Royole, a California based firm with factories in China says it is the only company in the world currently mass producing fully flexible displays, exceeding 50-million units per year at full capacity
The world’s first smartphone or tablet that can be folded has been unveiled. The announcement was made by neither Samsung nor LG, but by Royole – a relatively unheard of firm, except for those who were keenly following display technology.
The California based tech firm has been a leader in developing flexible displays and was founded in 2012 by Stanford engineering graduates.
The fully flexible device FlexPai, is the first of its kind and has a total screen size of 7.8 inch when opened up. According to the company’s website the device will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8150 processor with a resolution of 1920 x 1440. FlexPai will have 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB variants and a 6GB or 8GB RAM.
The device will have a 20 mp dual view camera, 3,800 mAh battery with a fast charging technology and run on Water OS 1.0 based on Android 9.0 Pie. The company has already started pre-orders for the device in China and has priced it at US$1,290 (Dhs 4,734) for the 128GB model with 6GB RAM, US$1435 (Dhs 5,266) for the 256GB model with 8GB RAM and US$1865 (Dhs 6,844) for the 512GB model with 8GB RAM.
Royole has been a leader in developing flexible displays and claims to be the only company in the world mass producing fully flexible displays, exceeding 50-million units per year at full capacity.
The company had showcased showcasing its full line of both B2B and B2C products and solutions along with special flexible-display at the IFA 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin including the ‘first-of-its-kind’ HD flexible-display integrated into wearablez like a hat and jacket.
“While curved displays have been the talk of the tech world this summer, Royole has developed and is now mass producing the next generation of fully flexible displays.” Bill Liu, Royole founder and CEO had said in a recent press note ahead of IFA .
“Our patented fully flexible displays are thin, lightweight, rollable, and feature high-resolution and high-color saturation providing stunning image clarity and quality. Our engineers are currently working with over 220 partners worldwide to change the way people interact with technology in their personal environments,” he added.
According to Royole, among the company’s milestones include:
- The world’s thinnest full-color AMOLED flexible displays and flexible sensors (2014)
- The world’s first foldable 3D mobile theater (2015)
- The world’s first curved car dashboard based on flexible electronics (2016)
- Tthe first smart writing pad, RoWrite, based on flexible sensors (2017) and
- The volume production of Royole’s quasi-G6 mass production campus for fully flexible displays (2018)
The company statement also said that all flexible displays are produced at its 1.1-million-square-foot quasi-G6 mass-production campus in Shenzhen, China built with a total investment of around $1.7B.
