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The Royole Flexpai is a foldable smartphone you can actually buy right now. Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Fold which was close to release the Flexpai made it to consumer launch. Like the Galaxy Fold however the Flexpai seems like a relatively delicate device.
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0:00
Well, this is uh, this is not something I expected to ever see on the desk
0:07
This is the first taste of folding phones that anybody got. Royal, Royale, Royale with cheese, I don't..
0:15
Roy-ole, Roy-ole, Royale Flex Pie. And it started the whole thing. It's a real thing
0:23
Look at that. It even won an award. Red Dot Design Award winner 2019. As of right now the world's first commercially available folding smartphone
0:31
It folds like to the outside kind of like a backwards fold
0:35
The opposite of what you do with your wallet This was the first phone to showcase that type of implementation
0:40
But of course popularized by the footage that came out afterwards of the Huawei Mate X
0:45
Where people were like I don't know which implementation is going to be better Welcome to Flexible Planet
0:51
A little signature FlexPi It's a special event. I mean straight away. It feels like an iPad mini
0:58
It sort of feels like they intend for you to use it to a certain extent in this format look at that
1:02
All right, so it's got this reflective kind of finish on the back. Don't even ask me about durability
1:08
I was skeptical about durability on these things from day one. This one really looks like two smartphones wedged together
1:15
That's really what ends up happening here You could tell right away. It's gonna be different display technology from what you're used to now
1:22
So this was a thing you kind of saw from you to various degrees on the Galaxy Fold but
1:26
definitely not this much. Little tiny blotchy aspects of the display. Now this one as mentioned folds this way and then connects with a magnet but it stays sort
1:39
of open it does not close completely you can see you see light coming through there
1:43
Yeah not exactly folded. Let's see you fold it out. Oh, it doesn't click
1:51
It just makes a weird, listen to this. It's not very confidence-inspiring
1:58
You hear that noise? It still has a really 1.0 kind of feeling to it
2:03
So just keep that in mind. Now, there's a fingerprint scanner over here. Volume down, volume up
2:07
Fingerprint scanner in the center. Your camera unit and the only portion of the entire device which isn a display is this piece right here Two camera modules and a flash right there This is a cool unboxing experience Look at all You got all the little boxes It feeling very luxury at
2:22
the moment. Power brick over here. We have USB type C. Thank you very much. And they've also
2:29
included a headset. Braided cables. Let's check it out. Oh, it's telling me how to fold it. Oh
2:36
they don't want you to touch. Look at this. Okay. Do not squeeze the middle area of the screen while
2:41
unfolding or bending. I mean, this is, again, when it comes down to confidence, inspiring behavior
2:49
this is not one of them, right? This is not, this little insight here is not making you super
2:54
confident when they're like, do not touch this region. The last thing you want when you're setting
2:57
it up is to be fearful of potentially interacting with it wrong and catastrophe striking. And of
3:03
course, we're all very aware of that because of the situation with the Galaxy Fold. Leave the
3:07
device unfolded when charging the battery or will not use the device for a while. So you know what
3:13
that kind of indicates to me is probably a heat thing. Please don't drop it. You can tell this with
3:17
1.0. I mean, instructions for use, they're like, please be careful. One of the problems with current
3:24
display tech for flexibility, you get this soft plastic outer shell. It's not Gorilla Glass or
3:30
anything like that because of course it has to be able to bend the way that this does. I acknowledge
3:34
this with the Galaxy Fold right away just how soft this plastic display is and how nervous I was
3:40
about the Huawei Mate X implementation because I was like I don't know if you want this soft surface
3:44
on the outside of your device when you pocket it and I'm sure that's probably why Samsung was
3:49
motivated to have it closed inwards and put that extra display on there because with this one when
3:54
it's folded up the entire display is exposed. I don't know that this implementation as it stands
4:00
right now without some different surface material is really practical or feasible. Do not adhere any
4:06
uncertified protective film on top of the display. No third-party screen protectors and the ambient
4:11
temperature drops below minus two. Folding and unfolding device is not recommended. Minus two
4:16
Celsius. So in the winter here we are squarely in that territory. Minus two is nothing. Minus two so
4:23
