Pantech on Monday threw down the gauntlet to market leaders Samsung Electronics and Apple in Korea with the launch of the Vega R3 smartphone.
Since early this year, Pantech has rolled out three new high-performance smartphones in a span of four months.
It launched the Vega Racer 2 LTE smartphone in May and the Vega S5 camera phone in July. The new Vega R3 is equipped with high-end hardware features such as the longest talk time per battery charge, a high-speed charge function, and a large 5.3-inch display.
Using a 2600 mAh battery, the highest capacity in the country, Pantech claims the new phone delivers up to 14 hours of talk time per battery charge. It takes the shortest time -- just an hour and 40 minutes -- to fully charge the battery, it said in a press release.
Despite its large display, users can easily operate it with one hand. "We improved the feel of the grip by almost completely removing the bezel from around the screen edge, because it was inconvenient to hold and use the previous 5-inch models with one hand," Pantech vice president Lee Joon-woo said.
It is 1 cm narrower than rival models with similar-size displays.
Pantech is to release the new phone through all three domestic mobile providers from Tuesday. Lee implied several times that Pantech is competing with both Apple and Samsung in the domestic market.
Samsung has rolled out several 5-inch display smartphones, and Apple has focused on one-hand operation. "We'd like to tell our rivals to learn from Pantech to produce smartphones that can satisfy consumers both in terms of display size and convenience to operate with one hand," Lee said.
