Royole rolls out 5G foldable smartphone
Rebecca Kuo, Tainan; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES
China-based flexible panel maker Royole has rolled out its second foldable smartphone, the Flex Pai 2, which is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 CPU supporting 5G technology.
The out-folding smartphone has a 7.8-inch display with a resolution of 1,920 by 810 pixels when unfolded, and there is one 5.4-inch screen on one side and a 5.5-inch screen on the other when folded.
The company claims the flexible screen can sustain bending of over 1.8 million times compared to 200,000-300,000 for other comparable flexible models. The Flex Pai 2, which comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of ROM, is priced at CNY9,988 (US$1,472).
The launch of the Flex Pai 2 comes in less than two weeks after Motorola unveiled its first 5G foldable smartphone, the Razr 5G, on September 10.
The Razr 5G features a 6.2-inch display when unfolded and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G CPU supporting SA and NSA networks, and both 5G sub-6GHz and mmWave technologies. The model is available at CNY12,499.
Meanwhile, Huawei may not be able to launch its next-generation foldable smartphone, the Mate X2, in 2020 as planned due to the US trade sanctions, according to DSCC.
Global shipments of foldable smartphones are expected to reach eight million units in 2020, up from less than million units shipped a year earlier, according to Strategy Analytics. By 2025, global foldable smartphones will total 100 million units, it estimates.