At a time when big names such as Samsung or Apple have been talking about a foldable smartphone for over a year, a California-based company has beaten the smartphone makers introducing the world’s first foldable smartphone ‘FlexPai’, which will be available in China.
When opened, it offers a larger 7.8-inch display and when folded, the phone has three smaller screens with even the hinge acting as a screen. The manufacturer, Royole Corporation, claims that the phone’s folding mechanism is quite durable having been put through the folding and opening process 200,000 times to test if bears the pressure.
At the full screen size, the screen resolution would be 1920x1440pixels and the pixel density 308ppi. The different aspect ratios of the screens will be 4:3, 16:9 and 18:9. The FlexPai weighs a heavy 326grams and its dimensions are 134mmx190.35mmx7.6mm.
The company claims the CPU is a Qualcomm next-gen Snapdragon 8 series SoC; one can presume it is the 845SoC, but not confirmed. The RAM is a high 8GB and the internal storage 256GB. Another 256GB can be added through a microSD card. The Android Pie OS, version 9.0 with the WaterOS 1.0 UI will run the FlexPai.
The camera section witnesses a 16MP primary camera in the rear and a 20MP sensor as the selfie camera in the front. The battery is rated 3800mAh.
The concept of a foldable phone has been in the air for quite a while with Samsung rumored to be working on not one but two such models, one opening sideways and another opening upward. It is still believed that Samsung could release a foldable model of smartphone sometime next year. Royole seems to have beaten the Korean giant to it.
Lenovo and LG are the other companies that are reported to have plans for flexible phones but one will have to wait for them to come out with their devices before anything concrete can be said.