As most of us know by now, Samsung or Huawei wasn’t the first to deliver a commercially available foldable phone to the market. Instead, the honour actually goes to Chinese brand Royole with the release of the FlexPai in January 2019. Just recently, the company has announced its successor, the Royole FlexPai 2.
Unlike its predecessor, the brand’s new foldable phone features an improved form factor that is somewhat similar to the outward-folding Huawei Mate Xs. When unfolded, the FlexPai 2 offers a large 7.8-inch display – a seamless combination of its front’s 5.5-inch ‘main’ screen and 5.4-inch ‘rear’ screen. In terms of durability, Royole claims that the foldable phone’s panel is able to last over 1.8 million bends.
Under its hood is a Snapdragon 865 chipset, paired with up to 12GB RAM and 512GB of storage. Powering the phone is a 4,450mAh battery with 18W charging via USB-C, and also runs on Royole’s waterOS 2.0 based on Android 10 out of the box.
As for photography, the FlexPai 2’s left sidebar packs a quad camera setup consisting of a 64MP main, 16MP ultra-wide, 8MP telephoto and a 32MP portrait sensor. When the camera is operated from the ‘main’ screen when the phone is folded, the ‘rear’ screen could also function as a live preview for subjects.
The new Royole FlexPai 2 will be available for purchase via the company’s official website and JD.com on 25 September 2020. The foldable phone will retail at CNY9988 (~RM6,083) for the 8GB RAM + 256GB Storage configuration, and CNY11,588 (~RM7,058) for the 12GB + 512GB model. As for colour selection, it will come in three colours in total: Cosmic Gray, Midnight Black, and Sunrise Gold.
