At the International exhibition of electronics Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas, the company Royole brought FlexPai first fully functional flexible smartphone. All of you correctly read. A little-known company surpassed Samsung shows at the CES a fully working gadget with flexible, folding in half screen. Moreover, this device is already sold. Journalists portal Engadget was able to hold it in hands and shared their opinions.
For those who missed the November announcement of the company Royole device FlexPai is a 7.8 inch flexible smartphone that runs on the Snapdragon 855. And since the novelty has already went on sale, then we may and the first available to buy a device running the new mobile chipset. The device is available in two versions with 6 and 8 GB of RAM, and 128 GB and 256 GB of memory and is equipped with dual camera 16 and 20 megapixel. The operating system uses fresh Android FlexPai 9.0 Pie with “modified” under the feature of a folding screen cover.
The main innovation here is, of course, wear-resistant AMOLED-display with a stable battery that can withstand the process of folding many times. Royole says that the screen is capable of providing 200 000 flexes.
On paper, the device can be safely placed in the rank of flagship solutions. But is it actually good? As mentioned above, the novelty is demonstrated for the first time. At the end of last year Royole was showing the gadget in San Francisco. But at that time it was obvious that the device is still very raw and not ready for mass production. According to Engadget, at CES demonstrates how the version of the device, which is already sold in China (the cost is about $ 1,300), but it has some very nasty drawbacks.
The first thing you feel when you first take it in hands — not quite clear what you are holding. It’s a smartphone? Tablet? Or something in between? Moreover, it is not the first time I understand how to use this thing.
When the device is in the “unfolded” state, it works as you can expect from a regular compact tablet. It gets a little more confusing in “phone” mode. In this form, all icons and widgets display located where it should be. But when I open any app and turn the device on the “back” side, instead of the expected view of the same application with the same information, you see basically a completely blank screen. Of course, the problem here lies in the software itself. To create a new intuitive interface – no easy task, but to create a new intuitive interface for first-of-its-kind device – the task is even more difficult. Of course, Google is now actively working to support implementation of flexible, foldable smartphones and certainly consulted with the producers of these devices, but so far that is what it is.
Reporters also noted that despite the rather powerful stuffing, raise questions, some decisions, or rather omissions in design, which fully meets the company Royole. For example, in the apparatus there is no mechanism that would block the screen when the gadget is in the expanded state. As a result, if you hold the device in one hand, you will definitely notice that the middle of the screen is a little slack, creating a bend. Also did not like the device’s camera. Despite the stated characteristics, it is disgusting, journalists said. In a conversation with the CEO of Royole he noted that in technical terms, the device is ready, but the software that was used in the demonstration models, still need to work on.
To sum up, we have the first representative of a new class of devices. Yes, you can buy it now. But the fact is obvious: the device is very unusual, the compromise, and in some aspects very controversial. While it is difficult to say whether bringing to mind to do in the future, such devices were commonplace and the norm. While this all looks very clumsy. What do you think? Share your opinion in our Telegram chat.