Whether you it or not, curved smartphones are coming. Samsung was the first one to announce its Galaxy Round last year and LG followed soon with the G Flex. While Samsung’s curved smartphone is a Korea-exclusive, LG’s G Flex is coming to the U.S.

Available on AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile (sorry Verizon customers!), the G Flex, as its name suggests, uses a flexible display that is in fact bendable to a very small degree. Why the need for a curved screen? LG says it provides an “IMAX-like” viewing experience that immerses your peripheral vision when viewing movies and pictures, the curve is more ergonomic for making calls (mic on bottom of smartphone comes up closer to your mouth), and the arc makes for better back pocket carrying.

The device is no slouch in performance: 6-inch (1280 x 720 resolution display), 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, 3,500 mAh battery (3,400 mAh on T-Mobile model), 13-megapixel rear/2.1-megapixel front camera and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean (no KitKat yet). The G Flex comes with 32GB of internal storage, but if you need more, you can pop in a microSD card.

The LG G Flex is a rather large phablet, but it uses the rear button design from the LG G2, which is to say, the power and volume buttons are all on the back of the device.

Specs and curved screen aside, the G Flex also has another neat trick: its back is self-healing. By that, we mean minor scratches made to the device’s back cover will slowly repair itself over time to become less noticeable. But don’t let us tell you, check out the G Flex’s self-healing back in the video demo below.

Price: $299 with two-year contract
Source: LG