Pantech on Monday unveiled its new 5.3-inch flagship smartphone named Vega R3, calling for a face-to-face battle with Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5.

With the new quad-core handset slated to be rolling out in the market Tuesday, the company said it will release it through all three mobile carriers ― SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus.

The model runs on the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution network and a 3G version is not available, according to its officials.

Claiming that its premium models will use the letter “R” from now on, the mobile manufacturer is aiming to reach the 1 million mark in unit sales by the first quarter of next year for the R3, said the firm’s chief operation officer Lee Joon-woo.

“It took us a year and a half to sell 1.8 million units of our previously launched smartphone Vega Racer and we’re looking forward to establishing a better figure with the new model,” he said. “We’re going to be competing with the iPhone 5.”

Lee’s statement comes as many handset makers are currently getting ready to release their new LTE smartphones in the Korean market. LG Electronics is planning to launch its 4.7-inch quad-core smartphone Optimus G as early as Wednesday and Samsung Electronics is getting ready to show off its new Galaxy Note 2, also possibly on Wednesday.

Apple’s iPhone 5 is also scheduled to be released sometime next month, staging fierce competition between LTE handset makers for a bigger stake in the local industry. Many people are destined to look for new smartphones here in September and October since many iPhone 4 owners are finishing up their two-year mobile contracts.

The Vega R3, which has applied zero bezel technology, is equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro and the Natural IPS Pro liquid-crystal display.

With its 2,600 mAh battery, a person could talk on the mobile phone for 14 hours and 30 minutes non-stop and charge the battery 1.6 times faster than its competitor’s gadgets, its officials said.

“What I want to stress is that the new Vega R3 is the ultimate smartphone with a large-screen that could be used with a single hand,” said Lee. “To those rivals in smartphone manufacturing industry, I dare to say, ‘Learn from Pantech which has come up with a big smartphone that could be used with one hand.’”

By Cho Ji-hyun (sharon@heraldcorp.com)