The foldable smartphone that has long been anticipated was finally released but with some bit of surprise. We had expected either Samsung or LG or even Huawei to be the first to release a model. The Microsoft Surface tablet was also tipped to be among the early birds but that wasn’t the case. Instead, a relatively unknown Chinese OEM named Royole Technology became the first company to launch a true foldable phone – the Royole Flexpai.
The device was announced in a ceremony in China a few days ago and just yesterday more details of the specifications were revealed. A hands-on video of the Flexpai foldable phone has now appeared online, giving us a clear view of the device. The video also shows the device in action both in the tablet mode and when folded. However, we must point out that the design looks quite rough, and may still receive some fine tuning before the final release. There is no doubt that this is still a concept that may take a while before going commercial. For one, Qualcomm is yet to officially announce the Snapdragon 8150 chipset and that may not find is way into smartphones until next year. However, it is an impressive design that we hope will speed up the release of more foldable hones just the same way the Mi Mix gave birth to the full-screen phone design trend.
As a reminder, the Royole FlexPai sports a 7.8-inch AMOLED screen with a 1920 x 1440 resolution and a 4:3 aspect ratio. The device is powered by Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon 800 series processor which is clocked at 2.8GHz while an Adreno 640 GPU powers the graphics.
This is the "world's first foldable screen phone" released by Rouyu Technology, which will use the Snapdragon 8150 processor, but its design is very rough, just to seize the "first", this is a futures product. pic.twitter.com/M0v9o2z0Bw
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) October 31, 2018
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The foldable phone will come in 8GB RAM + 256GB storage, 6GB RAM +128GB storage and 8GB RAM + 512GB storage versions. It also packs a 16MP + 20MP dual camera set up at the rear with a f/1.8 aperture size and optical image stabilization. The device packs a 3,800mAh battery with support for 5V/5A fast charging via their proprietary Ro-Charge technology. It also has support for dual SIM (nano only), storage expansion (256GB max), Bluetooth 5.1, GPS, and Wi-Fi. Supported LTE bands are 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 34, 38, 39, 40, and 41. There is a USB-C port for charging and audio. There’s no word yet on its release.
