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Art et designTranscription
00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here.
00:05Ok, so now that's December, we're rounding out the year, the annual smartphone awards
00:09are coming up, so I gotta make sure I've seen like every smartphone that's come out during
00:13the year 2020.
00:14So one of the last ones to come across my desk is this guy, this is the Royal FlexPai
00:182.
00:19Now, every year, I have a couple categories for those awards.
00:24One of them is the bust of the year for the worst smartphone that comes out, and the first
00:29FlexPai was a candidate for that.
00:31But I also always have a most improved category, and believe it or not, this FlexPai 2, just
00:38based on my usage of it so far and what I've seen, is actually a candidate for the most
00:43improved award.
00:45That being said, I would still never recommend this.
00:48In fact, playing with this phone led me to the logical conclusion that among all of
00:54the alternate form factor stuff we've seen lately, by alternate form factor I mean not
00:59like a regular phone, but the swiveling ones and the folding and the flipping and the rollables
01:04and all that stuff.
01:06Among all of these new alternate form factors, this folding out screen version, as cool as
01:14it can look, is not the way to go.
01:17This phone, this FlexPai 2, had to change a lot to get to this point.
01:21They sharpened a lot of the previously rounded edges, they added a camera, so now there's
01:26an ultra wide, standard, and a telephoto.
01:28They've combined the power button and fingerprint reader from the old FlexPai into one button,
01:32like we see on many other phones.
01:34They've also added a much larger earpiece at the top for phone calls on both sides,
01:38where the last one just had tiny slots.
01:41They also added speakers to the top and the bottom, instead of just the top, so now it
01:45can create a stereo image no matter what orientation it's in.
01:49And they've improved a lot of rotational responsiveness and stuff in the software, so flipping the
01:53phone over to use either side isn't quite as unreliable as before.
01:57And then they've completely reworked this hinge and the pieces around it to dramatically
02:03improve it.
02:04So, the old hinge cover was pretty rough, it had this rubber material that creaked
02:08and folded, and you could literally feel parts of the underlying hinge through it.
02:13This new one is massively different.
02:16It's this intricate weave of metal teeth now, so from the back, from the top and the bottom,
02:21you can see how everything fits together as you fold it.
02:24It all folds and slides into place nicely, and it's actually now folding completely
02:30flat in this satisfying clap.
02:33And there's some strong magnets holding the two sides together, and you'll even notice
02:36the two sides are thinner, and the whole package is thinner and lighter, and more well-built,
02:41more refined, and feels more quality.
02:44And yet, after all of that, opening this phone sounds like this.
02:52I mean, closing it, still fine, but I feel like it shouldn't sound like that.
03:00It just doesn't feel correct, I don't know.
03:04Maybe it needs to warm up over time, because I do have the original FlexPai here, and this
03:08one used to make more noise, but now it doesn't actually make as much creaking, so maybe
03:15if you use it enough, eventually this one will stop making so much noise as you open
03:21and close it, but I don't know.
03:24Also, two FlexPais in the same room, that's probably pretty rare, we're flexed, but okay.
03:28But it's not even about this rough hinge.
03:30Look, like I said at the beginning, it just doesn't feel like the tech is anywhere near
03:34ready for this specific style of outside folding screen.
03:39So as we know, there's a couple of different versions of foldable phones.
03:43The big fold, the smaller clamshell vertical fold, a lot of them have really interesting
03:49I promise, but they all have one thing in common, which is that they fold in, and they
03:53protect that soft, delicate, foldable display on the inside of something.
03:59When you do this fold on the outside, like this, not only is it obviously not protecting
04:05any of this precious screen anymore, but it's also the most difficult to make it look good,
04:12because you can't hide any tricks or anything anywhere.
04:16Everything is always exposed on the outside.
04:19Like you might remember Motorola's trick with the Razr, which is tucking the display
04:22into the chin when it folds shut to avoid a really tight crease when folding it flat.
04:29Or all of Samsung's tricks, the brushes and the loop to fold it inside to avoid a crease
04:34in their version of a hinge.
04:36But with the FlexPai folding out like this, there's no place to do much hiding of any
04:40tricks.
04:41The phone's stretched over this hinge on the outside when you're closed, and when you're
04:45using it, it's open fully flat when you're using both sides.
04:48It's just the most difficult version, technically speaking, to get right.
04:52So on one hand, I do want to applaud Royal for trying and giving us this much improved
04:57second version.
04:59But on the other hand, it seems like now with this massively improved version and this still
05:04being the experience you get, and it's still being unprotected and very vulnerable, it
05:09seems like it's time to stop.
05:11Is that crazy?
