The last time we heard a tease of the Samsung’s Foldable smartphone was when the company’s mobile Chief Executive teased the release of the device and now the device is nearly as realistic as possible but then another company Royole stole the show by creating it’s very own hybrid smartphone with a 7.8-inch display that can be folded up to 180 degrees while still transforming from a tablet format into a mobile smartphone format.
Royole displayed a working version of the device which it called FlexPai at a San Francisco event which tech reporters were able to hold on to. One of which was Nick Statt from TheVerge. And according to him, the device “feels miles away in quality from a high-end modern flagship, but it is still the first real foldable device I’ve seen in person, and not just in a concept video or prototype stage.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjdGhHLQIH4
The device is said to be available as a consumer device in China with a starting price around US$1,300 (CH¥8,999) which gets you a whooping 128GB of storage which can be doubled up for an additional bucks in the range of $150 and add an additional 2GB of RAM to it’s existing 6GB RAM.
As for other specs and qualities of the device, it comes with a 2.8Ghz, Eight-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the display has a resolution of 1920 x 1440 that’s when it’s fully expanded from the mobile device mode. It will also have a 3,800 mAh battery.
The consumer variant along the developer variants are said to be available for pre-purchase on the company’s official website. Royole says the Chinese consumer model and the developer version are slated to ship in December.
While still being in it’s first generation, much of it’s functionalities aren’t that fluid yet and while applications do open even when not clicked up on, the orientation switches randomly sometimes even when one of the Royole representatives was demonstrating the folding processes. Statt noted “That, to me, indicates that the company’s custom Water OS (a fork of Android 9.0, Royole says) is probably not the most robust operating system just yet.”
While it’s worth praising Royole for their innovation of creating a device with an unbreakable AMOLED display, with a reasonable enough battery that can sustain the folding process.
Royole claims that the device’s screen can withstand being folded up to 200,000 times. While Samsung’s own version might be better (we don’t know that yet) we have to wait and hope this new piece of technology can compete right up against other bigger brands in the smartphone/tablet industry.