LG is bringing back the flip phone to European markets with the LG Wine Smart, a clamshell that packs modern features like 4G and Android Lollipop.
Flip phones are still a massive deal in some parts of Asia such as South Korea and Japan, where you’ll see them en masse on public transport, weighed down with dozens of colourful charms. But here in Europe, the humble clamshell has been practically extinct for many years, with smartphones and candy bar blowers thriving.
Korean manufacturer LG is clearly disappointed in our lack of love for the flip phone, so say hello to the LG Wine Smart (known as the LG Gentle in Korea – clearly we’re more fond of booze than cuddles over here). The Wine Smart rocks a traditional clamshell design with a full numeric keypad, and it’s coming to Europe later in August.
There’s no exterior screen to check for notifications and see who’s calling before you flip the thing open, but the 3.2-inch interior screen is touch-sensitive and rocks a reasonably sharp 480×320 resolution. There’s a 1.1GHz processor powering the Wine Smart and 1GB of RAM, while the measly 4GB of storage can be boosted by a microSD memory card.
Impressively, LG has crammed Android Lollipop 5.1.1 onto the Wine Smart, as well as 4G support. But despite that, this is a basic phone through and through, designed for calling, messaging and basic web browsing.
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