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Distinctive style, powerful processor, good battery life
Expensive, camera not great, no expandable memory
LG may not produce as wide a variety of phones as some of its rivals, but that doesn't mean it can't come up with something different every now and again. The LG G Flex is a curved phablet, designed to match the shape of your face and minimise glare. But does the reality justify the theory?
It's on sale now.
Design
First of all, it's big. With its 6-inch screen it measures 161x82mm, making it just a little awkward to hold and use one-handed. It's reasonably thin though at 7.9mm, though its distinctive curve stretches that to 8.7mm at the ends.
The casing is made of smooth plastic and curves in a gentle arc giving it a very distinctive, if not especially practical look.
It's not only curved, it's also a little bendy. Place it face down on a table and it sits slightly proud of the surface. Press it and it stretches flat, then returns to its original shape.
The screen is of the new POLED variety, with the self-lighting pixels of an OLED screen on a plastic, rather than glass, backing.
It lies under glass though -- bendy Corning Gorilla Glass. LG's modifications to the Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean OS include a lock screen animation that rolls as you move the phone -- hold it upright to see the sun, and as you lower it you slide down to the surface of the sea and below. It's a neat trick that shows off the expansive screen and its IMAX-style curve.
It's all clever, innovative stuff, designed to impress and to draw attention. But unfortunately, that's really the main reason for the curve. Yes it flexes if you sit on it rather than breaking -- up to a point. And yes, the curve does reduce screen glare -- a little bit. But the advantages are small ones, and certainly don't justify the high price.
The curve isn't the only attention-grabbing feature either.
There are no buttons on the front or the sides. Instead there's a single large power/sleep button flanked by volume controls on the back, just beneath the camera lens. We saw this before on the G2 and it works pretty well, easier to reach considering the large size of the phone -- once you get used to the oddness of it.
Curve aside, the screen offers a decent if not outstanding HD resolution of 1,280x720 pixels (245ppi), which is less than we'd expect on a phone with this price. It looks okay, but lacks the super sharpness that the screen's other innovations seem to promise.
Android and processor
Surprisingly, it's running the slightly aged 4.2.2 Jelly Bean version of Android rather than the very latest 4.4 KitKat. In practise, that's not too much of a drawback, but for a high-ender like this, we'd expect the software to be up to the minute.
As if to compensate for these disappointments, the quad-core processor is clocked at 2.21GHz and backed by 2GB RAM. That's a high spec for a phablet, and sure enough it delivered an AnTuTu score of 35,714 -- putting it very firmly in the top rank and one of the most powerful mobile devices we've tested. It certainly feels fast in practise, zipping through multiple apps and displaying HD games with ease and grace.
Photography
The 13-megapixel camera includes auto focus, LED flash and a range of modes, including burst, panorama and HDR. Picture quality isn't great however. It doesn't handle high light levels very well and colours tend to look a bit washed out. There isn't the level of detail we'd expect from a 13-megapixel snapper either.
There's 32GB of memory on board, which isn't bad, though you can't add any more via microSD card.
Battery life for such a large, high-spec device was surprisingly good, and we found it still hanging in there at the end of two days of fairly heavy use.
Conclusion
The LG G Flex is certainly an attention grabber, with its curved, bendy body, rear-mounted controls and huge screen. But it's mostly a disappointment with its sub-par display and camera taking the shine off its innovations and making the high price seem considerably less justified.
Software: Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
Processor: Quad-core 2.26GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800
Memory slot: No
Display: 6in curved POLED, 1280x720 pixels, 245 ppi
Connectivity: Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0
Ports: microUSB, 3.5mm headphone jack
Camera: 13 megapixel with autofocus, BSI sensor; 2.1 megapixel front-facing camera
Video playback: MP4, DviX/XviD, H.264, H.263, WMV
Audio playback: MP3, WAV, FLAC, eAAC+, AC3, WMA
Radio: Yes
Battery: 3500mAh
Size: 161x82x7.9/8.7mm
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
