Royale Corporation FlexPai beats Samsung to first foldable phone

The Royole
FlexPai.
Royole

• Little-known Chinese tech firm Royale has beaten
  Samsung in launching a foldable phone.
• Royale let journalists get hands-on with the FlexPai on
  Monday, and reviewers confirmed that the tech works.
• The 7.8-inch plastic screen halves in size in a single
  180-degree twist.
• But there are problems: The phone is bulky and makes a
  crunching sound when folded. The operating system is also said
  to be sluggish.

A little-known Chinese tech firm has beaten South Korean giant
Samsung to launching the world’s first foldable phone — and the
early reviews suggest that it actually works.

Samsung may just be hours away from showing the world its
foldable Galaxy X, but it has been pipped to the post by the
Royale Corporation, which launched its FlexPai phone to
journalists on Monday.

The Verge and Mashable were among those to
get hands-on with the device at an event in San Francisco. Both
confirmed that the folding technology works, halving the size of
the 7.8-inch plastic screen in a single 180-degree twist.

Read more: Samsung’s long-awaited foldable
phone is ‘not far away’ — here are 8 things to expect from the
Galaxy X

As a feat of engineering, the reviewers were impressed. “Yes, it
feels a bit gimmicky, but the FlexPai does actually deliver on
its promise of being the ‘first foldable smartphone,'” said
Mashable’s Karissa Bell.

But, the FlexPai is far from perfect.

The device does not fold flat and is quite difficult to hold,
according to Bell. She added that the plastic display was
beginning to lift a little over the hinges, and made an “audible
crunching sound” while being folded. Royale told her that these
are known issues due to “adhesive used in the engineering
samples.”

The Verge’s Nick Statt said that when folded, it is “bulky” and
it “feels miles away in quality” from a high-end smartphone. The
software, a bespoke version of Android 9.0, is “extremely
sluggish” and buggy, he added. “This device is very much a
first-generation product,” The Verge concluded.

You can watch Royale’s demo video for the FlexPai
here:

The foldable phone will go on sale as a consumer device in China,
but for now is only available as a developer model in the US from
December. The developer edition costs $1,318 for 128 GB of
storage, and $1,469 for 256 GB, according to Mashable.

The folded Samsung logo.
Samsung/Facebook

Royale showcased the FlexPai in the same week that Samsung is set
to unveil the long-awaited Galaxy X. The company all-but
confirmed the launch, or at least a tease, for the product at its
annual developer conference, which begins on Wednesday in San
Francisco.

A modified Samsung logo was posted on the company’s Facebook
page. It is folded back in on itself, potentially foreshadowing a
Galaxy X announcement this week.