Royole FlexPai: The First Foldable Smartphone Officially Introduced

Karamchand Rameshwar - Dec 15, 2018

Royole FlexPai, which is a foldable phone introduced by a Chinese company, is the first flexible device ever introduced in the market.

For the last couple of years, many companies that showcased the demo of their foldable smartphones or tablets mostly presented those only as concept devices, but R&D products that could actually be real in the future.

But of all smartphone makers, a small Chinese startup already introduced its foldable smartphone for real and it is now about to sell it. The phone is named Royole FlexPai and consumers can preorder an edition of developer which will be shipped around December.

The smartphone sports a foldable 7.8-inch Full-HD+ AMOLED display that is made of flexible plastic, and it has a resolution of 1920 x 1444 pixels.

It also has a hinge running along the FlexPai’s back, so you can fold the phone in half just as how you close a book.

The phone will snap together with embedded magnets even if you leave it bent and propped up or close it altogether.

When the phone is closed, it will just function as a standard smartphone, and you can also navigate on the display with either 16:9 or 16:8 aspect ratio depending on which side of the screen you are holding it by.

The phone comes with a fingerprint sensor and supports dual-SIM. It will charge via a USB-C port, and it doesn’t have a 3.5mm audio jack.

The folding phone runs Water OS on top of the latest Android 9 Pie. And doesn’t matter which way you want to bend or hold the phone, its screen will adjust to a lot of different viewing options and orientations.

There are two cameras below the screen: a 16MP wide-angle sensor and a 20MP telephoto sensor. Its camera actually acts as both front and rear cameras when you fold the display together.

Other notable specifications include a Snapdragon 8150 chipset, 6GB/8GB of RAM and 128GB/256GB/512GB of storage. It is also packed with a 3,800 mAh battery under the hood with support for fast charging with Ro Charge which is Royole’s charging technology.

The background of Royole in foldable display uniquely positions it to make a viable foldable smartphone, and the Chinese company has been developing this FlexPai for 6 years with more than $30 million (Rs. 21,6 crores) investment into developer support.

But this Royole FlexPai will not the only foldable smartphone you can buy in the upcoming months. Huawei, LG, and Samsung are tipped to be developing their flexible devices as well, and those devices could be introduced in early 2019.