After rumors of a curved smartphone began circulating the web, Samsung has verified the speculation. Today they unveiled their new Galaxy Round smartphone, the first to feature a deeply curved display.
Samsung has been on the front lines in tech innovations recently, though usually with lackluster results. For example, they were the first to release a smartwatch, but the concept was a lot cooler than the reality.
This seems,, at the face of it, to be the same. The screen curves inward…why should we care?
But Samsung had an answer for that, and it is all about the related features. According to the press release, the curved display allows you to “roll” it to the side in order to catch data at a glance. This information includes battery life, notifications, date and time, whether active or locked.
You will also be able to move the device in other ways to help control your music playlists, and use a finger to press either side of the screen to change songs. It is a part of their Bounce UX, which sounds like an interesting feature for those who like to expand their smartphones to media devices.
Technical Specs
One thing that Samsung has managed to get right is what is under the hood. The Galaxy Round will feature a 2.3 GHz MSM 8974 quad-core processor, 3 GB RAM, and 32 GB of on-board storage with a microSD slot allowing up to 64 GB additional space.
The 5.7″ OLED screen will have a 1080p resolution, making it high definition. It should be interesting to see how that plays out with the curved screen.
Like many other Samsung products, it will have the usual 13mp rear facing camera, and a 2mp front facing camera, plus HD video recording and playback.
Release Date
No word on a release date for Western markets yet. But the Galaxy Round will be hitting markets in South Korea as soon as tomorrow, with a standard brown model. From there, it will be moving to different markets in different colors over the coming months. Which is a good move, because who in the world would want a brown smartphone?
In any case, everything seems up to par for a higher mid-range smartphone, similar to others in the Galaxy series. The hardware is solid, it will have the same access to software, and the features are good. But the curved display seems like more style over substance from Samsung.
Source: Engadget
