Apple and Samsung beaten on the foldable phone by the clumsy Royole FlexPai

A small company has managed to beat the major manufacturers of screens and mobile devices such as Apple, Samsung and LG for the launch of a smartphone with foldable screen. The Royole FlexPai system was pre-ordered Thursday in China.

Revealed Wednesday in Beijing, the FlexPai is a tablet with a 7.8-inch screen. The main feature is that the screen can be folded in two, but unlike some Android devices that used two screens for the effect, the display is a single panel that bends enough so that the phone can halve its size .

While conventional thinking would have the folding screen inside the phone, similar concept to that of a clamshell phone, the California-based company Royole chose to place the screen at the same time. 39 outside the fold, which solves the problem of over stressing or creating a crease on the screen.

When it is flat, it offers a full screen to use, with a resolution of 1920 x 1440 and a pixel density of 308ppi. Once folded, the screen is divided into three sections, with the 390-on-1440 resolution spine area capable of displaying messages and notifications, while the front and back are used more conventionally.

The folding system offers the novelty of having a large screen accessible when you take pictures with a 20 megapixel telephoto lens and a 16 megapixel wide angle camera. Since the cameras are on one side, users can fold the phone and see the preview at the front and back, which also lets the subject know about what will look like the picture.

Running on the Android 9.0 version of Water OS 1.0, the Flexpai is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon processor running at 2.8 GHz, with Adreno 640 graphics and 8 GB of RAM. Although it includes 256 GB of storage, it also offers a memory card expansion of up to 256 GB and is powered by a battery of 3800 mAh.

Royole originally proposed Thursday the FlexPai in China, priced from 8,999 to 12,999 yuan (1,295 to 1,870 dollars) depending on the package, the first phones to be delivered to customers in December.

The sale of Royole makes it the first to sell a folding smartphone to consumers, surpassing Samsung and Apple. Samsung was apparently preparing to unveil its own collapsible smartphone, codenamed "Project Valley", at the company's developer conference scheduled for November.

Apple has also been associated with the development of a foldable smartphone, including rumors that it would work with LG's concept. Analysts have suggested that the first iPhone with a foldable display could be launched as early as 2020.

The iPhone maker also has a number of patents and applications to its credit related to flexible displays and associated technology, including articulated devices and wrap around screens. He has also worked on ideas such as expandable substrates for assembling components in a flexible device and on how to enable forced movement controls on similar hardware.