Start-Up Beats Major Players to Launch World's First Foldable Smartphone

Megalith

Megalith

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In a stunning upset for Huawei and Samsung, California-based start-up Royole has laid claim to the world's first foldable smartphone, the FlexPai mobile, which officially went on sale Thursday in China. The phone is priced from $1,295.49 to $1,871.33 and will be shipping sometime in December.

Royole, a six-year-old components manufacturer, said FlexPai would "subvert people's perception of traditional smart phones," functioning as a portable device and a high-definition large screen tablet, with the capability to support dual-screen use. During the press conference, Bill Liu, founder and CEO of Royole, also announced that the firm would invest 200 million yuan into global firms that would develop apps and software for the device.
 
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I guess we're at a point where extremely expensive electronics are not supposed to last very long anyway, so we have to accept this as normal.
 
I saw the inside of a modern EEC for a Ford Truck last year; it was a single flex circuit, folded like the picture above.

I can't see this lasting more than a dozen or so folds...
 
It folds, it opens, I dun care, it doesn't look like it would go in my pocket and I am not going to wear a holster for it.
 
Jim Kim said:
But why.
Click to expand...

So you can get a larger phone screen and still fit in in your pocket.

I agree it has a bit of a weird look, but if you think about the direction of the phone market being larger displays, and the difficulty fitting a 7” phone into your jean pocket, I can see the demographic where this will make sense.
 
I'm not in. It's not a hardware evolution that I support at all. Give me an SD card slot, a battery that can run the artic research center for a day, and otherwise current tech and I'm good.
 
Im for this. Just imagine the future when they progress with the technology by making it thinner just like the current smartphone of today compared to 2011 so it doesnt feel like a brick in your pocket.

Also with better measures you can even say that this design allows you to finally use the phone bare without the need for a cover to protect it from drops since this doesnt have glass to shatter.
 
Isn't this supposed to fold like a book, not externally like a newspaper showing the front page under your armpit?
 
Startup nobody has ever heard of
Next to no specs on hardware
No product photos, just renders
Launched with a 'flash sale' in China...

Sounds legit!
 
Benefit of the doubt, I hope it works great
Devices like phones etc NEED something to start pushing the boundaries
Remember before the iPhone 2g, 'Smartphones' sucked.
Resistive screens and god awful OS's
 
Looks sleek.

You can do it and be first. It's generally better to be the first to do it well.
 
I love the concept, but it's impossible to tell if this particular implementation is any good since they didn't provide any details or real pictures of it in use. But it's only "available" in China at the moment, so it doesn't matter to me.
 
Good luck finding a screen protector that bends like that. Modem protectors are rigid...

Now it'll take minutes instead of hours to get your first screen scratch!

#progress
 
Saw this, I called it niche because it barely bends (as in you will have a huge bulge around the place where it bends, so if anything it consumes more space) and bends the wrong way, I would have preferred if they bent inwards so at least it protects the screen somewhat, this is asking for trouble.
 
And they smile till they sell the first one and the patent lawyers from Samsung show up.
 
We've worked so hard to get phones to be slim enough to slip in and out of a jeans pocket, and this company thinks I want to give that up for a $1200+ taco? But hey, their social media manager must be over the moon, some of their recent tweets have hit double-digit likes! This is weak PR drivel for a product that's likely to be laden with issues. The $200m yuan promise (about $30m USD) is because it doesn't run Android, it runs "Water OS", it has a 3800mAh battery to power that much screen real estate, and worst of all, this supposed "launch" is based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7nm chip (the 855/8150) that won't even have specs released for another month. Not even sure why [H] is echoing this on the front page, seems more like something we should be dissecting and laughing about right here.
 
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