Foldable smartphones have been a trend since early 2019. Although many accredited Samsung for making the innovative step, it was actually Royole that was the first to launch a foldable smartphone. And now, the company has just unveiled the Flexpai 2, the successor to the first smartphone with a flexible display.

Royole Flexpai 2 features the 3rd generation Cicada wing, which is basically a fancier term for the company’s flexible display panel. The latest iteration features various improvements over its predecessor and now has a smaller crease and bend radius. This also allows for an increase in brightness, contrast and offers a better viewing angle.

Under the hood, Royole Flexpai 2 houses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 SoC alongside the X55 5G modem. Its display is a 7.8 inch screen with a 4:3 ration when fully opened. It also features the latest LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.0 storage as well. Unfortunately, details regarding its battery capacity are still unknown, but that is to be expected since there is still time for the device officially launches.

In the conference, Royole officials showcased the display, which was the highlighting part of the event. The improvements in technology was boasted, rightly so, and the panel has reportedly withstood 200,000+ bends without sustaining any damage. This new flexible panel features nearly 100 micro nanomaterials that improve the strain recovery and “layer peeling.” In other words, there are less chances of creases and bubbles forming when the device is unfolded.

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According to Royole, the Flexpai 2’s new Cicada Wing will feature 1.3x better color gamut and 500x the contrast, thanks to its high quality LCD panel. The handset will also feature a unique custom designed display driver that is integrated in the circuit chip. On the other hand, the display panel can be folded in multiple directions and even rolled on its own, showcasing the advancements in the flexible display field.

Royole Flexpai 2 was showcased in an event in China by CEO Bill Liu, who also announced the company’s partnership with another electronics brand, ZTE. This may be indicative of ZTE using Flexpai’s technology, integrating the display in its own foldable smartphone series. However, that is just speculation. Thus, take it with a grain of salt. The Flexpai 2 is expected to launch in Q2 of 2020, so stay tuned.

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(Via)

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Sometime late last year, a company relatively unknown until that time, made the headlines of nearly all tech blogs around the world. After all, Royole, a startup had managed to beat the South Korean giant Samsung in releasing the first commercial foldable smartphone in the market. Now, the company decided to showcase its best products at CES 2019 and among them was a flexible rollable QWERTY keyboard.

The rollable QWERTY keyboard is basically a transparent and thin layer of a sheet that features full-fledged QWERTY keys. You just have to lay it out on a flat surface and connect to your device wirelessly via Bluetooth. After use, just push the button on the keyboard twice and it neatly rolls up into a compact form factor. The typing experience might not be as good as a regular keyboard but since its rollable, it’s extremely portable.

Unfortunately, no word on its pricing yet. All we know is that the keyboard will hit the markets sometime in Q2 2019 via Royole’s own site and sellers like Amazon.

Apart from this cool little keyboard, Royole also showcased their smart speaker with a built-in curved 7.8-inch display. You can watch movies, or see what’s being played on the speakers on the display. What’s even cooler is the fact that it will come with an 8MP pop-up camera which can rotate up to 180 degrees to take selfies or make video calls. You get Alexa and Google Assistant built-in which will also help you to control your smart home devices.

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Finally coming to the smart touch selfie stick, it features multi-touch sensors on its handle to navigate through the in-camera features of the connected smartphone. This ones already available for purchase in China via Brookstone and will hit the US in 2019.

Apart from these, the Flexpai foldable phone was showcased at the event along with existing products from the company like its digital writing pad called RoWrite and its 3D entertainment headset called Moon.

For more CES 2019 coverage, check out this link.

(Source)

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Samsung was expected to be the pioneer of the foldable display smartphone and it was believed that the company would be the first to release such a handset. However, a relatively unknown Chinese company called Royole shook the smartphone industry by unveiling a foldable smartphone commercial model in China days before Samsung displayed its own version at the developer conference in San Francisco. Now, the company has also officially listed the processor name on its website as the device goes on sale. Believe it or not, Flexpai is now the first Snapdragon 855-toting smartphone to go on sale. For more info on specifications, check out this link here.

