LG G Flex curved smartphone revealed | Hacker News Reader

LG G Flex curved smartphone revealed

engadget.com

29 pointsusaphp42 comments

The nerd in me says "cool" but the practical guy in me says, "is this useful for anything?" all I can think of is how hard this will be to fit in...just about anything.

I can imagine this opening up much better ergonomics for phone. This particular design is probably more for aesthetics, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was slightly more ergonomic. There's nothing ergonomic about the current rectangles.

A curved phone might fit better in a front pocket, curving around the leg. Especially a gigantic 6" screen like this one.

I guess the difference between between a phone and a tablet is now 1 inch

Diagonal measurements are meaningless. I can make an infinity-inch screen that takes up no space. All "6 inch" means is "no dimension is larger than 6 inches".

> I can make an infinity-inch screen that takes up no space.

I don't understand what you meant by that. It's going to take infinite space...

1000" long by 0.00001" wide. Length 1000" (ish). Area 0.01 sq in.

Whatever is `1000" long`, hardly "takes up no space". We can go on about theoretical size, etc. In practice 1000" is a lot and not possible to comfortably store in any way by an average person.

I can see how a curvature on the vertical axis (like what Samsung did) would help fit better with the shape of the thigh, but this phone is curving horizontally. It would just create a weird bulge in your pocket, wouldn't it?

People complained about the Galaxy Note's form factor, and yet it's become enormously popular. I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss unusual form factors.

The point isn't the phone in and of itself. The point is to build something real with the new display material, which has its own benefits, most notably "unbreakable" displays.

The Galaxy Nexus (and the S, I believe?) had a very slightly curved screen, and I do think it fit against my head a bit better. Not sure how pocketable it'd be, though.

The Galaxy Nexus was slightly curved but i always thought it was to prevent scratches when putting it on the table with the display down.

The article says "bendable and unbreakable". I'm not clear on if the phone is fixed and curved or actually bendable?

I bet it is not.

The display may be, but the boards, components, battery, case... for everything to be bendable or small enough to be in hinged sections, specially the battery, it would be much bulkier than it is showing.

That said, i will consider getting one instead of the regular candy bar format so that my butt looks better.

I cannot squelch the urge to say, "side pockets!"

I think you're probably right. But if you asked me to guess a year ago, I would have said that the engineering challenge of making a flexible touch screen display would be a lot greater than that of making a flexible circuit board (assuming that the components themselves are small enough to not need to be flexible).

not correct. flexible touch screens are available since forever. and the first oled prototypes shown some 7years ago were already extremely bendable. nothing new on all that. Someone already pointed out that the nexus S(?) already had a curvature on the screen.

All I can think is how annoying this would be to use on a flat surface, like a bar. This thing looks like it will start rocking back and forth as soon as you poke it.

I hate phones that spin or wobble when placed on a table, so this phone would likely drive me crazy. (Probably better than my HTC which rests right on the camera lens, but still.)

EDIT: Come to think of it, it would be kind of cool if you placed it screen-down, like the receiver on an old dial phone. Then just put a small readout on the back with a clock and notification LED.

The only benefit I see is it being easier to use with one hand (thumb will reach the top and bottom of the screen)...

Looks like they came up with the technology before than they knew how to make use of it.

Technology is frequently created before there are good uses thought up.

That doesn't mean you have to use the technology before you think of a good use. Only Apple seems to realize this.

A six inch display? Really?

So not only is it shaped strangely, but it's massive. Where exactly do you put it?

If prototypes of the first computers had been dismissed so casually due to their size, where would we be now?

The first computers were huge due to necessity. A six inch screen is a design choice.

I agree that six inches is a little ridiculous. It's a screen size arms race. FWIW, my seven inch Nexus 7 fits pretty well in most of my pants though.

The Nexus S and the Galaxy Nexus are also curved sightly. It was by far the best design feature in the Nexus line and I like the attempt to increase the curve.

I guess if the back is perfectly round, it'll rock. But also note that the camera lens is almost always kept off surfaces and scuffing is minimised if you don't have a case.

Apple should definitely copy this in some manner.

I don't know, this also strikes me as "will break the phone in two if you mistakenly put something on top of it", e.g. phone hidden a cloth or some paper.

Does it annoy anyone else that it won't sit flat on a table? I'd find myself slamming it down to try and flatten it.

This technology (with the curved display) would look awesome on a watch, of course with the caveat that the curvature would need to be convex rather than the concave one shown here. If it is at all possible that they build a narrow band that can display rows of icons, that could be something different, who knows? A lot of ifs in my comment, but then it looks doable to me.

EDIT: removed the word "single".

Business/consumer aspects aside, this looks awesome. I might not want to buy one, but I definitely want to spend an afternoon playing with one.

Didn't we recently learn not to create reflective things with a concave shape?

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/06/walkie-t...

So it's not just a phone, it's also a self-defence device (as long as your attacker stays with his back to the sun and it's not cloudy or dark).

This is impractical and unimportant. It's a schtick, a useless gimmick -- something you'd expect from a struggling company like LG, probably not from Microsoft, Samsung, or Apple. I don't know why Asian tech companies with too much talent always fall into doing this. It's things like this that led to Sony's demise. Remember the Rolly?

I'm also quite incredulous that years and years of waiting for flat-screen LCDs with flat screens that were, well, flat and not curved like contemporary CRTs, people want to go back to concentrated glare points and distorted shapes and images.

I can understand a phone's display that tapers down near the edges to show people notifications more easily, but a completely curved phone? Absurd. Purely, simply, absurd. I may have bought the idea it if it were very slight like the GNex, but this level of taper makes it useless for everyday use.

> This is impractical and unimportant. It's a schtick, a useless gimmick

Until it's copied by Apple. Then it's innovative, game-changing and amazing.

There are two kinds of copying. One is the lossy copying—you see someone sucessfull, you try to imitate that, but you don't undrstand which parts make the thing work so you fail. Another is the Apple's "copying"—they see the idea which does not quite work, they tear it apart, find out what needs improvement, improve and release.

Fifty quid this is never copied by Apple

>something you'd expect from a struggling company like LG, probably not from Microsoft, Samsung, or Apple.

Nice try, trying to push an otherwise peaceful community into fanboy wars.

I hope your comment stays where it is right now - bottom.

I don't see how LG is struggling, they had a dramatic rise especially in Android smartphone market share. Are you thinking of other areas?

Samsung has already launched a curved phone (about 4 days back I believe) called the Galaxy Round.

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