Samsung’s tried to tease us with a glimpse of the future at its developer conference last November.
In a dramatic reveal with the lights dimmed, senior vice president of mobile marketing Justin Denison pulled a phone out of his pocket and unfolded it — transforming it into a tablet that would bend over backward to fit in your pocket. But two days later, it was shown up by another folding device: The Royale FlexPai.
Samsung’s mystery device quietly went back into Denison’s pocket and we braced ourselves for an eventual reveal at CES 2019. But it never came. Instead, Royole FlexPai is the talk of the trade show. And if you live in China, you can buy it right now.
In fact, the FlexPai has been available in Beijing since October, and was set to start shipping to developers in the US and UK back in December. The world’s first foldable phone didn’t just beat Samsung to CES, it beat them to market.
So why isn’t this huge step forward in mobile technology the talk of CES? Well, it’s kind of hard to track down. We know the FlexPai is around at CES, but it doesn’t seem to be on public display on the CES show floor. Fortunately, we got an early look at the device back in November. Here’s what CNET’s Lynn La had to say back then:
In the US and UK, you can preorder a developer’s model, which ships out in December as well. The FlexPai costs $1,318 (£1,209) for the 6GB of RAM/128GB variant and $1,469 (£1,349) for the 8GB of RAM/256GB version. (Australian pricing wasn’t released, but that converts to about AU$2,180 and AU$2,440, respectively.)
The phone features a bendable 7.8-inch AMOLED screen that’s made out of flexible plastic and has a 1440p resolution. Running along the back of the FlexPai is a hinge, where you can bend the device in half as if you’re closing a book.
You can leave it bent and propped up, or close it altogether, wherein it’ll snap together with embedded magnets. When it’s closed, it functions as any standard phone would, and depending on what side of the screen you hold it by, you can navigate on a screen with either a 16:8 or 16:9 aspect ratio.
The FlexPai runs an OS called Water and it’s layered on top of Google Android 9.0. Whichever way you choose to hold or bend the device, the screen adjusts to the many different orientations and viewing options.
During my brief time with it, the FlexPai’s screen appeared vibrant and colorful, and the hinge and enclosing mechanism felt sturdy. But the device still needs work. Aesthetically, it still looks like a prototype rather than a refined and polished product. As a double-sided phone, the FlexPai is quite squarish and thick, making it hard to hold. (Although it’s slim when flattened out as a tablet.)
The screen was also buggy while switching orientations, and it was hard swiping and tapping through different home screens without the FlexPai registering all my unintentional touches from the different sides of the screen as I was holding it.
Other specs include a 2.8GHz octacore Snapdragon chipset, expandable memory and a 3,800-mAh battery that can charge rapidly using Royole’s proprietary charging technology called Ro Charge.
Below the display are the phone’s two cameras: a 16-megapixel wide-angle camera and a 20-megapixel telephoto lens. In a similar design to the flippable ZTE Axon M, the cameras act as both the rear and front-facing shooters when you fold the screen together. The FlexPai also has a fingerprint scanner and dual-SIM capabilities. It charges via a USB Type-C port and does not have a headphone jack.
Before the FlexPai’s debut, companies that demoed their foldable phones or tablets usually presented them as concept or prototype devices — products bred from their R&D department that may come in the far-off future. Royole’s background in flexible displays, however, uniquely positions it to create a viable flexible device, and the company has been working on the FlexPai for six years. It’s also pouring $30 million into developer support.
But FlexPai won’t be the only flexible phone you’ll see in the months to come. In addition to Samsung, LG is rumored to be working on its own phone, and it could debut as soon as the beginning of next year. Huawei reported that it’s developing a foldable phone too, and it’ll be equipped with high-speed 5G connectivity.
Until these phones eventually launch, however, it looks like these tech giants were outrun by this small Royole company and its FlexPai phone. And while the device itself is still rough around the edges, at least it can say it was first.