At launch, Royole refrained from naming the processor because the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 was not official at that point. However, it wasn’t a secret that it would have Snapdragon’s latest and greatest chipset because the GPU was known to be the Adreno 640. The FlexPai boasts a 7.8-inch flexible AMOLED panel with a 1920 x 1440 resolution and a 4:3 aspect ratio. It has a camera combo of 16MP + 20MP fueled by a battery of 3800mAh capacity.

Flex Pai comes in three variants – 6 + 128G version is priced at 8999 yuan ($1304), 8 + 256G version is priced at 9998 yuan ($1449), and 8 + 512G version will retail for a whopping 12,999 yuan ($1884). According to officials, FlexPai will be shipping by the end of December 2018.

(Source, via)

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Chinese manufacturer Rouyu (Royole) Technologies has claimed the title of the first manufacturer to release a foldable phone with a flexible display. The phone which is called the FlexPai was unveiled at an event yesterday.

We didn’t get the full specifications of the device yesterday. Thankfully, an official page for the device is now up on the manufacturer’s website and it has the full specifications and some other details.

The FlexPai has a display that measures 7.8-inches diagonally. It is an AMOLED panel with a 1920 x 1440 resolution and a 4:3 aspect ratio. Powering the device is Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon 800 series processor which is clocked at 2.8GHz.

I guess they are trying not to explicitly call it the Snapdragon 855 or the Snapdragon 8150 until Qualcomm officially announces the chipset. Thanks to the FlexPai’s spec sheet, we know the processor will have an Adreno 640 GPU.

The spec page says the processor is paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. However, we know from yesterday’s launch that there is also a 6GB RAM + 128GB version and an 8GB RAM + 512GB version.

The FlexPai has a 16MP + 20MP camera with a f/1.8 aperture size. The page doesn’t specify if that’s the aperture for both sensors or just the primary one. Although it does mention that there is 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.

The FlexPai weighs 320g and measures 134 x 190.35 x 7.6 mm. Royole says the phone will ship with the 5V/5A fast-charging adapter, a pair of USB_C headphones, a USB Type-C cable, a Type-C to 3.5mm cable, and a carrying case.

https://youtu.be/ZjdGhHLQIH4

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The site also has videos showing the device in action. Apparently, you will be able to drag files from one window to another when in split-screen mode and also be able to use the device in tent mode.

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A Chinese manufacturer you have probably never heard of has beaten the smartphone giants in the race to release the first phone with a foldable display. Rouyu Technology, today, released the FlexPai, the first foldable phone with a flexible display.

The FlexPai isn’t just the first mobile device with a foldable and flexible display but also the first mobile phone to be powered by the yet-to-be-announced Snapdragon 8150 a.k.a. Snapdragon 855.

The FlexPai has a 7.8-inch high-definition display and is said to have a thickness of just 7.6mm. The exact resolution is not stated and we have no info specifying if the display is LCD or AMOLED.

The device comes in three configurations – 6GB+128GB, 8GB+256GB, and 8GB+512GB. It also has dual rear cameras – a 16MP wide-angle lens and a 20MP telephoto lens. The camera is on the left side when the device is laid out flat.

Rouyu Technolgy also says the device supports a proprietary fast-charging technology called Ro-Charge that can charge the device from 0 to 80% in 1 hour. Ro-Charge is said to be 40% faster and has an efficiency rating of 94% and also has 3-layers of protection. However, they didn’t state the battery capacity of the FlexPai.

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

The FlexPai isn’t a refined device and from a video shared on Twitter by the leaker @UniverseIce, one can see it isn’t a device that can fit into your pocket even when folded which sort of defeats the whole point. Like UniverseIce said in the caption, this is just a company trying to get known as the first to release a foldable phone with a flexible display.

READ MORE: Samsung anticipated foldable Galaxy X could unveil next month

The FlexPai isn’t cheap though. The 6GB RAM version is priced at ¥8999 (~$1290), the 8GB + 256GB model will sell for ¥9998 (~$1434), and the 8GB + 512GB version jumps to ¥12999 (~$1864). There will be a flash sale tomorrow at 10:01 AM local time.

(Sources: 1, 2)

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