Chinese company Royole was the first OEM to launch a commercially-available foldable smartphone. The company released the Royole FlexPai back in October 2018, months ahead of the likes of Samsung Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X. Royole then launched a second-generation foldable phone, the FlexPai 2 (shown above the article), in September last year. Now it appears we may soon see the company introduce a third member of the FlexPai series of foldable smartphones.
A new foldable Royole phone has appeared on Chinese certification agency TENAA’s website. The accompanying images show a device that isn’t too different from the previous FlexPai phones. It is an outward folding phone that now has an all-screen front.
Previously, the FlexPai phones had the cameras stacked vertically in a strip on one end of the front of the phone. The display extended only up to that vertical strip. Since the device folded outwards, the cameras would also double as the rear-camera array when folded.
However, the new model has no visible cameras at the front. So Royole is either opting for an under-display camera solution or there’s no front-facing camera at all. We can see a square-shaped camera bump on the back though. And while the camera bump looks big enough to house four sensors, which is a norm these days, this device only gets two cameras with a LED flash. That’s a downgrade from four camera sensors in the FlexPai 2.
There’s also a similar square-shaped cutout on the opposite corner of the phone. This is for the camera bump to lay in when the device is folded, so the back panels close completely. This allows the phone to fold flat but the back does look weird when unfolded because of that additional cutout.
Royole Flexpai 3 rumored specs
Talking about the specs, the new Royole FlexPai reportedly features a 7.2-inch display when unfolded. That’s another downgrade from the 7.8-inch display found on the FlexPai 2. This gives rise to the speculation that the upcoming phone is not a full-fledged third-gen foldable smartphone from Royole but a Lite or Mini version of the existing model.
The device has a dimension of 147.1 x 138.8 x 7 mm, so it’s much smaller as well. It packs a 3,360mAh battery and runs Android OS, hopefully, Android 11. The new FlexPai also boasts 5G connectivity.
There’s no word yet on the price and availability of the new foldable Royole phone. But from what we can see, it should be significantly affordable than the earlier models. The original FlexPai debuted at $1,290 while the prices of the FlexPai 2 started at $1,470 (converted prices). Royole might be looking to reduce that price point to around $1000 with the third-gen model. Hopefully, the new FlexPai will be available widely beyond China as well.
