Although many people there were already convinced that Samsung will be the first in the world that would present a foldable smartphone, the unknown Royole knows to run off with the world premiere. Today, the Royole FlexPai was introduced at a special event. With the introduction of this foldable smartphone, the Chinese manufacturer puts itself on the map with one stone and also knows how to write history.
Royole FlexPai, a folding smartphone in tablet format
Royole was founded in 2012 by recent graduates from Stanford University. Royole is based in China, where a factory has been set up for the production of flexible displays. In addition, the company has marketing branches in America, but also in Europe. In the Netherlands to be precise; Breda.
The Royole FlexPai is a tablet-sized smartphone that can be folded into a small, thick booklet. Once unfolded you have a 7.8-inch AMOLED display at your disposal, while closed, a screen surface of about 4-inch remains. The display can bend 180 degrees and has a resolution of 1920 × 1440 pixels. The phone is only 7.6mm thick.
A hinge is placed on the spot where the device is bent. This is only visible at the rear. If you only have one screen in use, an edge screen is shown where the display is bent. The edge screen serves to display notifications, such as incoming messages, calls or emails.
The foldable smartphone is equipped with a flexible display of own brokerage. In 2014, the company succeeded in introducing the world’s thinnest flexible display. Meanwhile, the manufacturer has arrived at the second generation, this flexible display can be found in the FlexPai. According to the manufacturer, it is a virtually unbreakable display with a large color range, high contrast, and a wide viewing angle.
The world’s first folding phone
The Royole foldable smartphone runs on the Water OS 1.0, this operating system is based on the Android 9.0 Pie OS. Among other things, a 3 split-screen mode is available, which can be used when the device is fully folded open.
Remarkably, Royole has equipped the foldable smartphone with Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon 8-series processor. Probably the Snapdragon 8150, this will be the successor of the Snapdragon 845 that can be found in almost all current top devices. The new SoC is produced according to the 7-nanometer process and uses a new AI algorithm.
It is very unusual for a smartphone manufacturer to release a device with a processor that has not yet been officially announced. It’s smart because by addressing it in this way, the smartphone is not suddenly ‘old’ when Qualcomm introduces its new chipset in two months.
The world’s first foldable phone has a dual camera. A 16-megapixel camera with a widescreen lens and a 20-megapixel camera with telephoto lenses. Both have an aperture of f / 1.8. Furthermore, the cameras have autofocus and an optical image stabilization system. There is also a flash built. The digital cameras are positioned in such a way that they can be used when you have one screen in front of you, and when the device is fully opened to tablet format.
Buying foldable smartphone
Three memory variants are released from this foldable smartphone. A 6GB / 128GB model, an 8GB / 256GB model and finally an 8GB / 512GB model. The memory is also expandable with a microSD memory card, with a further 256GB. There is a 3,800mAh Lithium Polymer battery built in that supports fast charging. The phone could be charged at a record pace, after an hour the battery is already 80% full.
The Royole FlexPai is now available as a pre-order in China. For the 6GB RAM model, you pay ¥ 8,999 (€ 1140), the price for 8GB RAM / 256GB is set at ¥ 9998 (€ 1265). And finally you can buy the most expensive foldable smartphone for ¥ 12999 (€ 1645), for this, you receive 8GB RAM / 512GB storage memory. The device will probably be delivered in December 2018.
In time the device will also be released in other countries. For example, it seems possible that the device will be available at the Walmart in America, the CEO of this company was explicitly thanked during the press conference, together with a handful of other partners that made this development possible. And Royole does not have a marketing department in Breda for nothing, so as far as we are concerned the device can also come to the Netherlands quickly.
