Overland Park, Kansas—Sprint will become the first U.S. carrier to offer LG’s curved G Flex2 smartphone, beginning March 13, LG said.
AT&T and U.S. Cellular will also offer the phone, announced at International CES, but haven’t announced prices or availability dates, LG said.
Sprint, which offered the first-generation G Flex, will offer the second-generation model beginning March 13 on an Easy Pay installment-payment plan with $0 down and 24 monthly payments of $21 for a total of $504 excluding taxes. Pricing with a two-year contract was unavailable.
Sprint will be the exclusive carrier for the red version of the phone but will also offer a silver version.
Compared to the first-generation model, the G Flex 2 reduces the P-OLED screen size to 5.5 inches from 6 inches to balance a more comfortable grip with content viewing, ups the display to 1080p, and ups the processor to a 64-bit 2GHz octa-core Qualcomm processor from 2.26GHz quad core. The OS moves up to Android 5.0 Lollipop, the latest Android OS available
The self-healing coating on the back also got an improvement, making scuffs and scratches disappear in 10 seconds rather than in a few minutes, LG said.
The phone also boasts improved optical image stabilization and the new ability to recharge from almost 0 percent to 50 percent in 40 minutes, or about half the time it takes most phones, the company said. The phone also features 20 percent stronger cover glass than before.
Other key features include 3,000mAh battery, 13-megapixel main camera, and Sprint Spark tri-band LTE technology.
Like its predecessor, the phone features a curved display from speaker at top to microphone on bottom to mimic the comfort of early landline-phones and clamshell cellular phones, to bring the mouth and ear closer to the microphone and speaker for improved voice quality, and to provide a more immersive viewing experience, the company said.
