Every year the Consumer Electronics Show takes place in January to show off all the latest and greatest tech that is right around the corner. The concept of folding displays has been talked about for a while now, but no one has commercialized it yet. This year the FlexPai became the world’s first commercial foldable smartphone with flexible display. The FlexPai takes a smartphone and tablet and combines them into one unique product. It has a fully flexible display that claims to be virtually unbreakable and extremely durable during testing. It comes with two cameras and can be bent to capture objects at odd angles.
Since the screen flexes around from one side to the other you have an entirely new interface to work with. You can use it as a phone where it splits the screen and you can watch video or work in an app on one side and get incoming messages or calls on the other without interruption. You can also open the device flat into tablet form to multitask with multiple things open on screen, or simply use it like a normal tablet.
Since they are first to market with a device like this one thing to note is that it uses their own Water OS, which the company stands behind to continue to update. The FlexPai currently has two options for 128 GB and 256 GB priced at $1318 and $1469 respectively. You can see how the gadget works in some of their demo videos on their website https://www.royole.com/flexpai.
It will be interesting to see how this technology unfolds going forward with big companies like Samsung who have been rumored to be developing this technology as well. The concept of a phone and tablet in one is certainly an intriguing idea. Many people already have both and if you can consolidate that it could be a home run for the companies who can get it right. Would you use something like this? If the technology worked well I know I would.
