Samsung has won the race to be the first manufacturer this fall to launch a smartphone with a curved display. Late on Tuesday the company launched the Galaxy Round after announcing its existence earlier this month, beating LG's rumored curved display phone.
According to CNET, the device resembles the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S4 but it has a slight dip in the middle that causes the phone to curve along its vertical axis. Despite being hailed as a flexible display, it's important to note that the device itself is fixed and rigid. The company said the display is curved but fixed in the phone in order to better fit the contours of a person's face.
"As a result of its unique curved design, users can take advantage of round integration experiences like the Roll Effect that enables user to check information such as date, time, missed call and battery easily when home screen is off, and the Gravity Effect for creating visual interaction with the screen by tilting the device," Samsung said in a statement.
"When the Galaxy Round's display is off while the music player is running, a short press to the left of the device will play the previous track while a short press to the right will play the next track. For pictures and videos, the Side Mirror feature enables users to gain access to list of the album content with a left and right tilt."
The Galaxy Round has a 5.7-inch, 1080p screen with an HD Super AMOLED display. The device is 7.9mm thick, weighs 154g, and has a 2800mAh battery. It runs Android 4.3, has 3GB of RAM, and a 2.3GHz quad-core processor. The smartphone also has a 13-megapixel camera.
For the past few weeks it has been known that Samsung planed to unveil the Galaxy Round sometime in October. Late Tuesday night the company finally decided to unveil the latest product after leaks released online.