The Royole FlexPai was the first foldable to debut ahead of the original Galaxy Z Fold reveal. While the brand isn’t well-known outside of China, and the first version of the foldable wasn’t perfect, the company confidently unveiled the second iteration of the device — and even sent out review units to the media. Now, it seems to be prepping the Royole FlexPai 3, renders for which have leaked online.
The latest development comes from tipster Evan Blass (@evleaks), who took to Twitter to post the render of the upcoming Royole FlexPai 3. The device looks interesting. While Huawei has moved from an outward-folding smartphone to an inward-folding device with a secondary display on the front, the upcoming Royole smartphone retains its outward-folding design and packs a single 7.2-inch full-screen display (when unfolded). There is no screen on the front, which means it can fold outwards, but you’ll need to open it every time to check notifications. This is in contrast to the Galaxy Z Fold 3, which has a narrower cover screen.
As you can see from the image, the Royole FlexPai 3 ditches the vertical camera module in favor of a square one to distinguish it from its predecessor. The previous FlexPai devices didn’t have a selfie shooter, but the Royole FlexPai 3 will feature a selfie camera as a pop-up module. The phone also has three rear cameras instead of the four we saw on the FlexPai, which seems like a step down.
According to a Tenaa listing, it is rumored to pack a 3,360mAh battery, which seems a bit small compared to the 4,400mAh cell on the Fold 3, but it doesn’t have the cover screen, so it may not need as much juice. While we don’t have an official launch date yet, the render leak hints that the phone could be announced soon.
