Samsung announces Galaxy Round with 5.7-inch curved display

samsung unveils galaxy round smartphone — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The folks working in Samsung’s R&D department must love it there. With the huge range of products the tech giant pushes out – not forgetting the multitude of variations of each of those products – it seems that an employee only has to vocalize a fleeting half-baked idea during after-work drinks on a Friday for it to be on a computer screen Monday and a production line soon after that.

Today the company unveiled the Galaxy Round.

Galaxy Round in hand — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Recent leaks and rumors relating to the new handset pretty much hit the target. The Galaxy Round does indeed feature a gently curved display, a design feature that you’d think would’ve led to the device being called the Curve rather than the Round, but I suppose BlackBerry had a hand in that.

Naming aside, the new smartphone comes with a 5.7-inch full HD Super AMOLED display (did we mention that it curves?), a 13-megapixel camera, a 2.3GHz quad core processor, 3GB of RAM, and runs Android 4.3. In fact, it’s very similar to Samsung’s new Note 3. Except that it’s bent.

samsung galaxy round — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Round is 7.9mm thick, weighs 154 grams, and is available not in brown but in “luxury” brown (more colors, presumably of a luxurious nature, coming soon). It can be yours for 1.09 million won (around $1000) plus the cost of a plane ticket to South Korea – that’s right, the concave handset is set to launch with the country’s SK Telecom carrier, with no word yet on a worldwide release.

Not one to miss a trick, its designers have made full use of the curved design, with Samsung’s marketing team promoting the handset on the idea that users will be able to enjoy a number of “round integration experiences”.

These include various phone-tilt maneuvers performed when the device is resting on a flat surface with the screen off.

So the Roll Effect, for example, allows you to check the date, time, and any missed call information simply by pressing gently on the side of the phone, as demonstrated in the video below.

In addition, the Round’s Bounce feature lets you control your music with the display switched off – “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.”

So how about it? Fancy the curvy look, or prefer the more traditional flat option?

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