I first spent time with the Royole Flexpai in 2018 at a ProWellTech event in China. The devices were exciting. It was ultimately the first commercially released foldable model before Samsung and Huawei offered their respective form factor settings. But ultimately it felt like a proof of concept at best. It was a shot from a little-known Shenzhen hardware maker, and ultimately little else.
The past two years have been – let’s say “complicated” for the category. I don’t think anyone expected $ 2,000 foldable phones to disrupt the industry from the start – especially at a time when more people are spending less on their mobile devices. But to say that foldables got off to a rocky start is an understatement. Royole has announced a few more products here and there, but the Flexpai continues to be the company’s most attractive from a consumer perspective.
At an event in Beijing this morning, the company announced the Flexpai 2. The device has a similar design to the first model, that is, it can be folded out with the screen facing out. The design makes sense from a standpoint of offering notifications when closed (there’s a reason the Galaxy Fold 2 has a larger front-facing screen), but now you’ll need to refresh two screens with the big old device in yours Bag.
The device itself had some, if not a ton, on the screen during the press conference. At the moment we mostly have press footage that we can rely on, which will be one of the main problems with hardware coverage even in the COVID-19 era. Fittingly, the company spent a lot of time here talking about hinges – that was a high-profile point of failure for Samsung’s first-ten device, after all.
Here’s how Royole describes it in the press material:
The structure of the hinge is stable and shockproof, providing excellent protection for the screen. It has more than 200 precision components with a processing accuracy of 0.01mm. The hinge technology holds around 200 patents and solves many problems that occur with other foldable smartphones.
Credit: Royole
Having only spent a limited amount of time with the Flexpai, I want to say that sturdiness didn’t seem to be one of the main problems with a product that had some other first generation flaws. The thing, however, was quite massive – which Royole addresses here with a design that is around 40% thinner than the first generation. The display is a generous 7.8 inches – although there is no mention of whether there is glass reinforcement, which could be an issue.
There’s 5G support, a healthy 4450 mAh battery, and a Snapdragon 865 processor. The company has updated its waterOS, which is based on Android 10, to offer a more seamless foldable experience. It arrives in China this week and costs around $ 1,427. That’s incredibly expensive for a standard smartphone, but pretty good for a foldable one.
Availability in the US is another big question mark.