World’s first curved phone appears, the 5.7″ Samsung Galaxy Round

Here we go, the world’s first concave smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Round. Besides the unique look and feel of this monster phone, it’s also rather well specced. On 10 October, the Galaxy Round will launch first in South Korea says Samsung Tomorrow (making its way to the rest of the world when the planets correctly align).

First off, the curved screen is of the 5.7″, LTE-Advanced, full HD Super AMOLED variety, it’s only 154g in weight and 7.9mm in thickness. Judging by that alone, the Galaxy Round can be instantly shunted into the phablet realm, but it’s more than that. The curved shape of the phone gives it bonus features, like this:

The S4 has the same preview mode, but you’d have to wave your hand over the front-facing camera

Did you watch the video above? Samsung calls this the “Roll Effect” and by gently touching the phone and rolling it towards you, you’ll get a quick glimpse of any missed calls and notifications. And for music, rolling the phone to either side goes back or forwards a track. Of course, we haven’t had a hands-on yet, but it should be typically intuitive, knowing Samsung. Video and picture content can be scrolled through in the same manner. One issue: some of us have OCD and enjoy our phones being flush with the table. So for those who want a flat phone, the Round ain’t for you. One major positive though is that the round will fit beautifully in our pockets.

When the round launches tomorrow in Korea, it’ll come in one colour, Luxury Brown. From the images above, the Round looks like a curved-in Note 3 which isn’t terrible, but it will mean that it’ll come at a premium price. It’s an innovative product and Samsung, as usual, is first out the gate with it. Will Apple, HTC, Sony, LG and the others follow suit? Most likely. And according to Samsung Tomorrow (who’ve had the first hands-on with it), the phone feels “awesome in the hands. The grip was amazingly snug.” So it feels good, and looks great. Prepare your wallet.

images via Samsung Tomorrow