LG makes smartphone history on Sunday when it unveiled in South Korea the first flip phone to have the features of a smartphone.

The company is bringing flip phones back to the touchscreen-permeated mobile device market with its new LG Gentle that runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop.

According to Android Central, the company wishes to bring back the time when flip phones were all the rage among mobile phone users, particularly in some parts of Asia right before touchscreen and thin phones were born.

While there are advantages to touchscreens of the latest smartphones, nothing beats the typing efficacy of phones that have physical keypads like that of the LG Gentle.

Huffington Post described the phone as what the offspring of the Motorola Razr and a Samsung Galaxy phone would be like.

According to LG, their new clamshell device would be featuring instant messaging applications that run on Android with the added bonus of easy typing because of its T9 keypad.

The first-ever smart flip phone comes in a rounded body adorned with navy or burgundy faux-leather designed for comfortable and slip-proof grip.

It is also packing 4G LTE under its hood to make surfing quicker, as well as a quick launch button both in the physical keypad and the LCD screen that allows easy access to frequently used applications.

However, Engadget noted that LG Gentle cannot be considered a cutting-edge smartphone because it only features a 3.2-inch LCD touchscreen with 480 x 320 resolution and a meager 1GB random access memory on a 1.1 GHz quad-core processor.

People who are fond of taking photos and storing files using their phones should also keep their expectations low for this flip phone, as it only has a 3-megapixel rear camera and 4GB internal storage which can be expanded by putting a memory card in its micro SD slot.

Though it only has 1700mAh battery capacity, users may experience longer usage with this handset as it only runs on low-tech specs.

Despite this, the Huffington Post still deemed the flip phones as something that would not only survive but own a significant chunk of the mobile device market, particularly among powerful people from the business sector.

"The argument is pretty straightforward: Flip phones don't do as much as smartphones, so they're less distracting," the report read.

Since it is an entry-level phone, the LG Gentle would be released at a starting price of 200 thousand won or approximately $175.

Release of this device outside Korea was not stated in the announcement, though having this available in the UK and the US is near impossible as Engadget noted how these types of import can become very expensive.