US and China based Royole launched the world's first foldable OLED device - the FlexPai phone/tablet. The FlexPai has a 7.8" 1920x1440 (308 PPI) AMOLED display, when unfolded, The display folds outwards, and when folded the device has three different displays (front, back and spine).
Royole is now accepting pre-orders for the "Developer Mode" device, starting at $1318 for the 128GB model. The first devices will ship in late December 2018. The company said the device has passed bending, twisting and tension tests over 200,000 times, and the display is much more durable compared to current displays (as it is not covered by glass).
FlexPai uses the company's unique Android-based Water OS that automatically adapts different viewing modes for different folding angles and user scenarios
This is very exciting - although it is important to notice that Royole probably expects to ship a very limited number of devices - which means that this cannot be really considered a commercial device. When the device is folded - it is quite bulky and the device weighs 320 grams, around 50% than your typical high-end smartphone.
Royole aims to become the world first foldable smartphone producer. We recently wrote an article regarding the Foldable smartphone race - and we did not expect to see Royole as the winner, although it is debatable whether this device should be considered a consumer one, time will tell.
Royole's flexible OLED displays are produced at the company's "quasi-G6" (5.5-Gen) OLED production fab in Shenzhen which started production in June 2018. In full capacity, Royole's fab will be able to produce over 50 million flexible OLEDs per year (45,000 monthly substrates).
