The foldable smartphones concept is now a reality. Ahead of Samsung and Huawei, who also pursue the same goal, the less-known Chinese firm Royole has presented yesterday its FlexPai folding phone, a device with a flexible screen device that can open like a book to lengthen up to 7.8 inches, a size close to the format similar to that of some low- and mid-range tablet.
That is the first foldable smartphone in the world, and will officially arrive in the North American market in December this year, marking a new achievement in the phone industry made by a Chinese company. For several years now, one of the most exciting challenges big technology brands faced has been to successfully achieve a system for folding touchscreen displays of smartphones without losing the functionality of the device.
The next step is to make the tablet format foldable so that it can be easily carried in the trouser pocket. For this purpose, this peculiar technology firm, founded by researchers at Stanford University in 2012, claims to have created a “light and flexible” screen for smartphones. That means that once folded, it has the dimensions of a “regular” mobile, but with an excessive thickness.
Chinese tech company Royole announced the first foldable smartphone in the world
When stretched, on the other hand, it becomes a tablet of about 7.6-millimeters thick and a 7.8-inches screen. According to its developers, the first foldable smartphone in the world can be folded more than 200,000 times before any damage can occur.
This FlexiPai folding phone comes before Samsung’s Galaxy X. On the other hand, Apple has also patented its own foldable screens concepts for smartphones, as well as LG, one of the largest producers of displays, and Huawei. This FlexPai, however, runs a slightly modified version of the Android operating system to be able to work in both formats.
On a technical level, the device comes with a dual-camera system of two 16 and 20 megapixels sensors, Snapdragon 855, under the hoods, and 6 GB of RAM and up to 128GB of storage. There will also be a more performant variant with 8GB of RAM with 512GB of storage.
