In the end, and although everything pointed to Samsung or Huawei were going to be the first manufacturers of cell phones to put on sale a device with folding screen, the Chinese company Royole tipped and launched the FlexPai.
It is a lightweight and ultra-thin device the size of a tablet, with a 7.8-inch screen that is folded in half and remains with the dimensions of a notebook.
The phone can fold more than 200,000 times without breaking due to the materials used, Bill Liu Zihong, 35, co-founder, president and CEO of the company, said on Wednesday at the launch event in Beijing.
"It's a historic moment that we've been waiting for years to see," said Liu, who believes that the technology will prove popular, as it meets the needs of consumers who want a large-screen, easy-to-carry phone.
While the specifications are not clear, it is assumed that the FlexPai has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8150 processor, 8GB of RAM, 128 or 256 GB of storage, an Android-based operating system and two quality cameras with 20 and 16 megapixels "that they can be folded to capture objects at unique angles, "according to the press release.
The device can already be purchased on the manufacturer's website for $ 1,318, and ensure that it will begin to be distributed by the end of December. Royole also allocated 200 million yuan ($ 29 million) to encourage developers to work on applications that support flexible phones, said Liu.
And while it seems to be the first device of this type to reach the market, it will probably have strong competition soon, hand in hand with a heavyweight industry.
Indeed, as announced by The Verge, Samsung's long-advertised folding smartphone is ready to appear next week at its annual developer conference. But that's not all, because both LG and Huawei are developing their own folding phones.