The rumor mill surrounding us getting “foldable smartphones” has never been more prominent than today. Smartphones in 2018 are fast, powerful and have an almost edge to edge displays that make us think that we are living in the future. So naturally, we think to ourselves, after we are able to get pure, edge to edge notch-less displays, what comes next? You are right. Foldable smartphones.
We have all seen in futuristic movies how an actor pulls out his small smartphone from his pocket and opens it up to reveal a full-sized tablet. Honestly speaking, it makes perfect sense that the future is heading there. After all, we have seen how technology companies have been focusing on portability always fighting to make laptops, tablets, and smartphones thinner and lighter.
A lot of reports suspected that Samsung and Huawei have been working secretly on creating their very own foldable smartphone wanting to be the first manufacturer to actually sell one. Rumors even suspect that each one of them is expected to reveal them this year. With the Samsung Developer Conference scheduled for the 7th and 8th of this month, Samsung looked like it was leading the race. However, it looks like they both lost that race to another company.
The six-year-old Chinese company, Royole Corporation has revealed their vision of what a foldable smartphone should look like, releasing their very own “Flexpai.” According to the official company’s website, their smartphone/tablet sports a 7.8″ 1920×1440 screen with a 4:3 aspect ration when it’s open. When it’s folded, you get 3 usable screens with the following aspects ratios and resolutions: primary = 16:9 / 810×1440, secondary = 18:9 / 720×1440, and edge = 21:6 / 390×1440. Flexpai’s CPU chip is listed as Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 series SoC with rumors pointing to Snapdragon 8150 (which is the codename for Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon 855) the first chip Qualcomm releases with the 7nm chipset.
The rest of the specs of the phone is what you would expect from a 2018 smartphone. It comes with a 6 or 8GB RAM versions, as well as a 128, 256, or 512GB of internal storage options, with expandable storage support up to 256GB. It also ships with a modded version of Android Pie named Water OS. The phone’s battery, however, is listed as a 3800 mAh battery which is still unclear how it will hold up powering this behemoth of a display, let alone the technology behind the folding. Real life testing is required to actually know whether or not the battery will last.
Royole released a small demo showcasing how the actual day to day use of the phone should look like, however, we would advise that you take it with a grain of salt as we doubt that it will be as smooth (or as good) as it appears in the demo.
We were able to find an actual demo posted on YouTube as to what appears to be “Royole’s FlexPai.”
Note: The phone in this video is titled “Ruoyo Technology FlexPai.” We expect that the title was changed during translation as we aren’t able to find any reference online to Ruoyo Technology with all links pointing back to Royole Corporation.
The first impression that we got from this video was that the screen looks like plastic, plain and simple. You can see how the light reflects on the screen, which makes us remember the first gen touch-screen smartphones. This is expected from a first-generation foldable touch-screen. The technology is actually quite impressive. The touchscreen appears to lag as well when opening apps or becoming totally unresponsive when folding the screen mid-game.
This user experience is one that we can expect from a first-generation product in any market. We expect that the screen looks like this. We expect that the phone appears as clunky as it does in the video and that the responsiveness of the phone is not the smoothest. For us to reach the stage that we want one day, we have to pass through these stages first. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Let’s not forget that Royole Corporation is not as experienced as mobile behemoths such as Samsung and Huawei and that their approach to rush this product to market was necessary for them to “appear” on the map. After all, who of us heard of them before today?
When it comes to the price, the FlexPai starts at $1,318 for the 128GB model and $1,469 for the 256GB version. After all, it is expected to be this expensive, especially with the current technology. So until the manufacturing process becomes more efficient, don’t expect to see foldable smartphones at any prices lower than this. The phone is expected to ship at the end of December of this year in China with no information as to whether or not the company plans to sell it elsewhere.