don't use it outdoors basically in the winter. So they call it Water OS Edge Screen Shortcuts
4:29
These will pop up in the hinge location when you have it folded over So there some special stuff specifically for this phone but otherwise it like your typical android skin they just change the appearance a
4:41
little bit when you pull down notifications and whatnot look pretty normal fonts might be a bit
4:45
different now this really gives you a sense for just how the display appearance will be in sunlight
4:53
or direct light you see a lot of imperfections in the display now when you begin to fold it let's
4:58
Let's see what happens here. Oh, first up, look at that. Portrait mode
5:03
That's about the size of an iPad mini in that setup right there. That's interesting
5:07
Now you begin to fold it here, and they want me to hold over here. It made a weird noise again when I did that
5:13
And the animation is not super smooth, but as you can see, you have access to the back of it
5:20
front of it, I think. Yeah, there you go. And of course these quick access buttons as well
5:25
Interestingly enough, the front display is activated, The rear one turned off, it looks flush with the phone
5:31
Now if I flip it around, it can tell that I did that. That's kinda cool, and then understand
5:36
I wanna be on the backside. Android has been adapting to the idea of flexible displays
5:41
but it's still not seamless, especially on a device like this. You know what, if anything, this device already
5:47
is having me more impressed with what Samsung was able to deliver. This doesn't feel close to something you would wanna
5:53
put in your pocket at this moment in time. Anyhow, so you open up the camera, there we go
5:58
and it's triggering some sort of auto hdr it's looking quite yellow right now actually
6:05
pretty quick shutter though and just like that you have a photo which does not look good
6:11
that one's better sharper at least but still weirdly yellow and you can see the auto white
6:17
balance kind of playing around in there because if i look down like this see it go way more blue
6:23
and then i get onto him and it goes super yellow so it's trying to interpret the color temperature
6:28
of the situation and doing so in a really weird way. And it's fairly wide, and I guess what happens to you
6:34
It's just a zoom slider. That's definitely digital zoom at that point
6:39
If you hit this button in the bottom right corner, it says please switch to the secondary screen
6:43
So now you're in selfie mode, and you gotta come to this side
6:48
Now the preview is super quick It like a 60 FPS preview kind of cool Hmm Selfie performance might be a bit better actually than when not having the flip around
7:01
I don't know if it's using a different camera module when you trigger the selfie mode
7:06
Again, what are your expectations for a brand like this? For a 1.0 product like this
7:10
Are you expecting flagship caliber camera performance? Or are you in it for the fold and bend
7:15
I think you already know the answer to that. you're in it for the fold and bend so and the multimedia consumption to watch videos to watch
7:22
youtube really where tablets excel is in this department of content consumption now let's see
7:28
what a video feels like on here i mean our videos are a typical aspect ratio 16 by 9 so doesn't
7:34
quite fill this up looks all right let's see if we can get some extra volume on here with a play
7:40
time of up to 20 hours that's pretty loud and a play time of up to 40 hours on but it's crunchy
7:45
I can speak from personal experience. I'll just say they have sounded really good in the past
7:51
There's a bit of distortion in the sound when you go up above a certain point
7:55
Speakers are not as good as the Samsung product. Not as good as the Galaxy Fold
7:59
Look, this is not the finished product. This is not the final form of the folding phone
8:04
How about that for an advantage? You can just stand it up. This is chunky. It's heavy. It's weird
8:09
Actually, I kind of like it for that. The fact that it's so 1.0. It almost feels like you're holding a piece of history
8:14
It almost feels like you're holding an eventual artifact. This is the first piece of flexible display history that you can order
8:22
Like you can order this thing as it stands right now. So just from an artifact status, it has some appeal
8:29
At least for me as a tech fan. But I'm not going to recommend you buy it. It feels kind of wonky
8:35
And it's expensive as well. So Will just told me it's $1,300. So it's not a good decision right now to rush out and get some super early technology like this
8:44
If you're a tech collector and you're looking for that early artifact and you just want to be on the fringe to be on the fringe
8:51
I'm kind of that guy For the time being maybe I gotta slip the sim in what you guys say. I don't know
8:57
It's kind of my job, so I'm gonna do it. Alright fine. I'll put my sim card in it suffer on your behalf. It's what I do
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