left the design around from the original, with buttons at the back, and the camera running a 13 megapixel rear camera with laser auto-focus just like on the G3, with the front camera relying on a 2 megapixel module.

Connections for 4G LTE are of course included, as is 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi, Bluetooth Smart, GPS, Near-Field Communication, and the battery is set to 3000mAh and is apparently the only curved mobile battery in the world to support a fast charge setting catering for a 50 percent charge in under 40 minutes.

“The original G Flex demonstrated LG’s pioneering spirit and with the G Flex2 we have refined the curved form factor, staying true to our philosophy of innovation for a better life,” said LG’s Juno Cho.

“The G Flex 2 not only has the stunning looks, it also has the powerful guts to be at the cutting edge of current smartphone technology. Simply put, it’s a true head-turner in every sense of the word.”

One thing does stand out on our spec sheet, and that’s the microSD slot, which isn’t a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, except that it does say it will support up to 2TB of storage.

It has been rumoured for some time that microSD cards would hit the 1TB mark soon, and with LG’s G Flex 2 suggesting compatibility for 2TB, that could be happening very, very shortly.

As for pricing and availability on the G Flex 2 phone itself LG Australia has nothing to report, but Australia saw the first model, so it’s probably a strong bet that we’ll see the second too, possibly by February or March.