05:12I want them to keep working on hard ideas like this, but I feel like we're learning
05:17our lesson and the fact that alternate form factors are evolving so much is showing us
05:21that there's other better possibilities with the folding display tech.
05:25It's crazy.
05:26It's a very 2020 conversation, which isn't, can we make folding phones work anymore?
05:32Now it's more of, which version of a folding phone is the best way to do it?
05:37That's the new question.
05:38But here is a little thought I'll leave you with.
05:41In my exploration of like every phone that's come out this year, I've had to try a lot
05:45of not so great phones, so you don't have to.
05:47But in the press release for the FlexPai 2, in the press release for this phone, they
05:54compare this new thing they've built with the thinner sides to the wings of a cicada.
06:01It's right here.
06:02I'll link it below if I can find an online version of it.
06:04But they compare it directly to cicada wings.
06:08And while at first, that's kind of an odd choice of a comparison to make, I think it's
06:15actually perfect, maybe accidentally perfect.
06:19So hear me out.
06:20So first of all, yeah, they picked the cicada because it's actually a very well-liked animal
06:24in China, almost like a lucky animal.
06:26But okay, fun nature fact, cicada's wings actually have a natural super hydrophobic
06:33protection layer over them, like a bunch of tiny wax nanopillars is what I call them.
06:40They're one of the strangest wings in nature, but they work really well.
06:44So water droplets, when it rains, roll right off of them.
06:47And actually, when they get dirty, when dirt gets onto them, water coalesces and because
06:53of surface tension, basically grabs the dirt and just rolls right off the top.
06:56It's like a natural self-cleaning process.
06:59And then on top of that, those wings and that hydrophobic coating are the only biomaterial
07:05on planet Earth known to kill bacteria.
07:08So the way it works is, I promise there's a point to this, but basically all those
07:12little hairs are so small and so close together that water droplets that form on them aren't
07:18small enough to fall through them.
07:20So they just roll right across the top and glide off the surface.
07:24And that's also true about bacteria.
07:27Bacteria aren't small enough to get through all those little nanopillars.
07:32And they're actually sharp enough that a bacteria's outside membrane will be punctured by them
07:36and it'll just fall apart and die.
07:39So all of that protection on top of a cicada wing that naturally occurs is like a protection
07:46layer that you just don't see anywhere else in nature.
07:49So in other words, the cicada's wing is super thin and light, but it has a super high-tech
07:57protection built in.
08:00And the Royal FlexPai doesn't.
08:03And that's what it needs.
08:05That's that extra layer of protection that something like this outside folding screen
08:10tech actually needs to be useful.
08:13It needs something that hasn't been invented yet.
08:15So yeah, that is it.
08:16That's my thoughts.
08:17Sorry there's more bugs in this video than Cyberpunk.
08:21But really, I think the point is, when we're trying to discover new things to do with smartphones
08:26and the more exciting they get, the more ways we discover are good, we're also finding
08:31the ways that aren't so good.
08:32And we can sort of eliminate them or at least wait until the tech is good enough to bring
08:38the idea back.
08:39Because like I said, this version tends to look the coolest.
08:43Kind of bugged for a second there.
08:45But it tends to look the coolest when it's wrapping around on the outside.
08:48And that Huawei Mate X that we've all been waiting for, that I've only really seen in
08:52professional's hands and in YouTube videos.
08:55That also seems like it would look really cool.
08:58But I don't think it's the best way to do a folding phone.
09:02And maybe you'll have other thoughts on that.
09:04But that's my experience and my impressions from using the FlexPai 2.
09:08In the meantime, right now, all this phone really has in common with a Cicada is it's
09:13much louder than you think it would be.
09:18Anyway, okay.
09:21The bad jokes are over, I promise.
09:23I'm curious, in the comment section, if you could let me know which alternate form factor
09:28you are most interested in.
09:29For me, it's actually the rollables and I haven't gotten to see one in person yet.
09:34But these new rollable phones that sort of unfurl like a scroll, they might have the
09:38same unprotected problem as this does.
09:42But they're also not trying to do a fold flat and a hinge.
09:46They're more, I don't know, just different.
09:48I want to try one and see what that's actually like to use.
09:51But also, of course, it's just more of like variable aspect ratio.
09:54So anyway, I'm curious what you guys think.
09:56Are you into the swiveling?
09:57Are you into the clamshell?
09:58Are you into the Galaxy Fold style?
10:00Let me know.
10:01We'll chat about it in the comment section.
10:02But yeah, that's been it.
10:03Just a quick thought on this outside fold.
10:06Thanks for watching.
10:07And I'll catch you guys very soon in the next one.
10:10Peace.