Carphone Warehouse has today started taking pre-orders for the LG G Flex, and as you might expect, prices are pretty steep. You’ll have to pay at least £49 ($80) up-front for the handset, while the cheapest tariff is £52 ($85) per month for two years.

The G Flex is LG’s first smartphone with a curved POLED (plastic OLED) display, and it has some unique features — including a self-healing back panel, and the ability to literally flex under pressure. It doesn’t have a 1080p display (it’s a 6-inch 720p panel), but the rest of its internals are certainly high-end.

The device is powered by a 2.26GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal storage. It also has the same 13-megapixel rear-facing camera as the G2 — which boasts optical image stabilization — and the same back buttons.

The G Flex has been pretty pricey in each of the markets it has launched in, so we expected nothing different in the U.K. You’ll pay £57 per month if you opt for the £49 up-front option, or £52 per month if you decide to go for the slightly more expensive £79 up-front fee. Both options are through O2.

If you’re upgrading, you can get the device slightly cheaper. It’s £42 per month without an up-front fee on O2, or just £16.99 per month with a £449 up-front fee on T-Mobile.

Carphone Warehouse will also enter you into a prize draw to win one of LG’s new 55-inch curved OLED TVs.

• SourceCarphone Warehouse