Foldable gear is undoubtedly one of the biggest current trends in the tech world. And while the likes of Samsung and LG seems to have nailed rollable screens in principle, there’s yet to be a foldable smartphone commercially available. That is until now. Take a look at the Royole ‘FlexPai’, otherwise known as the world’s first commercial foldable smartphone.

The Royale FlexPai is the latest device which claims to be both a jack of all trades: when folded, it’s your everyday smartphone; when unfolded, it works at a 7.8” portable tablet, giving you the “portability of a smartphone plus the screen size of a high-definition tablet.”

In terms of specs, the ‘FlexPai’ comes equipped with a 7.8 inch full-colour display, 4:3 aspect ratio, and 920 x 1440 resolution, alongside 20 and 16 megapixel cameras that can be bent to capture objects at unique angles – which admittedly does sound incredible cool.

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It’s been created by a group of Stanford engineering who want to ‘create and manufacture next-generation human-machine interface technologies’. So they’re aiming big. Thanks to Royole’s 2nd Gen, ultrathin, fully flexible display, the FlexPai can be folded from 0 to 180 degrees which means it can easily fit in your pocket and incoming calls or photos can be taken from either side.

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Royole clearly think they’re on to something with founder and CEO Dr. Bill Liu stating; “The phone’s inherent design will forever change the consumer electronics industry, as well as the way people interact with and perceive their world.” In an industry where being first is everything, they may well be right.

The Royole ‘FlexPai’ foldable phone is available now over at the Royole Website where it’s priced at £1,209. It is, however, only a developer model – something we’re always slightly wary of…

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