There is no doubt that foldable phones are on the way to the market. Huawei, LG, and Samsung are among those whose intentions are to launch foldable phones within the next year. Royole FlexPai (pronounced as ‘Flex-pie’), took the lead in this competition and they have beaten all the big names of the industry. Royole FlexPai has been launched by an American tech company ‘The Royole Corporation’.
Image: Royole
Last year, ZTE announced a phone Axon M. It had two displays stuck together with a hinge. But FlexPai is different in a manner as it folds over. At one moment it can act as a phone, and in another, it can become a tablet. According to its Chinese manufacturer, the device can be folded shut and open for more than 200,000 times before breaking.
Image: Royole
When the FlexPai is folded, you get three screens in total: One screen is on the front, one on the back and the last one is on the folded area to show notifications. Based on the demo videos it can be regarded as a prototype device, and not something which LG or Samsung would officially soon push out into the market. FlexPai is currently being sold as a “Developer Model” which indicates it’s not yet fit for the market use.
Image: Royole
Its specifications include a 7.8-inch screen with the resolution of 1920 x 1440 OLED screen. The pixels per inch (PPI) of the screen is 308 when fully opened out. It comes with two versions of RAM; one is of 6 GB and the other of 8 GB. It has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8150 processor. Users will have the option of choosing from three variants of internal storage capacity, i.e., 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB. It has dual rear cameras of 20 MP + 16 MP. Its software is Royole’s own Water OS and is based on Android 9 Pie.
Image: Royole
It gives us a glimpse of what the future of mobile technology holds for us. The technology is expensive, and Royole is charging a huge amount for their developer model. The price of the cheapest model starts at USD 1318. The delivery of the device will be scheduled after late December.
Image: Royole
h/t: Design Boom